Comment by fpaf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fpaf | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not saying that CEOs (or devs, for that matter) lie. But on AI I don't think we can rely on any self-reported results, positive or negative, based on surveys.

There is just too much incentive to say... no, to BELIEVE... both that AI yields 10x productivity that AI is useless.

I am swinging wildly between the two too, personally. The more time I spend with AI, the more I am developing this split personality where one part of me says "I hope this thing blows up before I lose my job and my children never have the chance to have an office job again" and the other one says "AI is actually not easy! You have to know how to use it well, deveop tools, plan, curate your context... This means I am acquiring useful skills here, tring to port Flappy Bird to COBOL".

And obviously, depending which side controls my cortex in that moment, I may err on the "AI is useless crap" or the "AI all the things!" side

I think an interesting analogy for what many of us are experiencing here is the phenomena of Doom Scrolling; deep down we know we should put it down (and go outside), but the immediate experience of it and the value it feels like it’s offering in the moment has you keep scrolling and scrolling.

Similarly many have reported a sense of say programming productivity but a more objective reflection later on reveals the myriad issues with constantly and subtly heralding in large quantities of lower quality code and blowing past any caution or rigourkus discipline that would come with the laying down of lines of code “by hand”.

I don't know.

I'm having coworkers resign due to AI mandates from upper management. Some of them are saying they are going to move on from the tech industry

It's not just doom scrolling. AI is having a substantial negative impact on some people

I have also decided to do this as soon as the burden of lying about my AI usage becomes too onerous. Right now at Cisco, there are no mandates, only very strong recommendations with the explicit threat of being "left behind" if you fail to comply. Some teams have included AI usage in their personal KPIs which affect bonuses and promotions, but mine fortunately has not.

Once the execs or my personal manager implement AI requirements, I'll have to start lying, which I really prefer not to do. If they start tracking, then I'll have to vibecode a script to make bullshit requests to the API each day. And if they start auditing, then I'll just check out (more than usual) and wait to be fired. They're only hurting themselves with this shit.

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