I suspect the Pareto Principle is very much at play here, in that 80% of customer issues can totally be answered by the scripts that human front-line call centre staff typically worked from (that's why the scripts exist in the first place, afterall), and therefore 80% of the calls can be dealt with perfectly well by an AI bot following the same script. It's only the other 20% that are the unique problems that KB articles and scripted/automated agents cannot handle, and - usually after a lot of pointless tick-boxing to get off-script - those are usually the ones that get escalated to a second line support peon that can actually take some initiative, and ultimately the few real corner cases to third-line support.

If AI can let you cull 80% of your support / call centre staff with no practical loss of service (according to the AI agent salesperson, anyway), then who isn't going to jump at that? Of course, they'll probably go for 90% or more and take extra hit on service levels, then have to wind things back a bit when they realise that the AI agents are not quite as good as promised and some people will get really stroppy about being forced to talk a bot, but at that point they'll have been paid their bonus and who cares, right? They're only customers, and you've got think of the shareholders!

My original statement, just a statement without anything incendiary in it, has ignited a firestorm of profanity, personal insults and general anger. Because people disagree with me, their rage is somehow appropriate.

I have encountered much the same. I think on a previous thread I stated that I tried WFH, hated it and even though I was a solo contractor, paid for a desk in a co-working office so I could be out of the house and have other people to talk to, and that actually proved incredibly and let to me doing a startup (didn't work out but that's another story).

Yo wouldn't believe (well hyperbole, obviously you would) the batshit insane things people here were saying to me, such as I'm a shit manager and a worthless employee who leans on other people's work and steals credit because what other possible reason could there be to be in work?

I am honestly not sure what part of "independent contractor in a co-working space" they didn't understand.

But it's this incredibly blinkered view that WFH is GOOD and RIGHT and anyone who has any alternative experience or opinion is (a) out to get them (b) stupid and (c) evil. All for the crime of being a human with only very mild introversion (I like and need socialising, but too much is draining and I need quiet focus time too).

But maybe it's this too:

Maybe it makes them feel better living in a world where competence is inversely proportional to ones place on the food chain.

but we now know virtually all white collar work can effectively be done remotely;

Do we know that? I sometimes have to interact with some particular people in a non IT white collar profession. They ain't good at replying to emails and so I phone them yet "lunch break" now seem to extend from about 11 to 3. Those fuckers need to be back in an office with someone actually watching over their shoulder so that they are actually at their desk and actually answer the phone if it rings. Oh and I only ever have to call because of paperwork that hasn't been done for too long.

I have a friend who's pet theory was HR's main goal was to tune compensation to keep the attrition level where the company wanted it.

Your friend's pet theory is predicated on HR being both really smart and working in complete lock step with management.

You'll argue "If I'm doing my job, I don't need managers." A good manager should be taking care of the sh*t you don't need or want to be doing. Either doing it themselves or seeing that someone else is taking care of it and not blocking you.

And also ensuring that what you're working on is the right thing to be working on. A good manager should have some idea of what direction product development is going in the short, medium and long term and what other teams and projects are doing that may effect the manager's team.

Umm ... PDF is proprietary. The standard is ancient. At least as of 2013, if you saved a PDF with some changes in Adobe products, it would just append those changes (including redacting/blacking out documents) unless you used "Save As.." (not sure if that's been fixed). It'd a descendant of Postscript and literally still has support for Shockwave and Flash in their standard.

Well also that and that valuation i predicated on growth that' physically impossible.

AI companies have started talking about "GW" of installations which makes it simpler to analyze. The electricity capacity doesn't exist to meet the growth predictions. The manufacturing capacity doesn't exist to manufacture the generation capacity required to meet growth predictions. The capacity to build manufacturing facilities to match predictions doesn't exit.

The market has gone irrational because there's no way growth can match predictions. I ain't shorting though because Keynes isn't wrong.

I expect any other irrationality will also bite hard. Claude is pretty good, really. Not, like, perfect and AI will destroy the world and programmers, but the genie is out of the bottle here, something like it is here to stay. It's too useful. But let's say OpenAI stumble and suddenly their terrifying outgoings slightly tip over and they go very broke very fast, well, the market will panic and go omgomgomgomgAIisbadactually!!!111onelelevne and the entire thing, Anthropic included, will crash through the floor, even though people will, for example, still be spending a lot on Anthropic.

Where's the part of small government, freedom, free market, don't tread on me now?

Right there in power, it was all lies and a branding exercise. The right have never held to those beliefs, but it turns out that a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth for enough people that they can get into power.

But you know "both ides" so I voted for the worst. How come on one ever says "both sides" so I voted for Harris?

HP 4%, etc.

Well HP had the genius idea of putting a 8723409821E+27% markup on printer ink while selling the printers at a loss to bring in customers. Unfortunately they also forgot to not make their printers so shit that they self destruct before HP make enough back on the ludicrously overpriced ink.

It's like the shittines doubles for the customer, but somehow cancels out on HP's end.

Fuck HP. Also Apple, can't stand those fuckers (shame their CPU is so good), but also and especially and for ever fuck HP.

Either you posted AI slop or you've been reading so much that you've tarted to ape chat GPT's style.

Anyone who doesn't think it's impressive can go hand in their engineer card at the door.

This feels a bit like a distinction without a difference?

Development feeds into distribution however you do it, so, at some point you have to deal with that.

Besides, pypi is more of a package distribution system than a software development system.

No different than any other corporate spin about the inflexibility or uselessness of their platform. AWS does this quite well. "Undifferentiated heavy lifting" - while ignoring the absurd complexity and beta quality of their own services. Every issue I have with their shit, I experience a new and different bug or incorrectness in their documentation, and it takes years for it to get corrected. There are still bugs in Lambda that I discovered and reported 5+ years ago which haven't been resolved.

At every level. They must be using claude to make their business decisions, too.

It's not only being demonstrated, it's being reveled in. Astounding.

I don't know if this is just the symptom of the AI bubble, cronyism, or "late stage capitalism" (even though the resemblance to capitalism long since ceased). But it's a mess.

20 years ago, these guys would've been tried for criminality by now. Both Anthropic and OpenAI. They're making Enron look like amateurs.

I'm glad I am not the only one who found that film insufferable.

I'm glad the plague of 1990s "we're going to make a retard the hero" movies came to an end. Unfortunately, now we're plagued with them directing the films.

So you agree you are being an idiot?

No I'm agreeing that you're a moron.

Do you need a working EUV mahine in order to build your first EUV machine?

Yes or No. Simple question. The GGGGP was saying you do not.

That is what you appear to be disputing and I agree with you that you are being an idiot for disputing it.

All you have is someone saying it is true.

Is that what you think? You really fail at reading. He's talking about making 2nm fabs not making 2nm chips.