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

[Steffen Nurpmeso via COFF]

Seth Morabito via COFF wrote in
 <52e0abdf-ead9-43f7-ada5-7a69b02dba7f at app.fastmail.com>:
 |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!

It is just another race, and that alone, and necessarily, i would
say, results in wrong direct(ion|ive)s.
If it would be sensitive, it would possibly have been done like
the Iter project.

And windmill farms, with hydrogen electrolysis, and solar panels,
ditto (maybe), would have been created where it makes sense, to
generate the necessary electricity, and dedicated computing grids
would have been spread around the globe where nature offers
a splendid environment for that.  (Arctic circle.)
Then scientists etc would use these facilities for things that
make sense, riding in their <=200 horsepower fuel cell car that
they drive for a decade or longer.

Here we now approach almost maximum coverage of our fusion thing.
(That i personally approach more from the spiritual side,
actually, and love the summer light and warmth, in a totally
unscientific and untopheavy way.)

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)