AI taking over in my place of work (not AI generated title!)

[FedupofAI]

AI is taking over in my place of work. Not only is AI taking over our actual jobs, but increasingly everything we write has to be ran through AI before we send it, so I no longer receive emails written by actual people. Example is my boss constantly sends AI messages and they sound nothing like how he actually speaks and expresses himself. Often these emails are not checked so actually full of errors which Claude or Co pilot just made up. Then you have to respond in the same AI language.
My appraisal this year was written using AI and again lots of things included just made up of AI and clearly manager had not checked before submitting to me to read.
If you say something against AI, you are seen as negative and “not embracing change”.

Of course I won’t be there for much longer as AI will take our jobs within a year anyway.

Just wanted an AI moan. All feels so dumb and demotivating.

Yes it’s depressing in many ways

Sounds like a lazy manager problem not an AI problem. He’s clearly lazy and not using it properly. Also weird you’re being pushed to push emails through AI before you send. Is this part of a wider corporate strategy or just him ?

Not just a lazy manager. Corporate strategy. I work a large global organisation and it’s everywhere.

My workplace isn’t as bad as this but we are under a lot of pressure to use AI and my boss is obsessed with it. For the most part, it’s still more effort than it’s worth especially when it comes to drafting documents and emails. My boss is always telling us to use it to draft briefings or papers or emails but it’s more time to review it and then correct everything it gets wrong and make it sound normal than it is to write it from scratch.

Do you think this over enthusiastic over adoption is a phase?

AI is a useful tool, but the (disproportionate) number of software developers in my life seem to be saying that although not using it is not an option, letting it do things by itself results ultimately in things that are not fit for purpose. (AI writes code, AI tests, AI prodices fixes, cycle repeats a few times, end product nevertheless remains unsatisfactory). At the moment at least a sentient human understanding is required to be very actively using the tool, rather than treating AI as a competent coworker ...

I work in a field where the core job is too human to be done by AI atm but I get the impression from real world friends, family and sonon that some companies/ management teams are falling over themselves to look up to date and potentially cut staffing costs but aren't understanding the limitations.

Additionally AI use is increasingly being billed by the token, so pointless usage to signal cleverness/ youth/ up to date attitude where a human could actually do the task faster directly will become a pointless expense.

No I think people who work in companies like mine who are already quite advanced in AI usage are too busy trying to hold on to their job to speak up against it much and people whose jobs are not affected by AI yet, don’t realise how advanced it is now and don’t see what’s coming.

DH and I run our own company and I’m currently consulting for a third party via a middle man company. We have been selected precisely for our in depth business experience and knowledge in the relevant field. I wrote a whole raft of tech spec docs for the project and, on a call yesterday, Middle man company asked if they could be run through AI to simplify because they didn’t understand them (and would want it presented to the end user in that form). Er, that’ll be a no. You don’t understand them because you don’t have the knowledge - that’s why you’re paying me. AI may be intelligent but its misuse is certainly dumbing down the human brain.

Interesting. Can you say anything about your field without feeling you're revealing too much? Broad area? I ask partly because my youngest hasn't chosen career direction yet!

It sounds as though your company (or your manager, at least) isn't doing enough to promote responsible use of AI. Do you have an AI policy and have you all been trained in using AI? Not just the nuts and bolts, but how to use it effectively and ethically? If not to one or both, could you offer to take responsibility for it? It's a good thing to have on your CV, if you do end up job-hunting!

Best look for a new job now, before people start getting laid off in the 100s from ai. It's so dumb, companies don't seem to understand people are avoiding companies who use ai like that.

Don’t check the emails and follow it word for word even if it’s a mistake then blame it on the manager use of AI

I feel there will be an AI bubble burst soon, I really hope there is and then what’s any good will get left behind. A lot of people I work with (in a professional company) really don’t seem to understand (or want to acknowledge) that there is more ‘bad’ AI out there than ‘good’ and caution is very much needed.

The thing is, they will have spent so much on Co Pilot, or whatever, and the CEO needs to show it is being used.

I'm perfectly literate so wouldn't bother - but I can see others might benefit.

Bit like the "dot com" boom - there is going to be a crash, and then AI search etc will become the new normal.

I've spent 25 years putting invoices on the computer - and it hasn't really changed that much :)

I work for a global American bank. Starts with a C 😛

Well apparently it's going to take over the world if you believe some of the other threads on here... but similar to you I find it often need correcting or refining if you use it, and I'm not convinced I couldn't just do a better job of it in the first place...

Does anyone know what are the jobs that will be replaced by AI and what jobs will be safe?

I work for a local authority, so not a particularly cutting edge organisation and I work in a particular “human centered” part of the organisation but AI is seen as the be all and end all amazing tool. Most of us just ignore it where possible and do things the old ways and keep using our own brains and experience. I’m glad I’m retiring soon to focus on community work where actual people’s input is still valued.

I asked it to draft me an assessment document for pupils at school. Wanted to see what it did differently to me - it made fundamental errors (such as including assessment for language not present in the original text it was asked to work from). It can't be trusted, so everything has to be checked. Might as well
just do it yourself.

Havent there been cases where barristers have been disbarred because they've relied on AI and AI has made up information which the barrister then tried to use in court?

Completely safe jobs will be trades. AI isn't going to cut your hair or tile your bathroom. Computer-based jobs will adapt. Accountants don't do sums in ledgers any more, they use accounting software. It will be the same with AI: basic AI literacy will be an expected core skill. How to write a good prompt, how to use one tool to check another tool's work, how to review for machine-to-machine or machine-to-human communication, how to check the assumptions and sources used to generate the output.

Experience and expertise will be valued. Entry-level and junior jobs will take a hit, before we hit a crunch where there aren't enough people coming up through the ranks and we start investing in early career development again. It scares me for my aspiring economist DS, but all I can do is teach him to be AI-savvy.

I was talking to my incoming boss about it. I work in my second language, and at first I liked using AI transcription of client meetings. But then when I had to write something it felt harder, so I realised I had to stop using it for everyday things. He is of the opinion: it is a tool - use it if it helps if not don't.

I use it a lot at work (lawyer). It’s great for producing a first draft, putting a legal explanation into plain English for clients, research etc. We won’t need as many support staff in the future, I think. But most of ours are approaching retirement, so we are planning to keep them, but not replace

I think you are partially wrong. It’s not just entry level and junior jobs being hit. It’s not long until you don’t have to check AIs work as the really sophisticated AI will do most things better than humans. I would have written your post 3 months ago too, but I see how fast it’s moving and it’s scary.

AI is going to decimate our already bad critical thinking ability.

I use AI when writing emotive emails to strip out emotions. Those emails tend to be a few sentences. Bare facts and outcomes. Any more than a paragraph and AI will introduce errors.

If a customer can not understand a email without AI that speaks volumes of their intelligence. Through out my carer in IT I had to explain very technical stuff to non IT professionals. It's very easy to omit everything but what they understand and see already as end users. Occasionally if I needed to say "if you try to run a report on the entire UK with very fine detail you will use the entire processor bandwidth and therefore bring the system to crawl / crash it for the whole of the UK". So a high up customer should have to ability to work that out. Has he never had a small child to explain things too? Put finger in plug you go boom......🤣

Interesting. If you have pre-job market DC, what would you advise them to do?

I genuinely don’t know. I also have children and would like to be able to dish out some good advise for them too.