Hi everyone!
I hope you’re doing well. I have some new observations and theories about GenAI in the workplace that I need to get off my chest. Also, I need to rant a bit today.
Item 1: If you haven’t noticed that everyone you know who uses generative AI for work on a regular basis is making a lot of basic mistakes, then you’re the one who is making the mistakes.
Item 2: If you haven’t noticed that everyone you know who is using generative AI for work is working a lot more than they used to, I urge you to consider whether you are working way more than you used to.
Item 3: It seems like a bad thing that our world is rapidly becoming dependent on a productivity tool that makes us worse at our jobs AND work longer hours at it.
Item 4: No one seems to care that everyone is worse at their jobs as long as we’re all doing our jobs much much faster now. In some cases, there’s logic behind this: AI makes it faster to write bad computer code and then fix it (in theory at least) than to write good computer code from the get-go. The problem, of course, is what will happen when we lose our ability to distinguish good code (or good anything, for that matter) from bad. This will be an entire article in the near future.
Item 5: I watched a presentation by someone at one of the largest GenAI companies this week in which he was talking about how using AI can make you up to 10 times more productive (he said “It will 10x you” but I refuse to talk like that). He then related the following charming anecdote:
“My wife hates when we’re watching a movie and I’m giving instructions to my AI assistant. ‘But, honey,’ I say, ‘you don’t understand. With AI, the value of my time is so much greater now.’”
Take it from a formerly married man who has learned a few things: humans you’re in a relationship with don’t tend to appreciate being told that they “don’t understand” that your time is too valuable to give a portion of it to them.
Item 6: If anything you’ve written starts with three two-word non-sentences (for example “Two words. 10x impact. One vital message that changes everything.”) you’re slipping, big time. This how AI and voiceovers on pharmaceutical commercials talk, not how people talk. Everyone is sounding like a TV commercial all the time now, and I’m getting really tired of it.
That’s all for now. My apologies for ranting without offering solutions or a nice wrap-up. If I had to have a wrap-up it would be: let’s all not forget to take care of ourselves and our friends and pets.
If anything in this newsletter made you feel something, that’s wonderful! Please drop me a note (as long as you write it yourself) and let me know. I promise I’ll write back.
Thanks for reading,
-Chris
p.s. A bonus item: I’ve been getting tricked into watching the first few seconds of a lot of worthless AI-written videos on YouTube lately. I propose we institute a new standard for helping readers / viewers to pre-judge whether something is likely to be worth their time. Something like the following:
Written by: Chris
Time spent writing this: 1 hour
AI tools used in writing: none
Edited by: Chris
Time spent editing and proofreading: .5 hours
AI tools used in editing: Built-in browser spell check (I can’t spell pharmaceutical)
Time spent obsessing over whether or not it’s good enough to send out: 1 hour
p.p.s. I left out the usual middle of the post promo for becoming a subscriber this time (because I don’t like breaking up my rant with a commercial), but if you want to see more of this or support a real person trying to do good work, please subscribe (if you’re not already subscribed).
Chris, this is a great post! You put using/abusing AI in context of human lives and experiences... As I was reading this post for the first time, I began to suspect it was not written with AI, mainly because the post as so spare of words! I have began to think AI generated text is, on some level, trying to talk you Into submission to whah ever point they are trying to make!
The one thing that resonated with me, was your comment folks using AI take longer to accomplish tasks! I am old enough that word processors were introduced into the business workplace a few years after I graduated from college. I worked hard to teach myself the skill of being proficient at using a word processor on a PC, even to the point of reading manuals on vacation lying on the beach - talk about a buzz kill for a marriage (it survived fortunately). One old time engineer disparaged my efforts to be a little more productive at work by pointing out he never had to spend hours of his own time learning how to use a typewriter!
Thanks for the insightful post - it made me think more critically!