Anyone else feeling overwhelmed by AI changes and expectations at work?

[Eastie77Returns]

I work for a Tech company so AI is part of parcel of of my everyday job. I have a fairly niche role. The company is rolling out new AI advancements on what feels like a weekly basis. The problem is I just can't keep up. I'm not actually a techie as such, I fell into this sector by way of a non-technical role and now manage a team of people who are really into the weeds of coding, back end technical work etc. I'm new to know and understand how the tech works which is fine but I'm also required to show upper management how the team is deploying AI to do our day to day work and I'm struggling to get to grips with it all myself. We keep being told that tasks that used to take hours or days should now take minutes "if you are using AI correctly" and I'm being asked to show the skills my team is building to automate.

I end each day feeling completely exhausted. I also wonder if we are all heading towards to being replaced by AI sooner or later although I receive constant reassurance that teams like mine will be fine as humans need to be kept in the loop regarding the work we do (I do think that's true for now but won't be in the case in a couple of years).

I would love to leave and work in a bookshop and teach English as a Foreign Language - they are literally my dream jobs. However I'm trapped as I earn 6 figures, benefit from great perks and flexibility and have young children + mortgage so dropping down to a lower salary doesn't fell like an option. DP earns relatively little and has no intention of moving up the ladder.

Anyway, my career aspirations are by the by but my question is does anyone else feel this way about AI and their work?

If they want you to understand and use it they need to give you training.

Yes the aim is to ultimately replace the entire workforce with AI but I doubt for the benefit of everyday people. It will be for the benefit of the elite.

AI is coming for us all. And it will change the face of not just how we work, but our society at a fundamental level. Justice, medicine, education, finance, defence - everything.

How far people in power will let it get is currently unknown - and where it will level out to is a similar question mark. But I suspect it will get wildly out of control before any significant attempts are made to rein it in - at which point will we be able to stop it, or repair the damage?

Your job is to keep the people on your team happy and productive - that is good management and something AI cannot do.

Can you delegate these reports and presentations to members of your team who actually use it? Surely if they're the tech experts, they know how best to use it for themselves. Then you can present their reports to keep their salaries/benefits flowing. Or you can bring them in to explain and blind upper management with science - I'll bet they don't know how it works either.

I do wonder about AI in general. AI is based on human input and we know that to err is human. And I see so many errors all over the web that I'm not comfortable with other people's input ruling my life. DH was a chemistry expert and questioned AI extensively (for fun) only to determine that AI knew nothing and that following its suggestions would lead to explosion/fire at best.

In my previous job, teaching a niche language, I tried using AI but it wasn't any help at all. Management thought I was a dinosaur but AI hadn't been programmed by someone else to know anything about my subject.
In general I found it took as long or longer to 'programme' it to do anything - writing the question/request is so nuanced - that I might as well do the task - and I'm wary of its limited accuracy.
Others tell me it's amazing and saves them hours of time and effort but given it's known inaccuracy, I'm not sure how .. and media daily insists that all intellectual jobs will be obsolete (is that written by AI about itself for lazy journos?).

It is helpful in some respects but it will eventually stop all creativity because you will just rely on AI to come up with a solution. I am old and coming to the end of my career and I am glad about that.

Businesses will continue to plough money into AI at the expense of humans until a massive AI-led cyber attack shuts multiple systems down at once. Then all of a sudden the fuckers who decided this chaotic experiment at everyone’s expense was the way to go will be up shit creek without any old fashioned paddles to get them out of it.

I don’t work anymore.

but when my organisation rolled out a major change it was all senior management constantly asking for examples of how it was being used so they could reassure themselves.

just ask your team for examples.

everyone and his dog is doing AI now and some orgs are cutting back on it asit’s not immediately impacting business.

My experience has been that it was going to make our life easier. But then that meant we could do more in the same time. So now we are expected to do ten times as much work and everyone hates robots intervening every time you want to do something simple "would you like a summary from your ai assisstent" FUCK OFF CLIPPY

Agree that the more our company embraces AI, the more we’re expected to be able to get through in a day. And everyone’s generating 20 page AI reports that no-one has time to read and properly comprehend.

Likewise. I saw which way the wind was blowing and when my employer decided to implement a totally cloud-based ERP system with a random unfriendly accounts package bolted on the side and which (unlike every other accounts package known to man) came with no parameters or pre-set defaults and had to be totally user-configured, I threw in the towel and retired. Stuff that.

My team has a heavy workload so it’s not really an option to delegate writing up reports and presentations to them on top of everything else.

They know how to use the tools. The problem is we are being pushed to use new tools on an almost weekly basis. So they spend time learning how to use a particular AI Agent and then a week or so later are told to scrap that and use a new model. The constant churn is bewildering. The team is made up of smart, hardworking individuals who are able to do their jobs ‘manually’ perfectly well. The AI tools they have been told to deploy can actually hamper productivity as they often make mistakes that the team then has go and fix.

I expect there to be some major cock ups due to AI. People will get lazy and will not use their critical thinking and just blindly accept what AI churns out. People are already fed up with the modern workplace, so they will just do what is fast, not necessarily what is right

This is management covering their asses. They want to put a line on their cv about how they spearheaded a new AI initiative in a department of 100 people or 1000 people and drove 10x productivity and 50% increased output.

They are putting pressure on you to keep the pressure off themselves. Get the AI agents to write the reports for you. Have your team members report both what AI helped with and also the additional burdens and burnout danger it added.

This constant expectation to be doing more is getting silly and I empathise.

We are having it rammed down our throats in my department. Senior leaders seem to think it will lead to some magical innovation, but it all feels hugely performative. I hate copilot and it’s stupid suggestions. And they’ve just brushed aside ethical and environmental concerns. We’re a taxpayer funded service. It’s unhinged.

I have to trying to document issues and also tell senior leadership that unleashing AI in this way without a proper strategy is a recipe for disaster. All falls on deaf ears. Instead I’ve been told to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and other silly corporate mantras.