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causality0

I'm coming around to the idea that in general the more bullshit something is the easier it is for AI to disrupt.

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It is only a matter of time before ChatGPT learns how to ask:

1. What did you do yesterday?

2. What will you do today?

3. Any blockers?

To which ChatGPT could respond with:

1. titles of tickets moved within the past 24 hours

2. title of ticket in progress

3. No blockers right now

Not gonna lie, hooking up ChatGPT to Jira so I can query it via Slack or voice recognition would rule. It would certainly be quicker than the slow Jira UI.

All these hundreds-of-GB-memory, several-seconds-to-cold-load Bugzilla knock-offs should provide a second, read-only interface that's just HTML. It'd make them almost tolerable.

ChatGPT seems a little too clever to stick to that script, though. Soon it will learn to answer like the rest of us do:

1. What we discussed I was going to work on yesterday.

2. Continue to do my job.

3. Of course not. If I did, I would have made it known long before this.

They might also listen in on meetings, write a summary in a word doc that no one reads, and then adds tasks in whatever kanban one's company uses that you never look at.

Product Manager-aaS

They already do. I was surprised at how accurate the transcription of a recorded meeting came to be. Not sure what they used for transcription, the meeting was recorded in Teams.

The point of the DSU isn't to force the engineer to recite what they did, it's to inform the peers so people can coordinate. I also find that engineers are reluctant to admit being blocked or to ask for help at all. My team gets value from the DSU. I'm sorry if you think the DSU (or the role of SDM) is so useless that it ought to be automated away.

Yet when AI learned to wash dishes in the home (among other tasks), freeing up a homemaker's time to join the workforce, it seems the labor market absorbed the influx in people largely by creating bullshit jobs.

> Yet when AI learned to wash dishes

A pump, a motor and a timer

Let's not use "AI" to mean "machines."

Certainly not. Indeed, all AIs are machines, but not all machines are AI. The kitchen faucet that preceeded the dish washer as the primary tool used to wash dishes is a machine, but has no intelligence. The dish washer expanded upon the concept of the kitchen faucet by adding artificial intelligence to it.

By that logic a sprinkler system is “artificial intelligence” when compared to a garden hose. That’s not what the term means.

That's exactly what artificial intelligence means...

There is a secondary definition of AI that says basically an AI is anything that we haven't yet figured out how to do. Once we figure out how to do it, it ceases to be AI.

Indeed, terms can and do have multiple meanings, but I'm not sure that secondary definition fits the topic of discussion.

You’re being insincere. Let me guess, you’d say a can opener is artificial intelligence compared to a pocket knife?

That’s not the way anyone uses the term.

> you’d say a can opener is artificial intelligence compared to a pocket knife?

No. In that case the intelligence is applied by the user. A can opener could be a component in a larger AI system. An AI needs to be aware (in the artificial sense) of its surroundings.

Edit: I forgot that AI can openers do exist. The can opener I own is of the dumb machine kind and I hadn't fully considered what else might use that term. Yes, those are an AI.

> That’s not the way anyone uses the term.

Except when they do. Indeed, the "an AI is anything we haven't figured out yet" definition is about as common, but doesn't seem to be the definition that fits the topic at hand.

A third definition where AI is defined as an ANN seems to be emerging in popular culture, but again that doesn't really fit the topic at hand as a lot of the job-replacing intelligences are not based on ANNs.

I apologize for suggesting insincerity on your part. It’s just that I think there is such a thing as artificial intelligence and something simply being a more complex machine doesn’t qualify. Your definition is idiosyncratic but I recognize your earnestness.

> It’s just that I think there is such a thing as artificial intelligence

Perhaps you are actually thinking of what is more commonly known as AGI (artificial general intelligence)? None of these machines of which we have spoken of are AGIs. That I can agree with.

Hmmm, I suppose I'm interested in what you mean by bullshit. Just because AI makes something easier to do, doesn't mean the work is bullshit. Lots of research, composition, and communication work becomes much easier to do with an AI assist, but that doesn't mean the work is bullshit.

> I'm coming around to the idea that in general the more bullshit something is the easier it is for AI to disrupt.

> in general

Sorry, but I don't see how this is a clarifying response.

Research, composition, and communication are a big chunk of what ChatGPT is good at assisting. I don't know enough to claim that it /is/ the general case, but it's very likely not a minority.

And if that's the case, and these activities are not /essentially/ bullshit, then I'm still wondering how AI disruption can be claimed to be a reliable signal of bullshit.

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