Mariya DelanoNov 14

I’ve been testing a theory: many people who are high on #AI and #LLMs are just new to automation and don’t realize you can automate processes with simple programming, if/then conditions, and API calls with zero AI involved.

So far it’s been working!

Whenever I’ve been asked to make an AI flow or find a way to implement AI in our work with a client, I’ve returned back with an automation flow that uses 0 AI.

Things like “when a new document is added here, add a link to it in this spreadsheet and then create a task in our project management software assigned to X with label Y”.

And the people who were frothing at the mouth at how I must change my mind on AI have (so far) all responded with resounding enthusiasm and excitement.

They think it’s the same thing. They just don’t understand how much automation is possible without any generative tools.

Show threadIsaac Ji KuoNov 14

@mariyadelano It's because they aren't computer programmers and I define "computer programmers" to be "the laziest people on Planet Earth."

No one else puts so much effort into automating something, to avoid a small amount of effort.

Show thread Antonius Marie ⚧

@isaackuo @mariyadelano Meme of person turning away at option A, then pointing happily at option B:

A: Spend three hours Doing The Thing
B: Spend four hours writing a script to automate Doing The Thing

Nov 14 at 3:53pmWeb
Show threadIsaac Ji KuoNov 14

@melindrea @mariyadelano Yep. But from my point of view, it makes sense.

The thing is ... it's not just about the time and the tedium. It's about actually doing the task correctly. If I'm doing the same thing over and over for three hours, how likely is it I'm going to do it 100% correctly with no mistakes?

I'm more confident of the script getting it done right.

Show thread Antonius Marie ⚧Nov 14
@isaackuo @mariyadelano Yes, agreed on that too. It's a lot likelier that my script to, say, "copy 500 bits of data from here to there" won't make a brain fart, whereas when I'm getting to bit 100 *my* brain will be looking for any distraction.
Show threadMidgePhotoNov 14

@melindrea @isaackuo @mariyadelano
There's an xkcd of course.

A more measured response is option C:
Given a 3 hour job likely to be recurrent spend an hour writing and testing a script to do half of it.

Next time, spend an hour writing a script to do half the remainder.

Show threadjackNov 14

@melindrea @isaackuo @mariyadelano but you learn so much while doing option B, and the next week you can apply that knowledge to something else...

literally happened to me this week. I had to investigate as many as several dozen rows of a user activity audit log, the relevant parts of which are in an XML column. rather than spend several minutes looking at raw XML I learned how to parse the relevant bits into columns and rows in T-SQL and show the relevant data without surrounding boilerplate in a single view. then I used the same technique to analyse a bunch of data in a different table for a completely different purpose

Show threadIsaac Ji KuoNov 15
@jackeric @melindrea @mariyadelano I gets a sads whenever I see XML in a SQL table field, but ... oh well ... I've been there, were it's the most sensible way to deal with the data.
Show threadjackNov 15
@isaackuo @melindrea @mariyadelano oh this database is full of things to make you feel sad... the designer made a hobby of naming columns and tables with SQL keywords, and seemed to consider database normalisation to be a passing fad
Show threadRowdyNov 14
@melindrea @isaackuo @mariyadelano https://xkcd.com/1205/
Is It Worth the Time?

xkcd
Show threadRegan KingNov 16
@_rowdy @melindrea @isaackuo @mariyadelano well, the one day a year saved creating a snowflake automation saves me the 30 minute slack back and forth + addtl time getting back to the interrupted work because I mis-copied a data point which happens a couple times in 56 weeks.
Show threadCheckmiteNov 15

@melindrea @isaackuo @mariyadelano

Okay fine - if we're talking about people who don't want to learn to program or don't want to spend the time, so they ask ChumpXYZ to write a script for them to use on their own computer, I don't even care. Go nuts.

The real problem IMO happens when these folks, who aren't programmers, who don't want to be programmers, who are completely uninterested in programming, nevertheless insist on being allowed to contribute to projects.

Show thread Antonius Marie ⚧Nov 15
@checkmite @isaackuo @mariyadelano I'm not entirely sure how that relates to this particular part of the thread? All three of us that were in it are people who don't use generative AI for our automation needs, we write the actual scripts ourselves.
Show threadCheckmiteNov 15

@melindrea @isaackuo @mariyadelano

It's not really refuting you, moreso the meme in certain situations.