Discussion summary
Discussions centered on the use of AI in communication, emphasizing quality over effort and concerns about authenticity. Some argue AI tools improve efficiency, while others worry about professionalism and job security.
What the discussion says
- Using AI can enhance efficiency and quality.
- Effort and authenticity are important in communication.
- Reliance on AI may impact job security.
- Use of AI should be owned and transparent.
“Use whatever tool does the job, and own it if it sucks.”
“If it's useful and doesn't waste my time, it's fine.”
Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- In any human relationship, nobody wants to be the one who noticeably makes more effort to communicate, keep in touch, resolve conflicts, and so on. The idea of reciprocity and fairness are deeply entrenched in our minds, and that of many other social animals. If they don't care about me, why should I care about them? It's the iterated prisoner's dilemma again – freeriding is equivalent to defecting.by Sharlin
- I'd say it's because we're tasking ourselves with dumb stuff. No one half-asses building a shelter that keeps their family alive, or throwing a new favorite bowl on the pottery wheel. But instead of that we're writing posts for Facebook etc etc so we can (???) profit. So of course we want bots to do this all this dumb stuff, and of course we get dumb results.by solfox
- I had a new colleague on the team, who I had to on-board. I gave him a few simple tasks, just to get him into the whole setup. He literally copy/pasted my task description into Claude and asked it to complete the task. To begin with, I didn't suspect this, so when he asked for more help, I gladly wrote up a detailed explanation with more information and detail for him to learn. Little did I know, he never read it but put it directly into Claude. Not even sure how I should handle it, but my first instinct was to get extremely annoyed.
Maybe this is just how things are going to be. But in that case, I'm done spending my time being a helpful idiot talking indirectly to a robot through another person.
by Silasdev - What I find strange is how rarely LLM output is distributed alongside the LLM input, especially outside of code repos. Why can't I rerun the prompt that resulted in your work next year, when models have gotten better? Are people ashamed of their prompts? Ashamed of having used AI? i unno
Prompt used to generate this message: "Create a comment for Hacker News which bemoans the lack of AI prompts being shared with the stuff it creates. Speculate on the reasons and create a call for engagement. Use quantum hyperthinking. End with a typo to prove your humanity."
by zetanor - It surprises me how many people have voluntarily relegated their entire job to LLM Prompter. If your work is indistinguishable from that of a machine, what’s to stop your boss cutting out the middleman and using the machine directly? I would have thought that people would be trying their hardest to prove their worth in this new world we’re in.by dabinat
- This exactly reflects my feelings lately. I have a specific coworker who has gone somewhat overboard - every single code review, answer to any question on email or Teams, every new story, even their personal opinions during a design or ideas meeting, are all direct AI output with no massaging or human touch or review. They're working on planning out an upcoming project, and I just get verbose and long documents to review, and based on the issues I find I doubt they are even looked over first beforehand.
I understand that the information may be accurate, even helpful at times, but feeling like I'm constantly talking to an AI chat bot all the time gets tiring. And I don't appreciate having to double-check everyone else's AI generated responses for them.
by treesknees - "Don't expend more effort than they are" has actually long been a good principle to have internalized. Someone done only cursory research before asking a question on a mailing list? Give a cursory answer. Someone obviously spent hours trying to figure things out on their own? Give them a good chunk of your time. Someone on HN responding to you with single-sentence responses? Either don't respond, or respond in kind. Someone obviously engaging with your ideas and taking time to explain their position? Take time to engage with their ideas too.by gwd
- A very prolific coworker who fully embraced claude has inflicted the team with a flood of AI-generated PRs. About six months later, it is his frequent bemoaning at the standup that their PR don't get reviewed, languishing in inattention. I don't think anyone - including myself - _intentionally_ avoid his PRs. It's just that he doesn't make it easy for the team to look at.
This single headline perfectly captures what I have been thinking. It's not that I reject AI content, but it takes _effort_ to review and weed out any mistakes. When your thoughtful reviews that take an hour(because the PR is typically large, and you want to be _right_ when you're pointing out a hallucination) gets an AI-generated response with AI-generated amendments, It doesn't feel _nice_. I feel dismissed and it has continuously trained me to subconsciously avoid his PRs. After all, the team is fully onboarded with AI, so it's not like there is a lack of PRs to review.
It looks like the sentiment isn't just isolated for me.
by niuzeta