Bosses Are Becoming Obsessed With AI, Using It to Make Every Decision, Barraging Their Employees With Nonsensical ChatGPT Directives, and Even Asking It Who to Fire
https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/chatgpt/articles/bosses-becoming-obsessed-ai-using-175014710.html
78 Comments
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 108 pts · 68d
Isn't this enough proof that these chucklefucks are a drain on company resources and time and the FIRST thing to replace AI with is the bosses so workers can organize collectively while the AI helps them stay organized without the AI being in control.
I mean, I guess that would make too much sense.
Genuinely though, if the first thing they do with AI is outsource their own decision making, isn't it just rock solid evidence that these people are useless at their fucking jobs to begin with? They aren't even making the decisions anymore, the AI is. Let's cut out the middleman, which is all a boss is now if AI is running the show. I mean, it's what they did with all the junior developers, because they had forced the juniors into using AI and then asked themselves "why not cut out the middleman." And they hadn't even considered that maybe the cost of AI would outpace the cost of an employee. How the fuck are these short term thinking idiots in fucking charge anyway? A lot of bosses are just fucking charlatans.
EDIT: Clarified first sentence.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 66 pts · 68d
They're also probably the only employees who can be replaced by AI at a cost savings because of their hugely inflated compensation.
bagsy@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 68d
HR is there to manage benefits mostly. if the US went to medicare for all, and done away with employer sponsored health care, then a ton of HR could go away. Company culture might actually improve for once.
Mikina@programming.dev · 16 pts · 68d
My partner works in HR, and from what I've heard about her stories from her job, this is nowhere near true. Anecdotal evidence, though.
There is a lot of paperwork that needs to be done. If everyone could follow simple, written and documented directions that have actual pictures about how to fill the form you have to fill, you could have a lot less HR people.
But majority of employees are not able to. They have to remind them dozens of times and chase people who didn't do it unless personally threatened. They have to constantly answer questions that are very well documented. They have to parse out information that finances should be able to access, but they need it directly copied from the systems.
It sounds like hell of a job, that would've been so much easier if people were able to follow simple instructions. And the kind of people that can't follow a step-by-step guide that had 5 notifications about needing to be done in a Slack channel won't do it if some AI is telling them to.
From what I've heard, she is just managing disasters that could be a legal problem, always chasing people who don't care about their annoying beraucracy that could cause a lot of trouble.
I have a lot more respect for HR after seeing it from the other side.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 68d
That sounds like a self-created problem. Other than joining and leaving, I have had to fill out very little HR paperwork in my career.
bagsy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 68d
Fair enough. I suppose I'm showing my bias. The only time I ever deal with HR is for open enrollment.
badgermurphy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 67d
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 68d
True, but I still think there would be plenty for HR to be mediating in terms of employee-to-employee relationships. However, it's a big ask for HR to stop being a "cover your ass" department that is otherwise dedicated to making sure things like sexual harassment and hostile workplace environments don't impact the company itself despite existing in the company all the same. Because that too is a large function of HR.
louloukoutsis@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 68d
It’s okay, they will need all the devs they can get when they realise how much AI has messed up their codebases lol
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 68d
Like how Ford just had to hire back all their old greybeard engineers after the AI was not actually up to snuff (shocker).
darth_grunkus@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 68d
Not all. Just a select few. To help the AI.
juanito_the_great@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 68d
Indeed, but lets see how this story develops. I've done my share of messing up repos with genAI, plus have some background in ML... these gives me the intuition that hiring back seniors to "fix the AI" is not going to cut it.
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 67d
If I were them, I'd just not teach the AI very well.
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 67d
Yes. The managers are the most replaceable.
They're too dumb to realize this, though... And they're in charge...
MasterBlaster@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 68d
Well capitalism is darwinistic. They'll probably disappear.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 2 pts · 67d
Darwinism involves a lot of cruelty and suffering via starvation and predation.
MasterBlaster@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 63d
Yes. Yes it does.
KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca · 31 pts · 67d
The boss at a place I used to work is all in on AI bullshit. My friend works for the company remotely. He says the boss sends him massively long email, constructed by AI, full of rambling half ideas. He said he used to try to pick through it and reply appropriately and professionally. The boss would feed that into AI and copy/paste the reply back.
Now my friend doesn't even read the email. He throws it into AI, tells AI to craft a well thought out reply, and just sends that back at the boss. He told me if the boss won't personally read and reply, he won't either.
Last time I talked with him he said the email chain has been going over 4 months, it's still going on, but he has no idea what it's about anymore.
87Six@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 67d
if a colleague tells me to ask AI or gives me a response from AI again I will fucking kill somebody
KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 67d
I used to be in IT for years. I left around covid period.
I'm SO HAPPY right now. AI drives me insane as it is. I can't imagine working in an office having people making idiot decisions because it's what AI recommended.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 3 pts · 67d
Rest assured, they would be making more idiotic decisions without AI assistance. AI is just reinforcing what they already think, but occasionally (maybe 12% of the time) it might nudge them in a better direction.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 68d
Last company I worked for was about 85% of phasing out HR for AI. It was a nightmare for new hires, checking benefits, changing benefits, and so on... Also it was zero tolerant in firing decisions and the humans they had left never strayed from AI's recommendations.
They started trying w/ IT but was such a disaster the put it on the back burner.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 5 pts · 67d
That's a very real problem in all fields that take instructions from faceless machines. All the way back to Milgram.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 68d
I'm all for pushing hr out first. I mean how hard is that job anyway? Every question has the same answer: "well you should check the internal hr site." Thanks for nothing, i did that first because it would have saved me the trouble of dealing with your useless ass. I need to understand how I can buy a new hire in india out of the waiting period from their current employer. If you would put useful things on the site, that might help, but you don't. And then you don't know the answer and punt to legal AGAIN. I could save us both a lot of time and talk to them directly. If your only value is being a proxy to legal, bring on the fucking ai.
cenzorrll@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 68d
Bingo
MangoCats@feddit.it · 1 pts · 67d
Legal would benefit 2000% by being replaced, not with LLMs, but with deterministic algorithms.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 68d
Cool fire the bosses then. The AI is doing their work anyway.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 68d
Clearly the AI needs to be trained to answer that the CEOs should be fired. They cost the most and contribute the least, especially since they have shown they're replaceable with AI.
Snapz@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 67d
"I'm sure enough people don't compliment you for your courage and insight, but this is truly an amazing question. And being able to ask, "I have no idea what I'm doing , how do I not ruin everything and embarrass myself in front of my frat bros that I hired as VPs?" is so brave and it also shows just how humble you are to be open to learning even though you are at the absolute top of your field!"
jjlinux@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 67d
I can absolutely see some people needing just this output to be sure that AI Ia all they need to get shit done.
non_burglar@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 67d
What the self-absorbed hell. Who said this?
Snapz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 67d
Every GenAI, when responding to a CEO's quiet,desperate query.
And the CEO believing the response whole cloth
holdthecheese@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 67d
This is as dumb as the caricature of the lazy employee who needs to come into the office so the boss can watch them work.
ech@lemmy.ca · 20 pts · 68d
When you're so obsessed with getting LLMs to replace your employees that you end up using it to replace you.
EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app · 15 pts · 68d
I had a boss once who was going down this path! She wanted to make a side-business selling AI slop videos with financial advice. I don't know if it ever actually went anywhere. I found out she pled guilty to fraud a couple years before I started and made a hasty exit.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 67d
Honestly, if there are jobs that could best be replaced by AI, it seems that management could be high on that list. I'm sure many of us have had shitty managers and know how disastrous that can be for productivity. In some cases an algorithm would definitely have done better. It could hardly have done worse.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 3 pts · 67d
Big organizations are constantly trying to optimize the middle layers. Do you have a 5:1 reporting ratio so the manager really knows what everybody is doing, or do you have a 25:1 reporting ratio and cut out half the layers in the "telephone" miscommunication up the chain game? Seems like AI tools could bump up the optimal ration a little, if they're used well, but middle managers aren't the first group I'd pick to use something like an AI agent "well."
87Six@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 67d
treating an AI as analogous to an algorithm is a giant endorsement to the AI and a massive insult to the algo's
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 67d
One of the only benefits of this technology is that it will expose the incompetence of management. They can't hide their stupid now.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 3 pts · 67d
Oh, they will continue to hide their stupid as un-successfully as they always have. Some get away with it for a day, some for a quarter, some for many years.
kreskin@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 67d
theyd fire all their employees and blame the comapny's implosion on sun spots before tech execs admit their own failures. But nothing of value will be lost if nearly all tech companies went bankrupt overnight.
Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 68d
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 68d
If only there was a whole department at schools that was made for exactly this... I heard they used to have one way back in the olden days. What would it be called? God the art of naming things is so difficult!
(Seriously, this is what happens when you defund the arts programs in education, you end up with teachers who are not trained in art doing their best... and their best is really really bad)
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 68d
they already infiltrated YEARBOOKS, i heard some teens the other day on the bus that were complaining how creepy the yearbook was with AI in it.
Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 68d
Test_Tickles@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 67d
So, basically shitty bosses are shitty?
MangoCats@feddit.it · 6 pts · 67d
The sycophantic LLM behavior phenomenon is very real. LLMs will tell you what you want to hear, so yes, if shitty bosses want to hear how great they are, they've got a new friend (maybe their only one...)
willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 67d
"Reverse centaur"
(According to Cory Doctorow, a 'centaur' is a human augmented by tech, and a 'reverse centaur' is a human who is a mere meaty appendage to a tech system)
VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 67d
Shouldn't that be cyborg instead of centaur?
girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 66d
Its more accurate to ask, which parts are the AI workhorse; the head or the body?
If it's the body then AI is helping you (the head) to do hard tasks which probably fits your definition of a cyborg. If it's the head as in the reverse centaur, then you (the body) are doing all the work for an AI model.
I think the argument is that at this point the use of AI has been found to be more useful for tasks that's managers and bosses perform than more technical tasks that would be assigned to employees underneath them. And if those managers were replaced by AI then you would have a tireless manager overseeing workers doing more difficult work that do tire out but are expected to keep up with demands from the management.
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 67d
This started over a year and a half ago at my company.
Over half my department was fired, and now they are forcing us to give assessments on AI tools to replace the jobs of the rest of us.
We're so fucked, guys. This isn't just where I work, it's most places from what I'm hearing.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 4 pts · 67d
The writing was on the wall when that many layoffs happened. If they're that willing to take that kind of risk, they've been on insecure financial footing for a while. Best move on ASAP.
Last time I job-hopped was when my CEO took a tour of the R&D department, chewing each of us out individually, complaining how we're too expensive and he can't afford us... a job offer came through the next day and I was out in 2 weeks. They asked why I was leaving, all too simple: you remember Mr. "I had a bad day in sales, so I took my insecurities out on the R&D guys" tirade? Yeah, that was a big factor.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 66d
and then after giving them the instructions to the AI tools, they will just lay off the remaining people. and then they hire less people, rinse and repeat. in the mean time they will probably try to outsource people as well.
with the current layoffs, im hearing alot of people just moving in back with family, and hasnt moved out since then on certain forums, and people still have jobs in some industries think thier friends/families are just not trying hard enough or worst resenting them because they are being lazy and not independent.
theblurstoftimes@leminal.space · 8 pts · 67d
Sounds like the bosses positions should be cut then. If the default is ai then let the ai. No need for those positions and there I saved you a bunch of money.
willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 67d
And in a worker cooperative that's exactly what would happen.
theblurstoftimes@leminal.space · 2 pts · 66d
I’ve always wondered if that’s how management views their hierarchy. Many middle managers view themselves as a wasted resource
willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 66d
In a worker coop workers generally want, appreciate, and hire managers for themselves. But there are power dynamic diffetences:
Managers help organize and facilitate production, but it is the workers themselves who have to be pleased.
That's not to say some worker coop couldn't choose to do without the manager role. Maybe some exist like that.
DevDave@piefed.social · 4 pts · 68d
There is a premade meal delivery service with possibly the best product right now on the market. Unfortunately after I did a deep dive on them to figure out why their customer service sucked so much, I found the head of their "customer experience" had liked/heart emoji'd these two AI companies.
After telling my experience to another dev, they noticed an advert by an AI company boasting how they provided an service for them.
For tech savy people, the heart of the problem is because they used the user email address as the primary key in multiple places. So not only a varchar primary key but a natural one to boot! Not even a drop in the bucket but they lost ~10K USD of revenue for what should have been a 1 minute
begin; update...SQL command by the DBA. Though the large amounts of AI makes me think they fucked themselves on that too. Another reason I suspect that; they had a data breach at the start of the month but haven't made a public statement or warned their customers. Might not even know, might not know how it happened, and how much was stolen.mlg@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 68d
Hey let's be fair here, we already had bosses barraging their employees with nonsensical directives long before LLMs lol
aesthelete@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 66d
The computer did that auto layoff thing again!
Spacehooks@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 67d
Thankfully not my management but my SO boss is out of control. He keep feeding meeting notes to chat gpt to get actions and decisions. Like company level stuff. This has been going on For years and keeps using company time to talk about personal AI projects like making music. He even kept my partner late because he was talking about it! This stuff is Not even remotely related to the Department. My SO is losing patience with this bloke. Its no wonder no one in upper management respects him.
Eternal192@anarchist.nexus · 3 pts · 68d
Company owners that were lucky enough to get a company of the ground are themselves too stupid so they put stupid people in charge to maximise profits before the company inevitably crashes and burns.
Biggest problem with this idiotic company structure is the working people that are swindled out of their hard earned money because of rules made by criminals to protect themselves and other criminals.
Professorozone@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 67d
I'm so glad I don't work anymore.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 3 pts · 66d
There was a funny exchange at my work where a manager AI generated a big sheet of testing specs and requirements and the engineer just ran it through AI and sent it back. Then there was a crash out where he had to justify why his action was ok but the otherside was bad.
No good point was made it was just I can do this because I'm the boss
nonentity@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 66d
As per the Peter Principle, ‘AI’, when used by businesses, means Amplified Incompetence.
kreskin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 67d
AI and tech execs are like two garbage trucks which are on fire crashing in a high speed head-on collision.
garbage_world@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 68d
uberdroog@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 67d
One of the reasons I just found a new job. Clear emails completely produced by AI and not proofread.
coppersummit68687@lemmy.1095.me · 1 pts · 68d
CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 66d
Use a specific anecdote from one office to make a sweeping generalization. Is this even journalism?
goatinspace@feddit.org · 1 pts · 68d
Taleya@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 64d
Not suprised, it feeds on the incompetent
blargh513@sh.itjust.works · -11 pts · 68d
Am a boss. No we aren't.
I use it to interrogate our wikis and SharePoint, sprint data. It keeps me from having to ask my employees dumb questions.
I use it to dig up info on stuff I don't know about so I can make informed decisions or reduce the length of meeting because I can come prepared.
People love to talk about slop like it is something new and can only be made by ai. Spoiler, people (such as the author of this dumb piece) have been making it for a long time.
Mondez@lemdro.id · 15 pts · 67d
If you are looking up something you don't know about, how do you know the info provided us correct?
holdthecheese@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 67d
This is not an AI specific problem
Mondez@lemdro.id · 1 pts · 67d
Sure it is, if I look something up in an encyclopedia or training material written by a subject matter expert I have high trust in its content. If I ask an AI I have low trust in its content. The two are not equivalent.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works · -2 pts · 67d
it supplies references. check them.
you could also say the same thing about wikipedia.
Mondez@lemdro.id · 3 pts · 66d
Unlike Wikipedia, the references supplied by LLM output often point to material that doesn't actually support the LLM output. This can be because the LLM misapplies it to the wrong context or because it's incorrectly correlated and has nothing to do with what the LLM output making it unhelpful for determining the accuracy of the output.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 68d
natecox@programming.dev · 3 pts · 67d
I am a boss, too. Yes, we absolutely are. It's straight up stupid to pretend this isn't an emerging catastrophie today.
"But not all bosses!" Etc, etc.
Enough bosses.
MartianRecon@lemmus.org · 3 pts · 67d
You literally don't know if the information you're being given is accurate. Meaning you're not making informed decisions.
jtrek@startrek.website · 2 pts · 67d
Using a summary written by a soulless lie machine is irresponsible
Makruba@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 68d
Spot on. It eliminates some tedious busywork, which is nice, but it’s not a game changer for me, at least not yet.