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AI

Workers Complain AI is Actually Increasing the 'Intensity' of Their Work (cnn.com) 127

Editor/publisher Neil Clarke "said he recently had to temporarily shutter the online submission form for his science fiction and fantasy magazine, Clarkesworld," reports CNN, "after his team was inundated with a deluge of 'consistently bad' AI-generated submissions." "They're some of the worst stories we've seen, actually," Clarke said of the hundreds of pieces of AI-produced content he and his team of humans now must manually parse through. "But it's more of the problem of volume, not quality. The quantity is burying us." "It almost doubled our workload," he added...

Clarke said he and his team turned to AI-powered detectors of AI-generated work to deal with the deluge of submissions but found these tools weren't helpful because of how unreliably they flag "false positives and false negatives," especially for writers whose second language is English. "You listen to these AI experts, they go on about how these things are going to do amazing breakthroughs in different fields," Clarke said. "But those aren't the fields they're currently working in."

They're not the only ones concerned, according to the article. the secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development "recently said the intergovernmental organization has found that AI can improve some aspects of job quality, but there are tradeoffs." "Workers do report, though, that the intensity of their work has increased after the adoption of AI in their workplaces," Cormann said in public remarks, pointing to the findings of a report released by the organization. The report also found that for non-AI specialists and non-managers, the use of AI had only a "minimal impact on wages so far" — meaning that for the average employee, the work is scaling up, but the pay isn't.

Ivana Saula, the research director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said that workers in her union have said they feel like "guinea pigs" as employers rush to roll out AI-powered tools on the job. And it hasn't always gone smoothly, Saula said. The implementation of these new tech tools has often led to more "residual tasks that a human still needs to do." This can include picking up additional logistics tasks that a machine simply can't do, Saula said, adding more time and pressure to a daily work flow... "It's never just clean cut, where the machine can entirely replace the human," Saula told CNN. "It can replace certain aspects of what a worker does, but there's some tasks that are outstanding that get placed on whoever remains."

Workers are also "saying that my workload is heavier" after the implementation of new AI tools, Saula said, and "the intensity at which I work is much faster because now it's being set by the machine." She added that the feedback they are getting from workers shows how important it is to "actually involve workers in the process of implementation."

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Workers Complain AI is Actually Increasing the 'Intensity' of Their Work

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  • by CoderFool ( 1366191 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @06:58PM (#63709840)
    This is probably where it will go.
    Why have a bunch of bad english writers write all your spam email and texts when you could have SpamGPT to it for you at a million times the volume and speed!
    • This is probably where it will go.
      Why have a bunch of bad english writers write all your spam email and texts when you could have SpamGPT to it for you at a million times the volume and speed!

      Maybe the target of spam or AI-generated content is the wrong target. After all, these spam/AI-detectors are just blunt (highly inaccurate) instruments that don't even target the key question, which is whether the content is good. Perhaps the detectors need to focus on content quality instead. In fact, it would be interesting to carry over the GAN concept of a generator trying to create content that passes a test of goodness, but with an LLM as the generator.

      • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        My "AI" spam filtering works amazingly well: It is called a Bayesian filter and it has been around for more than 20 years and integrated with spam assassin!

        Large LLMs they call "AI" are basically the same thing so don't expect anymore from them. I sometimes have to tell my Bayesian filter that an email was ham and not spam or vice-versa but otherwise, it has a high success percentage (about 99%). I just resend the ham in those cases where it was classified as spam after training the Bayesian filter.

        I don't

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      or a SpamGPT that READS all your spam email and learns...well, something...from it.

  • for the average employee, the work is scaling up, but the pay isn't.

    This is kind of how productivity-improvements work. When a new tool is introduced that improves productivity, it would follow that the amount of work that can be accomplished increases. As long as hours aren't being increased, it makes sense that pay would remain the same. What would be the point, from the employer's point of view, to expecting the same amount of output, after they invest in tools that improve productivity? One would assume the employees aren't actually working harder, they're just doing th

    • by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @07:12PM (#63709866) Homepage

      for the average employee, the work is scaling up, but the pay isn't.

      This is kind of how productivity-improvements work. When a new tool is introduced that improves productivity, it would follow that the amount of work that can be accomplished increases.

      But that's not what they're talking about here. What they're talking about is that the new tech isn't actually making their job easier (yet), but learning to deal with it is something that has been added to their workload. Net result is productivity decreasing, not increasing.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

        The complaint doesn't match my experience. With every new technology, there is a learning curve and adjustment period. But AI is measurably adding to productivity. It certainly has made me more productive as a programmer.

        • by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Monday July 24, 2023 @10:12AM (#63711234) Homepage

          With every new technology, there is a learning curve and adjustment period.

          Yep. Sometimes this learning curve results in saying "wow, this is great." And sometimes it results in saying "Those idiots in management are always chasing the latest bells and whistle- filled garbage they hear about in the news and mandating that we use garbage that doesn't do anything useful."

          But AI is measurably adding to productivity.

          Remains to be seen.

          • by jythie ( 914043 )
            Well, it increases productivity by the metrics that the marketing divisions of companies selling the services create.
        • What kind of things are you programming? In my (very limited experience) working with AI code is like working with a junior developer who fills up the file with boilerplate and can't actually finish the task. That is, I would save time just doing it myself.

          • Some specific examples where AI has helped me:
            - Calling an Amazon Cognito API to exchange an auth code for an access token, in C#. (Amazon's documentation is very javascript-centric.)
            - Using SQL to get a specific JSON element from a blob in a SQL Server database table.
            - Composing a complex XPATH query or RegEx expression.

            In other words, programming tasks that I don't do very often, or are somewhat obscure or complex. I used to get this stuff from Stack Overflow, but now AI will search SO for me and digest t

          • by jythie ( 914043 )
            I find it tends to be kinda popular with poorly supervised junior developers or senior ones who have junior level competency. The solutions are great if you don't really care if it is right, still need to deliver something, and don't have to worry about code reviews. It is a technology just perfect for dunning kruger developers who think they are great and thus if they don't see problems then there are not any.
      • Imagine losing all the easy/mundane bits of a knowledge worker's job and all that you're left with are the hard bits that a computer can't do. Sounds like a recipe for burnout
      • for the average employee, the work is scaling up, but the pay isn't.

        This is kind of how productivity-improvements work. When a new tool is introduced that improves productivity, it would follow that the amount of work that can be accomplished increases.

        But that's not what they're talking about here. What they're talking about is that the new tech isn't actually making their job easier (yet), but learning to deal with it is something that has been added to their workload. Net result is productivity decreasing, not increasing.

        I don't even know that they're saying that. It sounds more like AI is being used as a digital leash to chain people to their productivity so there's less chance they do something crazy like look away from the screen to keep their eyes from popping out of their heads. AI is a nice fancy, managerial approved buzzword now, that basically amounts to, "Don't make it surveillance, make it AI!\' *WINK*

    • Pay has not kept pace with productivity since the 70s, which is right around when we broke the Unions. I remember reading that if pay & productivity had kept up minimum wage would be well over $20/hr and average would be over $50.
      • I agree that minimum wage is not where it should be. At a "minimum" it should increase with the rise of inflation, but it doesn't.

        Tying it to productivity doesn't make any sense though, because people don't generally get paid based on the number of widgets they produce, but on the number of hours they work and their years of experience. So if technology increases the number of widgets per hour that I can produce, that does not justify an increase in pay, if I don't work any harder and don't work any more ho

        • by m00sh ( 2538182 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @07:38PM (#63709918)

          I agree that minimum wage is not where it should be. At a "minimum" it should increase with the rise of inflation, but it doesn't.

          Tying it to productivity doesn't make any sense though, because people don't generally get paid based on the number of widgets they produce, but on the number of hours they work and their years of experience. So if technology increases the number of widgets per hour that I can produce, that does not justify an increase in pay, if I don't work any harder and don't work any more hours.

          No, it should decrease the price I pay per widget.

          Seriously though, the price of the widget is not directly related to cost of raw materials, overhead plus your salary. You pay is not directly related to how many widgets you produce per hours.

          Price of widget is how much someone is willing to pay for it, your salary is how much you are willing to accept to produce the widget.

          • You are correct on all counts. And the price per widget IS generally going down. In 2008, I bought a new 43" TV for $700, and that was a steal at the time. Today you can get that same TV for about $250. Same is true for most technology items where the cost to manufacture each widget has gone down due to productivity gains.

            An exception is cellphones, where the likes of Apple and Samsung have endlessly hyped their products until people are willing to pay more and more. But the real price of a good cellphone i

            • by ewibble ( 1655195 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @09:50PM (#63710128)

              It is true for technology, however not true for what we truly need like food, housing, power.

              But you can watch your big screen TV as you freeze and starve to death.

              • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @10:23PM (#63710174) Homepage

                Electricity prices have come down over the years, adjusted for inflation. https://www.usinflationcalcula... [usinflatio...ulator.com]

                Likewise, while food costs have risen in recent decades, the rate of food price inflation has fallen significantly, and is less than the CPI on average. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-... [usda.gov]

                In the US, nobody freezes or starves, unless they refuse help. I know this first hand because I work with an inner city mission. Nobody gets turned away. In addition to government help, there are more private citizens offering to help, than people who want help. A few years ago we became aware of a woman who didn't have a refrigerator, so we gave her one. She immediately sold it for cash. We didn't give her another one. So sorry, not going to buy your sob story.

                • Re: the refrigerator story..I’ve been in such a spot before, and it’s very relatable, so you shouldn’t judge. What’s the point of having a refrigerator if you don’t have a few dollars in your pocket to fill it with any food? I wasn’t addicted to any drugs but that’s where most minds will go, but to a compassionate person that should highlight an even worse situation; when people will sacrifice their well being for a short term fix because they can’t say no.
                  • Let's not conflate threads here. We're talking about people not having. Yes, there do exist some people who deserve our compassion. And there are people who might rationally choose to sell a refrigerator that was just given to them. But the fact remains that in the US, there is food and housing for everyone who truly needs it, and is willing to "stoop" to comply with the rules "imposed" on them by charities like Star of Hope or Salvation Army.

                    I would suggest that your example is an exception to the rule, an

            • they're heavily subsidized right now by streaming services. That's why you can get a 43" tv for that price. Well, that and a bit of actual competition because TV panel makers were the last time we went after a cartel...

              But whether it's computers, cellphones, cameras, appliances, you name it the prices have been going up massively. Take a look at the PS5. It launched for about the price of a 2600 but by this time in the Atari's life cycle I could buy one new for under $100 bucks with a couple games and t
              • You seem to have a short memory. In the 1980s, a PC cost about $3,000. Today, only Macs cost that much, a high end Windows computer can be had for $1,000. https://www.dell.com/en-us/sho... [dell.com]

                Your iPhone or Samsung flagship phone costs a ton of money, but you can get a very capable Moto G for under $200. https://www.amazon.com/Battery... [amazon.com]

                Who buys a camera anymore? And no, appliances are not going up "massively." Sure, since 2020 and the pandemic. But if you look at longer trends, the opposite is true.

                • Your "high end" PC very obviously lacks a GPU, which will set you back enough to match the old price.

                  • That old computer from the 1980s also didn't have a GPU.

                    So yeah, high end GPUs are expensive because of blockchain and AI, but not because of general inflation.

                    • The old computer from the 1980s also didn't need one because all the computation concerning graphics was done in the CPU.

                      You might notice the lack of a floppy drive, a serial/parallel port adapter card, a sound card, a network card or a wifi card, all things that old PC had, so shouldn't it be even cheaper?

                      But in all seriousness, you have to compare systems with at least a similar goal. Because back then, there was also a considerable difference between an office PC which was a 386 with 4megs of ram, no cop

                    • ... a gaming PC which was a 486DX with coprocessor, 16megs of ram, Vesa-VGA graphics card in an AGP slot and at least a SB16 for sound.

                      Totally pedantic, but AGP didn't exist on 486 motherboards. For 486 you were limited to motherboards with ISA only, PCI and ISA, and VLB (32bit extended ISA). AGP didnt come around until the Pentium 2 generations.

                    • Sorry, of course VLB.

                      But it was indeed for 486s [wikipedia.org], it was supposed to be a stopgap to enhance the aging ISA bus' speed while PCI was still in development and far away. And since it was heavily dependent on how the 486 bus worked, it vanished instantly when Pentium arrived.

                  • Your "high end" PC very obviously lacks a GPU, which will set you back enough to match the old price.

                    Yah, I think he gets his data from old NetNews groups.

                • You seem to have a short memory. In the 1980s, a PC cost about $3,000. Today, only Macs cost that much, a high end Windows computer can be had for $1,000.

                  Cool story bro! My work computer, a Dell workstation laptop, cost almost 4 Kilobucks.

                  • Your 4K machine is certainly not standard issue. Sure, you can gold-plate to pay whatever high price you can imagine, but that's not really talking about inflation any more then. It is highly unusual for a Windows computer to cost more than about $1,500. Above that, and you're talking about special-purpose machines. Even at that price, you're talking about a developer machine, which is not standard issue.

                    • Your 4K machine is certainly not standard issue. Sure, you can gold-plate to pay whatever high price you can imagine, but that's not really talking about inflation any more then. It is highly unusual for a Windows computer to cost more than about $1,500. Above that, and you're talking about special-purpose machines. Even at that price, you're talking about a developer machine, which is not standard issue.

                      FWIW, my laptop isn't gold plated. It is pretty nice though, and it is what I need to ply my trade.

                      You're coming into a beehive of developers and telling them their computers are not applicable to whatever argument you are making. That's a bold strategy Cotton. Let's see how it works out.

                • I'm talking about the more recent trends in the last 10-15 years. That said, yeah, you can still buy a laptop to do your homework for $500 bucks, but if you want something to use as a workstation that matches the business use case of that $3k computer from 1980 you're still gonna plunk down around $1500-$2k. That's a large increase over the last 10 years.

                  Moore's law is dead. Market consolidation is finally starting to show up in the prices we pay for most goods.
          • and we shut that down in the 80s when we dismantled anti-trust law enforcement in favor of "efficiency".
          • by khchung ( 462899 )

            Price of widget is how much someone is willing to pay for it, your salary is how much you are willing to accept to produce the widget.

            Exactly. This is economy 101, but is rarely accepted in a supposedly capitalist country that embraces free market economy.

            • Many people, especially the young, don't want to live in a capitalist society. The problem is sometimes they let their socialist utopia fantasies overwhelm their lived capitalist reality, then blame capitalism when things don't work out.

              If you're carrying debt that isn't leveraged for future gains, you might be a victim of your own making. Capitalists know to acquire assets.

        • by jythie ( 914043 )
          Why not? It justifies an increase in the pay for people higher in the food chain than workers. They are not working any harder or more hours either, but they claim the spoils of the increases in productivity.
          • It justifies better pay for higher-ups? I've never seen that happen. I'm one of those "higher-ups" and as a reward for my increasing productivity for my team, I get to keep my job.

      • by jbengt ( 874751 )

        Pay has not kept pace with productivity since the 70s . . .

        True. [epi.org]

      • Pay has not kept pace with productivity since the 70s, which is right around when we broke the Unions. I remember reading that if pay & productivity had kept up minimum wage would be well over $20/hr and average would be over $50.

        It is about the same time we went on a social experiment of almost doubling the workforce. You can't to that without consequences.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @07:22PM (#63709892)

      This is a common misunderstanding in how macroeconomics works. Normal scenario isn't that pay increases linearly with efficiency, but that as productivity increases, price of "work hour per unit of product" decreases for everyone.

      This is how we got to today, where most staple foods take 50-100 times less work to earn compared to just a century ago, and several hundreds of times if not over thousand times less work than a millenium ago. Efficiency savings aren't concentrated in the industry, but propagated throughout the system. Same applies to everything from food and drink to tools, to refined materials like wood planks or window glass to motorized vehicles, to aircraft, and to personal computing devices. The main exception is when we get a technological breakthrough when the output itself becomes better, and as a result pricier. When I was very young, most cars needed a total rehaul of the engine before it hit 200.000 km. I own a car that has almost 250.000 km on it. It never needed any major drivetrain related system overhaul, nor are there any signs of engine being in need of one. Power output is still there and it still starts fine in -30 degrees celcius within a second of starter engine revving it up.

      As as long as work to make things more efficient happens across entirety of society, everyone benefits, because everything produced becomes cheaper per unit of time spent on it. This is in fact how we defeated non-political starvation in the world. Food production became so efficient and cheap that for the first time ever for any species on the planet, our main problem is no longer "how to not starve". It's now "how to not overeat".

      This is just 20 years after the mass starvation events in Africa that basically destroyed the late millenial generation in many countries. Places like Malawi, men and women in their thirties need help with daily tasks, because they got hit by starvation during critical brain development stages. They're now permanently mentally retarded. Not because of genetics, but because they didn't get enough calories for brain to grow to its full potential during critical development stages. Twenty years later, same regions have next generation having problems with obesity. This is what increase in overall worker efficiency does. It's not that they make a lot more money. To be fair they do, because we have been lifting people out of extreme poverty like crazy in last twenty years. But it's that everything is so much cheaper and easily available, which is in fact one of the reasons why people are getting lifted out of poverty. Difference between being able to afford a shovel to be able to earn a living digging, and not being able to afford a shovel and not being able to earn a living digging is a binary one. You just need to nudge the poorest over that line where they can invest in themselves, and they will do the work to lift themselves out of poverty.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by m00sh ( 2538182 )

        This is a common misunderstanding in how macroeconomics works. Normal scenario isn't that pay increases linearly with efficiency, but that as productivity increases, price of "work hour per unit of product" decreases for everyone.

        This is how we got to today, where most staple foods take 50-100 times less work to earn compared to just a century ago, and several hundreds of times if not over thousand times less work than a millenium ago. Efficiency savings aren't concentrated in the industry, but propagated throughout the system. Same applies to everything from food and drink to tools, to refined materials like wood planks or window glass to motorized vehicles, to aircraft, and to personal computing devices. The main exception is when we get a technological breakthrough when the output itself becomes better, and as a result pricier. When I was very young, most cars needed a total rehaul of the engine before it hit 200.000 km. I own a car that has almost 250.000 km on it. It never needed any major drivetrain related system overhaul, nor are there any signs of engine being in need of one. Power output is still there and it still starts fine in -30 degrees celcius within a second of starter engine revving it up.

        As as long as work to make things more efficient happens across entirety of society, everyone benefits, because everything produced becomes cheaper per unit of time spent on it. This is in fact how we defeated non-political starvation in the world. Food production became so efficient and cheap that for the first time ever for any species on the planet, our main problem is no longer "how to not starve". It's now "how to not overeat".

        This is just 20 years after the mass starvation events in Africa that basically destroyed the late millenial generation in many countries. Places like Malawi, men and women in their thirties need help with daily tasks, because they got hit by starvation during critical brain development stages. They're now permanently mentally retarded. Not because of genetics, but because they didn't get enough calories for brain to grow to its full potential during critical development stages. Twenty years later, same regions have next generation having problems with obesity. This is what increase in overall worker efficiency does. It's not that they make a lot more money. To be fair they do, because we have been lifting people out of extreme poverty like crazy in last twenty years. But it's that everything is so much cheaper and easily available, which is in fact one of the reasons why people are getting lifted out of poverty. Difference between being able to afford a shovel to be able to earn a living digging, and not being able to afford a shovel and not being able to earn a living digging is a binary one. You just need to nudge the poorest over that line where they can invest in themselves, and they will do the work to lift themselves out of poverty.

        Food is cheaper but the real cost is externalized. On one end we have the obesity epidemic. On the other end, we have climate change from massive hydrocarbon use. Somewhere in the middle, we have polluted everything with insecticides and pesticides. Price per unit is lower but each unit is lower quality.

        Your suggestion is equivalent to saying we need to give the poorest bootstraps so they can pull themselves up with it. There is huge systemic inequitable distribution of resources in the world. The haves tak

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Ah yes, the myth of "everything is getting worse".

          Reality check: it's all getting better. Acid rains are all but gone. DDT is mostly cleaned up. Ozone layer is in fact slowly coming back. Climate related deaths have crash to lowest they have ever been since we started measuring it.

          In spite of you and your genocidal cult insisting that we mass murder poor people to save Mother Gaia, most people on the planet continue to thrive. And we know that once you get people out of poverty, they actually start to care

          • by kmoser ( 1469707 )
            It's not *all* getting better. There are more microplastics in the environment than ever before, and they are slowly poisoning every living thing they encounter. This is not in dispute.
            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              Ah yes, "microplastics". The thing that we've been looking into for about five years now, and unable to find a single meaningful harmful aspect to them.

              To the point where now it's become fashionable to pretend that microplastics are the legendary substance that has mechanical properties of actual microplastics (nano-scale), and harm of plastic trash (millimetre-scale and up).

              Hint: Microplastics are "scary" because they are so small that they penetrate cellular membranes freely. But by extension, they're als

              • Chemically inert and harmless are not the same thing.

                • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                  Are you suggesting they're radioactive? Because that would be the last of the three main biologically damaging mechanisms, after mechanical and chemical, both of which are at this point pretty much ruled out barring some shocking new discovery.

                  • Have we ruled out mechanical? Sure, these things will not obstruct the macroscopic parts of an organism, but as you have said they are capable of passing into cells, and I would really love to know whether they are just as non-obstructing at that level.

                    Also, please understand that just because something is, for all practical purposes, inert does not mean that it cannot displace something that is required for an organism to survive. For all practical purposes, CO2 is inert in the respiration of higher animal

                    • by jbengt ( 874751 )

                      For all practical purposes, CO2 is inert in the respiration of higher animals . . .

                      Actually, that is not true. The method of death from excessive carbon dioxide is not from displacing oxygen, but from disrupting the respiratory system's feedback mechanisms, which are largely based on the amount of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.

                      Having said that, I still agree with your assessment that we can't know that microplastics are benign just because the plastics are largely inert and the particles small. In f

                    • I see he has ruled out mechanical obstruction based on their nano-scale sized and thus their inability to cause obstruction to structures that allow the unobstructed passage of these small particles. That's something I won't challenge.

                      The question is whether they may cause obstructions at the cell-level, since these particles apparently can pass into cells or at the very least attach to cells. And here, a nano-scale particle may well pose a problem since the cell itself isn't quite macroscopic either, so we

                    • I'm very skeptical of the idea that something is environmentally and biologically ubiquitous and constantly in the news, is very dangerous, but not dangerous in any way we have been able to study scientifically.

                      The burden of proof is on the claim to the danger of micro-plastics. As of yet, I've not seen anything that shows that. The science says it exists, not that it's harmful.

              • Microplastics are plastic particles between than 1 micrometer and 5 mm. A human consumes about 52000 particles of microplastics per year. Plastic particles smaller than 10 micrometers can probably cross not just cell membranes but also the blood–brain barrier. There are several thousands of different additives, many classified as hazardous, that are added to plastics later degrading into microplastics. These particles may retain the additives and can absorb heavy metals, pesticides, etc. Thus they mig
            • It's not *all* getting better. There are more microplastics in the environment than ever before, and they are slowly poisoning every living thing they encounter. This is not in dispute.

              And despite the narrative, they are coming from the second and third world. Your source of all evil -Mainly the USA could disappear tomorrow, and it would make only a tiny dent.

              What is worse, the rest of the world would have to find new countries to ve the source of all evil.

          • by m00sh ( 2538182 )

            It's all getting better if you don't consider all the things that are getting worse.

            It's up to us to choose what is true.

        • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          And to expand on "but the evil rich systemics systemicisism of systems" Marxist argument, as usual it's the opposite of reality:

          https://media.discordapp.net/a... [discordapp.net]

          Most people notice that poverty is massively reduced. But just as important is the fact that the top dot does not stand alone at the top of the pyramid any more, clearly separated from the rest. There's now a solid class between the ultra rich and just rich. There's a path upwards. We're all getting richer, slowly and steadily. In spite of all the n

          • At the same time the middle class is slowly disappearing. You have Poor -> (shrinking middle class) -> rich -> ultra rich. And that shrinking middle class isn't moving into the "rich" category... The disparity of where the money exists has not had such a large gap since the middle ages, and even during the middle ages the people actually doing the work actually worked LESS hours that we do today!

    • One would assume the employees aren't actually working harder...

      That's exactly what they're saying here.

  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @07:11PM (#63709864) Homepage

    The author complains about AI-generated submissions. I'm experiencing something similar with interview candidates. I recently had a couple of programmer candidates, on a Teams call, would repeat my questions back to me, then look down or away, then provide me with a highly accurate and detailed answer. One candidate responded that they had experience with Angular 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14. Nobody answers an Angular experience question with a complete list of versions. Other answers were equally detailed but sometimes went off on an unexpected tangent. What stumped them was when I asked questions like "Between Dapper and Entity Framework, which one do you prefer, and why?" AI has a harder time answering those kinds of questions on the fly. But when candidates pull those stunts, it just wastes both our time.

    • by m00sh ( 2538182 )

      Say you're hired but then hire the AI instead.

      • Nope, those guys didn't get the job.

        But hey, if somebody can actually do the job by using AI, more power to them! The things is, I doubt they can pull it off, because AI doesn't actually understand the objectives or know when it's "right."

        • by m00sh ( 2538182 )

          I meant, since you interviewed the AI, when you say you're hired, you're saying it to the AI and not the human.

          On the other hand, at some point, it might even make sense to hire a contractor that can produce the code using AI in a matter of weeks to your specification rather than look for an employee.

    • One candidate responded that they had experience with Angular 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14. Nobody answers an Angular experience question with a complete list of versions.

      He was obviously just trying to cover all his angles -- I mean, Angulars. :-)

    • Karma (Score:5, Interesting)

      by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @09:40PM (#63710108) Journal

      Consider it divine retribution for decades of keyword-based resume filtering, requests for 10 years of experience in 5 year old technologies, and the general paradigm in which HR dolts function as roadblocks between would-be hires and the people who should actually work with them.

      • You're not wrong! Many companies have such a stupid hiring process that they deserve the people who can get through it by using AI.

    • by eonwing ( 934274 )
      Yup, I've had this happen twice now. One of them could hardly speak English but would come back with textbook definitions of things like "ontology". Beware the pause and the looking away at something else than the interview camera.
  • by m00sh ( 2538182 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @07:28PM (#63709902)

    Google search has been catastrophically horrible lately and at the same every one has decided to move all their support documentation online expecting me to google search to find it.

    Trying to scan through pages and pages of garbage search results has been draining.

    With AI tools, I can get a somewhat accurate answer with one try. Of course, AI is prone to hallucinations and have to double check myself once in a while.

    • I wonder if google does it on purpose to force people to move past the first page of results so that more ads can be served. Google search is just terrible compared to 10 years ago.
      • by m00sh ( 2538182 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @08:43PM (#63710004)

        Here's my pet theory.

        The people who really know how google search works have left the company. The people who maintain it are too scared to modify anything since it is basically printing billions and the code is probably a huge convoluted mess of optimizations.

        On the other side, SEO has gotten so good that most of google search is now filled in bad results. The people maintaining Google search are too scared to adjust the algorithm to combat the SEO in case they break anything.

  • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @07:31PM (#63709910) Homepage

    Isn't this how history works? Technological advances generally make workers' jobs more miserable. Negotiating strength via unions, guilds, etc. and decent labor laws generally make them less miserable. Don't know why anyone would expect any different from AI technology.

  • As a programmer I'm finding access to tools like GitHub copilot and ChatGPT makes me more productive and less stressed out dealing with simple boilerplate stuff or complex stuff I've not run into. I'm using it to learn new programming languages as well. So for me its a net plus but I get with everything there's winners and losers. Basically everything bad I'm hearing about AI I heard about the internet back in the mid 90s.

    • by m00sh ( 2538182 )

      AI is absolutely amazing for coding. Those who learn to use it really will be 100x programmers.

      I'm surprised at some peoples code output; basically implementing huge features in a single day after being requested. I think AI tools has a lot to do with it.

      • by narcc ( 412956 )

        I very strongly disagree. It's been little more than an expensive waste of time. I've yet to see it produce anything even remotely usable, just a whole lot of laughably incorrect and insecure code that rarely compiles.

        Right now, people are just amaze that it produces anything at all and they're high on the imagined potential. That won't last long. Reality always wins out in the end.

  • Work on hardware, not software you ninnies. Stop wasting your brainpower on writing code for useless shit. Code is useless without an avatar. We need better hardware .. specifically compact high-torque and highly reliable motors (encoders) or artificial muscles for dextrous hands and highly stable walking robots.

  • Marx and Technology (Score:5, Informative)

    by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Sunday July 23, 2023 @09:24PM (#63710082) Homepage
    In other words: Workers rediscover Marx's theories on technology and intensification of labor over time, which he wrote about in Capital Volume 1 published in 1867.

    All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. -Somebody else a long time ago
    • Did they discover the parts where Marx's theories were implemented in the next 150 years and found to be complete disasters? Without a single success? And did they discover that Karl Marx was a disgusting racist?
      • In Capital he largely just describes Capitalism as it is. Lenin was more responsible for implementation in the USSR, followed by Stalin, etc. Plenty to criticize and learn from even. As for whether or not attempts at socialism were disasters, you should probably actually study what life was actually like before and after in each country that made the choice to be socialist. It might surprise you, but member nations of the USSR had the freedom to leave the entire time by vote (which is how the union dissolve
      • Maybe you should actually read the book. You can skip the pompous first part, but please do read the last part, where all the examples are given of the utter corruption, the poverty of people working 3 jobs and still dependent on charity. About the fact that machines existed to wipe chimneys, but little boys were cheaper. The reason communism was tried was because capitalism had already failed catastrophically.
  • This is a middleman who provides very little value. Them getting "harmed" by AI doesn't hurt anyone else.

  • Once they get noticed they will be replaced with AI Editors for even more productivity increases.
  • Add a little friction to the submission process by charging for submissions. Use the money to hire more reviews.

  • Theoretically productivity-increasing inventions do increase standard of living for a given wage. Ignoring the fact that the upper class has found ways to keep 90% of that wealth for themselves, the TFS displays complete ignorance as to how that works. If I find a way to make cars ten times as fast per worker the idea isn't that my workers all get ten times as much. It's that cars are ten times as affordable*.

    So my workers, along with the other workers out there, all benefit from the improvement in prod
  • If you use the write* prompt LLMs are a huge help and enormously cut the time it takes to generate a good story. You need to paste in your excerpt and prompt "continue story, genre, and tone". Then use the ideas it generates to continue your story. It's like a wrecking ball for writer's block. Just don't copy-paste the drivel it generates as your own content. Of course this won't help much with character development over a long story, but it does help.

    For example, here's a paragraph I gave it, just for fun
  • As expected our LLM, saviour and destroyer of humanity, is just a low quality content generator and a half working search engine.
  • So they'll just hire another AI, and the two will agree that the human minority report on the quality of the information (the one standing up for the truth) is the weak link and should be fired. Which the AI hired to make management decisions will do. The now-homeless former human employee may be arrested for vagrancy or some other petty "crime", and the AI hired to assess his criminal potential will decide he's a grave risk and deny him both bail and parole, then find him guilty as charged. He will be s
    • So they'll just hire another AI, and the two will agree that the human minority report on the quality of the information (the one standing up for the truth) is the weak link and should be fired. Which the AI hired to make management decisions will do. The now-homeless former human employee may be arrested for vagrancy or some other petty "crime", and the AI hired to assess his criminal potential will decide he's a grave risk and deny him both bail and parole, then find him guilty as charged. He will be sentenced to harvest raw materials for data centers... to run the AIs.

      You see....If he/she had tried harder and got their degree from the same school the AI did then none of it would have happened.....

  • Welcome to the assembly line guys. You'll have production speed buzzers soon enough.
  • I've been in the photocopier, printer, fax, computer business for over 40 years. When computers came along, people said there would be less need for copiers because it would be on the computer. VOLUMES increased! Also, every time there is a new government regulation, our volumes increase.
  • Current title made me think about developers using AI to generate mundane code and thus spend more time in creative and exhausting process.

    Mundane coding could be very therapeutic, like knitting.

"Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers." -- Chip Salzenberg

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