Hidde

I've now heard many examples of companies that actively make AI token usage part of perf reviews.

In some, you could perform otherwise perfectly, but fail to get promoted without token usage. So people are building systems just for the sole purpose of burning tokens.

Normal or utter bollocks?

May 8 at 2:04pmWeb
Show threadHiddeMay 8
is the industry ok?
Show threadDaniel AppelquistMay 8
@hdv no. This is not OK.
Show threadCris.May 8

@torgo @hdv

yeah, proper scary that.

Out of curiosioty Hidde, do you keep track of this stuff? Company policies influenced by AI adoption/misadoption?

Show threadHiddeMay 8
@crisverstraeten @torgo I do in my head, not publically as though I think it's important to say out loud that it is happening, I don't want to get anyone specific in trouble.
Show threadCris.May 8

@hdv @torgo not calling out names no certainly not :) but like just observations maybe.

I certainly agree that saying these things out loud is important.

Show threadPaul HebertMay 8
@hdv no
Show threadragmanMay 8

@hdv A friend of a friend was told by his manager that he _wasn't allowed_ to write code by hand, his manager wanted him to only use an LLM.

Which is mad.

Show threadKrzysztof HankiewiczMay 8
@ragman @hdv This is exactly what the place I work at is doing. Under the name of "spec-driven development", which boils down to tl describing the feature into the chatbot for it to generate markdown files. Which then itself reads, and then vomits out some garbage code. Which then I have to go through, and type in what's wrong, so it generates more garbage, while telling me how smart I am for noticing that an input should be labeled. Rinse and repeat several times. It adds the comments to a `learnings.md` file, which it totally ignores in further "work", just like it does with its `skills.md` and all the other garbage that's supposed to make it amazing and flawless, and it of course never does. It sucks every bit of joy I had left for working there.
But management is happy.
Show threadragmanMay 9
@kjhank @hdv What a nightmare. I hope it changes for the better soon.
Show threaddamianwalshMay 8
@hdv Deskilling needs improvement
Show threadFranMay 8
@hdv I was chatting about this the other day and recalled being told years ago I had to achieve 100% CPU usage. *sigh*
Show threadBart van LeeuwenMay 8
@hdv no wonder gen-z is interested in non AI workplaces. I had two conversations recently with young people who expressed that they chose a specific profession to not have to interact with AI.
Show threadMaxxMay 8
@hdv great idea, i will tell AI to create this script
Show threadKen FranqueiroMay 8
@hdv Having worked at a big tech company, I can't help but at least partly read this as yet another excuse to under-compensate employees who deserve promotions but aren't willing to sell their soul and/or play the BS game
Show threadJerry TrompMay 8
@hdv Utter bullocks. Looking for a new gig, this is on the top of my list to avoid.
Show threadPatrick CornelißenMay 8
@hdv Nothing beats a metric you can cheat for financial gain :-D (But what would be a good metric is: fewer tokens used for a task)
Show threadMichelle BarkerMay 8
@hdv I have friends at a very big tech company where that is the case. They are being told “Use AI or lose your jobs”, and also “Use AI so we can train the AI to do your jobs”
Show threadFuqiao XueMay 9
@hdv it is about as meaningful as promoting engineers by lines of code written.
Show threadPatrick3d ago
@xfq @hdv It is a terrible idea for the same reason paying firemen by how many fires they put out leads to consequences that are exciting.
Show threadJacques ChesterMay 9
@hdv nit pick: It isn’t “the industry”, it’s not “companies”, either. It’s management. Solely and entirely management.
Show threadDavid J. Atkinson2d ago
@jacques @hdv Who is giving management these ideas? Is there no criticism they will take seriously? It sounds like these managers do not know what they are managing. But that would be consistent with the history of software engineering. Sorry!
Show threadHidde2d ago
@meltedcheese note this is happening at most if not all of the big tech companies many of us use daily
Show threadJacques Chester2d ago
@meltedcheese @hdv mostly it’s other managers
Show threadDavid J. Atkinson2d ago
@hdv It means they have no other metrics to tell them if what they’re doing is on course or not.
Show threadKumar McMillan2d ago

@hdv it’s all bonkers right now. At Shopify they will call people out who waste tokens. My theory: token maxing schemes are also a way to set up a future system for *restricting* token usage when that day comes.

And, yes, token usage is currently rewarded at Shopify but the problem is they don’t have a better way (yet) to figure out who *isn’t* adopting the actual AI accelerators. Some accelerations you get are undeniable — no one knows what they’re doing but everyone has to at least try 🤷