[COFF] [TUHS] Re: A thing I did (AI Slop Alert)

[Seth Morabito via COFF]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2026, at 11:20 PM, Arnold Robbins via TUHS wrote:
> Mary Ann Horton via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>
>> Many in this group are retired, so we may not be aware of what the 
>> business world is doing.
>>
>> Many large corporation executives have told their workers "Embrace AI. 
>> Use it or get left behind." The reason is that their competitors are 
>> embracing AI, and their company will be at a competitive disadvantage if 
>> they don't do the same. Software developers, in particular, are being 
>> pushed to partner with AI, as a productivity aid.
>
> This is quite true. I hear this from friends and former colleagues.
> I also have heard from one person that productivity results that are
> reported up the management chain are, inflated, shall we say?
> (At a VERY large software company that shall remain nameless.)
>
> Fortunately, I retired just before being forced to use AI at work
> became a thing, so I'm happy.

[Reply re-directed to COFF]

The divide between "Embracing AI" and "Rejecting AI" doesn't appear to correlate very strongly with age so far in my experience, and I'm still trying to puzzle out what it DOES correlate strongly with, if anything. I'm just not sure. I've discussed it at length with friends and acquaintances and colleagues across the tech industry, and people who are very much against LLM use and people who are very much in favor of LLM use seem to span the age range from their 20s to their 60s and beyond.

I have many objections to the current generative AI landscape, but I'm lucky enough that at my current employer we're not being pushed to use it very strongly. Some engineers, do, some don't, there's not much pressure either way and I like that. My objections are twofold: Ethical (I hate the companies that are driving this adoption and find them to be morally bankrupt in a way we haven't seen since the Robber Baron era), and practical. The practical one is where I find a big divide. For me, the LLMs remove the fun part of the job, and leave the tedious part of the job. I suspect that's exactly the opposite for people who are embracing LLMs, they probably find what I find fun to be tedious, and the other way around.

Anyway, I'm not quite able to retire yet, I'm only 53, but I'm trying to find my way out of the tech industry, because it certainly is not fun any more!

-Seth
-- 
  Seth Morabito * Poulsbo, WA * https://loomcom.com/