The pet peeves thread

[Ma-ake]

@SkinyUte

From what I can tell, all of these senior leaders just threw this RFP into that system and asked if it would be a good fit for us to go after.

That’s just plain crazy. And lazy.

We’re using MS Copilot 365 which has been using the GPT engine from OpenAI from the outset, until recently when they added Claude as an engine option.

In the IT world, Anthropic’s Claude is pulling away from the others, which made the dustup between them & Department of War so wild. I’m sure many in the DOW never stopped using it. It’s simply better, fewer errors, much deeper insights.

(And hat’s off to Anthropic for not making their newest model publicly available, only giving it to IT vendors and large organizations who can use it to find & fix their cybersecurity deficiencies before the bad guys get ahold of it. As a reference, Claude Mythos found 271 bugs in the Firefox browser that were unknown to Firefox/Mozilla.)

It’s a bit unusual in the IT world for an established brand to be flipped, but Claude is doing that to Chat GPT. I can see it in Copilot because specifying Claude as the engine gives much better results… and it’s very slow, as everyone else is trying to use it, as well.

[3UteDad]

@Ma-ake

… AI don’t buy things, they don’t go see sunsets, they don’t congregate at vacation spots. They’re still tools.Will this be like the HAL 9000 and attack us? The possibility exists, but if Trump & Xi are talking with each other about AI as an emerging threat like nuclear weapons, I think the most extreme scenarios diminish the more the consensus rises it needs to be regulated and controlled.If a tidal wave is coming… get out your surfboard. I don’t mean this from the standpoint of trying to out-run everyone else to great wealth, I mean it’s coming and if you’re bright and concerned about the future… be aware, don’t bury your head in the sand. We need smart, reasonable people to help others get to a non-hellscape future.There’s a lot more to come, it will be bumpy but survivable (IMO)

I wouldn’t hold out hope on Trump having AI discussions with China. I honestly don’t think he has the mental capacity to grasp all the implications. I’m not intending to be political, but basing it on observations.

[Ma-ake]

@3UteDad

I wouldn’t hold out hope on Trump having AI discussions with China.

Agree.

I should clarify - I think that AI making its way on the agenda for Trump’s meeting with Xi reveals it’s a strategic issue. It may be on the agenda for the summit at a lower level, but… yeah, I don’t think Trump & Xi discuss it.

My hunch is the meeting Anthropic chair Dario Amodei had - along with Powell and Treasury Sec Bessent - with some of the major bankers about the cybersecurity risks their new AI model Mythos has revealed, make AI & cybersecurity a major issue.

The Silicon Valley libertarians prefer no regulation. It’s the gold rush, for them. China’s on the opposite end of the spectrum, and Europe is in between on the basic need for regulation.

Economically, I think we’re close to an inflection point in resetting the social compact, similar to the New Deal or Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal.

It’s one thing for blue collar folks to be displaced by technology, it’s at a different level when the professional class starts to get uncomfortable. I have an attorney friend - outside the great individuals here - who is really discomfited by what AI can do.

32 hour work week, anyone? What about 20? I rarely agree with Musk, but he makes a point in the debate. A lot of uncertainty in the nature of work and human beings’ role in it.

Elon Musk Predicts ‘Universal High Income’ Will Pay For Everything — How Much Would You Get?

[3UteDad]

@Ma-ake

32 hour work week, anyone? What about 20? I rarely agree with Musk, but he makes a point in the debate. A lot of uncertainty in the nature of work and human beings’ role in it.

I am a cynic when it comes to universal income resulting from AI. Much like Reagan’s trickle down economics, it’s a sales pitch made to the have-nots by the haves. There is little history of oligarchs sharing productivity gains with the working class. I have no trust in Musk’s projections.

[SkinyUte]

@3UteDad

There is little history of oligarchs sharing productivity gains with the working class.

+1,000, especially coming from Elmo.

The guy who thinks everyone should be working 80 hours weeks at minimum to be a productive citizen is suddenly open to proving a universal basic income? Yeah, right.

[HoopUte]

You’ve got that right. I have a little bit of experience talking with SpaceX employees and former employees, include company president Gwynn Shotwell. Basically a people mill. They hire young people excited by the Musk hype, beat them to a pulp, they quit, and the cycle repeats. Shotwell said to my face that, “… we’re cheap and a pain in the ■■■ to work with.”

[Ma-ake]

OK, mea culpa: Musk is an admittedly poor choice to reference, he’s a lightning rod for anger & anxiety.

What about Dario Amodei of Anthropic?

Everyone will need “to figure out how to operate in a post-AGI age,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said.

“Can we have a world where work doesn’t for many people, doesn’t need to have the centrality that it does, that people find their locus of meaning elsewhere?” he said onstage in December at The New York Times’ Dealbook Summit. “Or work is about different things? It’s more about fulfillment than it is about economic survival.”

Amodei said this future could very well resemble the technological unemployment that renowned John Maynard Keynes once thought might be possible.

“He suggested that maybe his grandchildren would only have to work 15 or 20 hours a week,” Amodei said. “That’s a different way of structuring the society.”

[Extra points for Amodei referencing Keynes.]

A Future Without Work? What AI leaders are Saying - Business Insider

NOTE: I definitely don’t worship at the feet of AI leaders, they have a distorted perception because of their place. But they do have some insight into where AI is headed and are starting to think through the ramifications for what that means for the rest of us, in terms of the nature of work.

My point is the future probably looked really bleak as people used to transportation based on horses - like at trolley square - saw automobiles become more reliable.

We’ve been in bleak times before - mine strikes here in Utah involving the National Guard putting them down by force, the conditions that led to child labor laws, etc.

There was a reset here in the US for the common man as Russia turned to communism. Teddy Roosevelt saw the need for reform, his cousin saw the same issues and addressed them.

I don’t expect things to be smooth, just pointing out we’ve been through difficult transitions before. Human history is one big transition, with periods of relative peace and prosperity blended in.

I’m just glad we’re not sending off sons & grandsons to war. It’s a struggle of a different type now, every bit as real.

[SkinyUte]

@Ma-ake

Everyone will need “to figure out how to operate in a post-AGI age,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said.

“Can we have a world where work doesn’t for many people, doesn’t need to have the centrality that it does, that people find their locus of meaning elsewhere?” he said onstage in December at The New York Times’ Dealbook Summit. “Or work is about different things? It’s more about fulfillment than it is about economic survival.”

Amodei said this future could very well resemble the technological unemployment that renowned John Maynard Keynes once thought might be possible.

“He suggested that maybe his grandchildren would only have to work 15 or 20 hours a week,” Amodei said. “That’s a different way of structuring the society.”

This would be pretty awesome, but it is so vastly against both human nature and ingrained capitalism that I have a hard time believing it could ever possibly happen. We’re talking several generations of deprogramming from “your worth is derived from your salary and how many hours per week you work” before we could even begin to have the discussion.

@Ma-ake

I’m just glad we’re not sending off sons & grandsons to war.

Given our current trajectory, I would put this possibility as far more likely than the other.

[Ma-ake]

@SkinyUte

This would be pretty awesome, but it is so vastly against both human nature and ingrained capitalism that I have a hard time believing it could ever possibly happen. We’re talking several generations of deprogramming from “your worth is derived from your salary and how many hours per week you work” before we could even begin to have the discussion.

Good point, and I think there is a sweet spot in terms of how much work - and what type of work / contribution - people make. It varies between people, but it’s definitely not zero. Work is like exercise for your brain, how you fit in, work families are similar to our literal familes.

I was barely alive when my great-grandmother passed, but my grandmother (who came of age in the 1920s) told me great-grandma was adamantly opposed to the 40 hour work week.

A woman of faith, and Irish Catholic, her opposition was on Biblical grounds.

“What kind of world would we have if God took 2 days off instead of just one? We’re deviating from the will of God”. Today that thinking seems way off, but it existed back then.

Of course, the majority saw the oligarchs of the 1920s becoming wealthy while others (literally) starved to death or lost the farm and had to move to the city, so the 40-hour work week was a common-sense adjustment to the social compact.

[RockerUte]

AI has been interesting for me - I always tell people it is the fastest and worst assistant you’ve ever had. There are things that it does that are downright magical, and then immediately after will struggle with the most basic of tasks.

For me, it has been a multiplier - my work hasn’t slowed, I can just take on way bigger projects than I used to and turn them around a lot faster - but it definitely needs someone experienced steering the ship. But I remain puzzled by the companies using it to be lazy, and the companies using it to lay off people. To me, it was, “Hey, we can do a lot more now,” like driving a car vs driving a wagon. Driving from SLC to Las Vegas became a feasible weekend, versus a treacherous slog you only did if you had to. Same with AI - now I can do THIS.

So any company laying off people is basically saying, “We don’t want to do more, we just want to cut costs.” Or, “We’ve lost all creativity.”

It’ll be changing as time goes on, and yes, some jobs will go away, but it’ll be the jobs nobody wanted anyway. Kind of like there isn’t a typing pool at your business anymore, or a secretary to take your dictation.

But like Skiny, I hate people being lazy with it - and that is happening a lot. Smart and hard-working people will figure out how to make them smarter and harder working, and the rest will follow suit and that’ll be the new norm.

[Ma-ake]

Commentary from Economist magazine I think many / most here agree with:

To some, the only good thing about work is the pay. “A job is where you don’t have fun,” says a character in “A Lie of the Mind”, a scorchingly sad play by Sam Shepard. But most Americans would disagree. In a Pew poll, 84% said their jobs were fulfilling most or some of the time. As someone who enjoys his job an indecent amount, I find the possibility of an AI jobs apocalypse terrifying. Even if artificial intelligence generates so much wealth that people can be compensated for their lost wages—which is more than plausible—where will they find a sense of purpose?

[3UteDad]

Hmmm, I had a hard time swallowing that job satisfaction metric quoted by the Economist, so I used ChatGPT to see for myself. According to ChatGPT, quoting a source from a Pew survey conducted in 2023, 51% of respondents said they were satisfied in their jobs. Maybe job fulfillment and satisfaction are different things.

My guess is the number would be lower if they took the same survey today.

[Ute_With_Dogs]

Weeds. The bastion of hell. However, the act of weeding is therapy. Who knew?

[NewbombTurk]

@Ute_With_Dogs

Weeds. The bastion of hell. However, the act of weeding is therapy. Who knew?

I knew.

[SkinyUte]

@Ute_With_Dogs

However, the act of weeding is therapy. Who knew?

Weeding might be my least favorite activity in the entirety of my existence. I truly despise weeding with every fiber of my being and hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.

So much so that I paid a fairly unreasonable sum of money this year to have a crew come in and simply rip out all the planting beds around my entire yard then cover the entire thing with landscaping fabric. Told Mrs. SkinyUte that I would very happily forego every single Christmas and Birthday present for several years if it meant that I did not have to spend significant time weeding this year.

[NewbombTurk]

@SkinyUte

I truly despise weeding with every fiber of my being and hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.

Don’t sugarcoat it. Tell us how you feel.

[Ma-ake]

@SkinyUte

Weeding might be my least favorite activity in the entirety of my existence.

Why would we ever want to kill one of God’s creations?

For me, weeding is like “Free Willy”.

“Good luck, friends. Winter is coming!”

[Greginslc]

Why are they bagging on weed.

[IrvingWashington]

@SkinyUte

Weeding might be my least favorite activity in the entirety of my existence. I truly despise weeding with every fiber of my being and hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.

So much so that I paid a fairly unreasonable sum of money this year to have a crew come in and simply rip out all the planting beds around my entire yard then cover the entire thing with landscaping fabric. Told Mrs. SkinyUte that I would very happily forego every single Christmas and Birthday present for several years if it meant that I did not have to spend significant time weeding this year.

At my place I consider weeds native plants.

[AbsoluteUte]

@Ma-ake

Why would we ever want to kill one of God’s creations?

For me, weeding is like “Free Willy”.

“Good luck, friends. Winter is coming!”

Last “Winter” produced more weeds than most springs