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Comment by iLoveOncall | Hacker News Reader

I'm a software engineer at Amazon and I'm directly and indirectly involved a lot in programs related to GenAI tooling.

I can safely say this article is bullshit. While there are a lot of programs ongoing to allow builders to adopt GenAI tooling, and while there is definitely a lot of communication ongoing around those programs, nobody is, at all, forced to use any of the AI tools. None are installed by default or enabled by default anywhere, and everyone is free to completely ignore them.

That said, is there an increase in expectations? Yes. But that's just normal Amazon in an employer's market, and has nothing to do with LLMs and GenAI.

The comparison to Microsoft where we can witness in public the .Net maintainers fighting with the shit code generated by Copilot on their repos is ridiculous. Amazon is probably one of the companies pushing the least and being the most prudent about GenAI adoption.

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If you truly believe what you’re saying, then you’re uninformed as to what is going on outside your own team. And just because it’s not happening in your team does not mean it isn’t happening.

Q is installed by default in all browsers on Amazon laptops now, and literally cannot be uninstalled. If you don’t have it installed in your IDE, you get a non-dismissible popup nagging you to install it until you do. Many teams are being told they must use AI every single day (some VPs have sent out org-wide emails saying that AI must be used), and engineers have to tell their managers how they are making use of it day-to-day. In my org, OP1 docs must include at least one section about how the team will increase use of AI. Hackathons aren’t allowed to happen anymore unless they are AI-themed. I could keep going. Amazon is absolutely forcing AI usage, and the article undersells how egregious it is.

Somehow you're dismissing my post saying it's based on my own anecdotical experience while providing your own anecdotical experience and just hearsay.

There is absolutely no company-wide mandate to use GenAI. If some SDM is pushing it on his SDEs, that's an outlier and on that person alone.

Your comment stated “nobody is, at all, forced to use any of the AI tools”, which is entirely false - I’m looking at an email in my inbox from my VP right now saying everyone must use AI every day.

You said “None are installed by default or enabled by default anywhere” - this is also false. I’m looking at an installed by default (and uninstallable) AI browser addon on my work laptop right now.

It’s not hearsay, you’re either commenting in bad faith or you’re just clueless about what’s going on at your own company.

> There is absolutely no company-wide mandate

And now you’re just moving the goalposts.

> There is absolutely no company-wide mandate to use GenAI.

There is an STeam goal for adoption and usage. There is a QS dashboard for SDMs to see statistics on their org's adoption and abandonment rates. There is BT guidance being propagated out to VPs and directors on how to roll out programs. As placardloop said, there was a mandatory OP1 FAQ question on GenAI usage.

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