Post by @EFreethought@universeodon.com

2026-03-24 20:58 UTC

@AmyZenunim If gen AI is so awesome, why are companies mandating it? Shouldn't its value just become obvious? I am reminded of something Tim Bray wrote about blockchain years ago: " I’m an old guy: I’ve seen wave after wave of landscape-shifting technology sweep through the IT space: Personal computers, Unix, C, the Internet and Web, Java, REST, mobile, public cloud. And without exception, I observed that they were initially loaded in the back door by geeks, without asking permission, because they got shit done and helped people with their jobs. That’s not happening with blockchain. Not in the slightest. Which is why I don’t believe in it." Quote from https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/05/13/Not-Believing-in-Blockchain

Replies (3)

@tshirtman@mas.to 2026-03-25 09:57

@EFreethought @AmyZenunim not all companies mandate it, the company i work for makes it as easy as possible to pick up, and encourages usage, but there is no mandate of any kind, devs are trusted to use the tools to suit the job, and many use it, with the understanding that it’s a tool, if it messed up and we let it though, we messed up. Many devs, experienced or not, happily use it. And indeed, here it was asked for and pushed in by devs. Mandating it is stupid and counter productive.

Open ##1293004
@mhz@piaille.fr 2026-03-25 15:51

@EFreethought @AmyZenunim I read this post and only this post, and till the end I was convinced it was about AI. Funny

Open ##1293006
@distractal@hachyderm.io 2026-03-25 16:11

@EFreethought @AmyZenunim I know this is a rhetorical question, but I think there are two aspects to it. First, is that tech under capitalism but more specificially under * bros (tech, finance, etc) has become so utterly bureaucratized and middle-manned and anti-worker and wealth-transfer-y and generally just SHIT that a huge portion of everyday work is just shoveling shit around. Second, is that the * bros square-peg-round-holed LLMs into a thing that "just works" and "saves time" when it really just changes the mode and appearance of the shit shoveling, and actually creates enough of its own shit to more than compensate for the amount of shit it's automatically shovelling (assuming that shit is even shoveled kind of OK in the first place). Since that extra shit is not immediately visible to many people and will only be found months or years down the line, it's seen as an incredible timesaver. And this of course discounts all of the ethical/environmental and cognitive decline issues with it. So they literally created the problem, created a new problem to solve the old problem that results in an even bigger problem, and then with their vast wealth have been continually and perpetually trying to sell the new problem as a solution. It's ponzi schemes, all the way down.

Open ##1293007