I’m neck deep in AI as part of my work. I have found peace with my loathing of the technology and the market forces it has brought with it. I am using it to push back on all the hype and bullshit. I spend a lot of my time working on standardization and find myself part of many different standards meetings where people, even those who work at AI companies, are frustrated with AI around them.
Where I see people most frustrated is where the usage of AI is not honestly disclosed. Everyone is using it, or forced to use it. Not everyone is using in the same way or at the same levels. Making the lack of disclosure in workplaces and industries a problem causing a lot of friction. I regularly am working on issues and pull requests for standards where the usage of AI was not discussed early on with stakeholders and rapidly becomes a point of friction regarding the scope of content code present.
I hear people regularly say, if you just let me know how and what you were using it for, it wouldn’t be a problem. Or, I don’t think it should be used for this bit of work, and now the work has grown in scope significantly because of its usage. I’ve heard, “can you do a short, concise, old-school review on this PR?”. I’ve heard, “this issue is seeded with just a single hand-crafted paragraph to keep things focused”. And, “I am going to use AI only on this PR to go through the code.” All setting expectations and reducing friction.
The biggest problems I see beyond AI itself is that 1) people are being forced to use it, 2) people aren’t being forthcoming and honest in how they are using. As I say repeatedly, I think the general market adoption of AI is bad. I think the AI mandates and lack of communication are what will cause it to blow up in management’s face the fastest. And we aren’t even getting to the costs associated with it. I am a one man band, but I think it important to be up-front in my AI usage. It just feels right in a sea of wrongs. Anytime I work with someone on anything, I try to put the AI cards on the table right away. I find this to be a good first move.
