Let’s Talk About This “10x Productivity Thanks to AI” Bullshit
I’m getting tired of listening to CEOs talk about how generative AI can 10x your productivity. Honestly, everywhere I look these days when it comes to AI, you have someone high in a corporate doing retarded maths to come to the conclusion that because we now have programs that can spit out lots of written text, we should be able to do 10x the amount of work we were doing a year ago.
You Must Have Been Crap Before For This To Work
Even doing some simple maths you quickly see how ludicrous this claim is. If you worked 40 hours a week a year ago (assuming you were actually working all this time — which we know isn’t true) then nowadays expectations are you can produce 400 hours of work in the same period.
Seriously?!?!
400 hours of work in a week, lets just think about that a second. That’s two and a half months of work. That’s a lot. How the hell do these people think we were working before for AI to make such an impact? If this is true then you must have been really bad at your job before all this AI stuff came along.
Let’s Speak About Coding
Apparently these days in the world of AI, coding is bread and butter for these AI models. You should be using AI all day everyday to produce your code. Ok sure… let’s just ignore reality for a minute here and pretend AI gives us all perfect code and whatever we specifically need at the time of asking. For us to go 10x faster is quite a feat even if this is true (which it is not by a loooooooong way).
Do these people realise what a software developer actually does for their profession? Sure, writing code is part of it but its not the big part of it by a long way. Maybe for little grunties when they first start who are taking all the minor tasks from the backlog and trying their hand at implementing solutions. But as you get higher up the chain, much of your time is spent understanding the problem, planning solutions and logistics and sorting out implementation details. Its getting the right people to work on the right task at the right time so the solution can be deployed to prod all without breaking shit.
Coding is definitely part of the process but its just a part.
Now don’t get me wrong, what the AI can do these days is impressive and I am positive about the overall impact but lets keep it in proportion please. Its another tool at our disposal and it helps us. But 10x help? Come on guys, lets get serious.
Don’t Be a Negative Nelly!
I can hear the feedback already on my opinion here — “Another doomsdayer”, “AI is great, it helps me everyday”, “I’m so much more productive!! What’s this guys problem?!”
My problem is EXPECTATIONS. People’s expectations are getting wildly out of hand. AI does help, I admit. But only a little. People, especially bosses who don’t get their hands dirty, are drinking the kool-aid like its 1977 and they really believe their employees should be 10x more productive.
What does this do to the average worker? It puts them under even more pressure to produce more and up their productivity. It puts them under even more stress so the big cheeses can point at exponential growth on their little charts and claim they have made the world a better place for all because they helped produce more for the same cost!
It’s not sustainable. It’s not a good work environment. It’s just plain nonsense.
Take transcripts of meetings for example. AI can now produce transcripts of meetings so you can read afterwards. What a stupid idea! Who in the world reads transcripts of meetings?! Normal people are happy they missed the meeting so why in the hell would they waste time reading about it! What a waste of time, energy and server usage. Yea, its more stuff but a complete waste of time.
And anyway, these days everyone just makes “summaries” of long things. Summaries literally everywhere. Please summarise this powerpoint. Please summarise this slack thread. Please summarise this really long meeting I was in because I spent the whole time going through the DamnThatsInteresting reddit thread. Oh, can AI summarise that? Does no one take the time to read things properly anymore!
Get Better At Your Computer If You Want To Be More Productive
If you really want to get 10x productive, or realistically 2x more productive then learn how to use your computer properly. Get a proper keyboard and learn how to type fast. Learn how to navigate around your machine with just your keyboard. Learn the tools you use everyday really well.
The amount of time I see people searching for things on their machines, fumbling around tools like they are seeing it for the first time or typing like a blind monkey just drives me insane. But you don’t hear any CEOs talking about that do you?! No, because that actually requires people to put in some effort.
Much better to focus on the magical AI which can make everything super duper productive just by writing prompts.
Conclusion
This has turned into a little bit of a rant but I think it needed to be said. I’m sick and tired of AI companies and high C level executives rubbing their hands together thinking about how much money they’re going to make because there is some tool which supposedly is a miracle worker.
And don’t be fooled, this is what it’s all about at the end of the day. MONEY.
“Use my magical tool and watch how magically productive you get and all your wishes will come true.”
Bullshit.
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