It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our tech columnist
I think you’re making a strawman argument here. He isn’t arguing that it’s a binary switch that has failed to throw, he’s arguing that we don’t have compelling evidence that the ends justify the means:
In other words, corporate leadership is starting from the premise that AI has (or will) radically change the business, and they’re working backwards from that premise to find the evidence to support this article of faith.
And this is completely true! Supposedly “data informed” organizations are trying to find a yardstick that shows actual, meaningful improvement in business outcomes from AI. In my own organization we have people touting LOC yet again because “big number”, but anyone who’s ever worked in software can tell you it’s an asinine metric to use as a KPI.
It’s inherently unscientific to start with the answer and work backwards to a satisfactory question. His point that this push is coming from the least knowledgeable of real processes- and more closely resembles religious fervor than business acumen- seems to at least warrant consideration.
The world is full of people who insist that “AI is changing everything” but who – when pressed – have to admit that what they mean is that they’re pretty sure that AI will change everything.
If Donald Trump ordered Big Tech to turn off all of your country’s chatbots tomorrow, nothing would change. Every one of your country’s ministries and corporations would chug on with nary a hitch. Households, too, though perhaps a few of the younger members of those families would have to do their own homework again.
He is definitely pretending that change is either on or off.
Are CEOs jumping the gun on how quickly they adopt AI into workflows? Definitely. However, there’s a big difference between “AI isn’t at a threshold where it is disruptive” and “AI isn’t disruptive”. Or, to belabor the metaphor: CEOs are jumping the gun, but the race is about to start and they’re on the correct track.
A key word in that sentence is “if”, it is a rhetorical example, that’s probably pretty much correct at this point. It’s not a recommended course of action, it’s a declaration that it contrary to crazed hype, it isn’t currently as core to everything as would be befitting the current hype level.
I would argue that the CEOs aren’t on the correct track, they aren’t really in a particularly specific trajectory. I just had a debate with someone on this and their stance was “well in a hundred years do you expect things to be like they are”. My response “I cannot possibly speak to that, but we need to speak to today instead of pretending we know how things will be in a hundred years and pretending they are already at that level”. The “imagine a hundred years from now” by a relative outsider to the tech is dominating CEO mindset, and that’s problematic.
Once the bubble pops, we will almost certainly see a more durable and sane adoption for these technologies. For now, the hype is a problem as it enables some of the worst possible stewards of the technology and favors grift over progress.
If you watch a full podcast (he has done a ton in the last couple weeks), he clearly identifies AI as not a mere hype technology, as something interesting and potentially useful from a technology perspective, and he definitely doesn’t conflate a chatbot with all AI. That doesn’t undermine the vast problems with it, how it’s being used against regular workers, the threat the bubble poses to the economy, the criti-hype cycle, etc.
I think you’re oversimplifying “Cory Doctorow” based on the article you’re reading or specifically how he presents a more complex idea to different audiences.
Watch the Jon Stewart podcast interview if you want more nuance:
I think you’re making a strawman argument here. He isn’t arguing that it’s a binary switch that has failed to throw, he’s arguing that we don’t have compelling evidence that the ends justify the means:
And this is completely true! Supposedly “data informed” organizations are trying to find a yardstick that shows actual, meaningful improvement in business outcomes from AI. In my own organization we have people touting LOC yet again because “big number”, but anyone who’s ever worked in software can tell you it’s an asinine metric to use as a KPI.
It’s inherently unscientific to start with the answer and work backwards to a satisfactory question. His point that this push is coming from the least knowledgeable of real processes- and more closely resembles religious fervor than business acumen- seems to at least warrant consideration.
He is definitely pretending that change is either on or off.
Are CEOs jumping the gun on how quickly they adopt AI into workflows? Definitely. However, there’s a big difference between “AI isn’t at a threshold where it is disruptive” and “AI isn’t disruptive”. Or, to belabor the metaphor: CEOs are jumping the gun, but the race is about to start and they’re on the correct track.
A key word in that sentence is “if”, it is a rhetorical example, that’s probably pretty much correct at this point. It’s not a recommended course of action, it’s a declaration that it contrary to crazed hype, it isn’t currently as core to everything as would be befitting the current hype level.
I would argue that the CEOs aren’t on the correct track, they aren’t really in a particularly specific trajectory. I just had a debate with someone on this and their stance was “well in a hundred years do you expect things to be like they are”. My response “I cannot possibly speak to that, but we need to speak to today instead of pretending we know how things will be in a hundred years and pretending they are already at that level”. The “imagine a hundred years from now” by a relative outsider to the tech is dominating CEO mindset, and that’s problematic.
Once the bubble pops, we will almost certainly see a more durable and sane adoption for these technologies. For now, the hype is a problem as it enables some of the worst possible stewards of the technology and favors grift over progress.
If you watch a full podcast (he has done a ton in the last couple weeks), he clearly identifies AI as not a mere hype technology, as something interesting and potentially useful from a technology perspective, and he definitely doesn’t conflate a chatbot with all AI. That doesn’t undermine the vast problems with it, how it’s being used against regular workers, the threat the bubble poses to the economy, the criti-hype cycle, etc.
I think you’re oversimplifying “Cory Doctorow” based on the article you’re reading or specifically how he presents a more complex idea to different audiences.
Watch the Jon Stewart podcast interview if you want more nuance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAIJRjb-Bw