Yeah, it is hard grasping why online commenters that are fans are fans, but in my real world interactions, I get a better feel for it.
The people that are all in on the AI, slop and all, are the people I really found annoying to begin with. They tend to think everyone is desperate to hear what they say, that verbosity is king, and generally don’t really know what they are talking about. They are the sort that would spend a ton of time fretting over some ‘design document’ that when finally shared is absolutely nothing actionable, despite 10 pages with of gorp. Any specific outcome has nothing to do with the document, but they’ll take credit for “thought leadership” if it works, and blame the “inadequate team” if it fails. They are used to and cherish verbose yes men and are used to making vague statements and getting results they can’t judge already.
Or on the other end, people who endlessly fell for clickbait. Slop before AI was really a factor in slop. People forwarding those chain letters back in the day.
The people I have held long respect for tend to range between “too annoying to even deal with” to “it’s a little useful in key circumstances”. I have yet to personally meet someone I had long respected who went all in on AI.
The insidious thing is I’m pretty sure they both outnumber and tend to have more power. Those folks who “thought lead” without actionable direction nor even a vague understanding of how the work happens? Those are the ones that got promoted, with the good ones largely overlooked for promotions, mainly because at a certain point promotion requires “professional networking” and making the executives happier with themselves than it is about good work. Now we are in a position where those people who never “got” the work are telling themselves that the LLMs can replace those annoying “nerds” that have leverage over them, and if there’s one thing they can’t stand, it’s having people they don’t understand having anything looking like leverage over them.
Yeah, it is hard grasping why online commenters that are fans are fans, but in my real world interactions, I get a better feel for it.
The people that are all in on the AI, slop and all, are the people I really found annoying to begin with. They tend to think everyone is desperate to hear what they say, that verbosity is king, and generally don’t really know what they are talking about. They are the sort that would spend a ton of time fretting over some ‘design document’ that when finally shared is absolutely nothing actionable, despite 10 pages with of gorp. Any specific outcome has nothing to do with the document, but they’ll take credit for “thought leadership” if it works, and blame the “inadequate team” if it fails. They are used to and cherish verbose yes men and are used to making vague statements and getting results they can’t judge already.
Or on the other end, people who endlessly fell for clickbait. Slop before AI was really a factor in slop. People forwarding those chain letters back in the day.
The people I have held long respect for tend to range between “too annoying to even deal with” to “it’s a little useful in key circumstances”. I have yet to personally meet someone I had long respected who went all in on AI.
The insidious thing is I’m pretty sure they both outnumber and tend to have more power. Those folks who “thought lead” without actionable direction nor even a vague understanding of how the work happens? Those are the ones that got promoted, with the good ones largely overlooked for promotions, mainly because at a certain point promotion requires “professional networking” and making the executives happier with themselves than it is about good work. Now we are in a position where those people who never “got” the work are telling themselves that the LLMs can replace those annoying “nerds” that have leverage over them, and if there’s one thing they can’t stand, it’s having people they don’t understand having anything looking like leverage over them.