Already facing scandal, the Washington Post’s new-ish CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, has announced that the newspaper will be pivoting to artificial intelligence to turn around its dismal financial situation.

    • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      C-suite types mostly interact with upper management, who tell them nothing but puffed up bullshit, which they spun from middle management, who tell them nothing but puffed up bullshit, etc.

      So sometimes I wonder if the reason they believe in AI so much is that it really is as competent as the people around them.

      • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        I have a similar suspicion about those terrible ai image facebook jesus posts, like the people posting them actually don’t notice the extra arms and legs

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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          6 months ago

          My all-time favorite is anything religious. Jesus freaks lecture the world that the bible is the “word of God” and they also proclaim stuff like “They follow every word of it.”

          Oh, yeah? The SUV-sized Holy Bibble has cops, soldiers, guns, and the like because that’s the holy text of Facebook 3:16?

      • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        I have a core memory of years ago, maybe a few months after I first started working my current white collar job.

        In passing, I had our controller (accounting VP basically) ask me how it was going, and I made some off the cuff remark about how something was having issues (but it was minor).

        He immediately grew concerned, pressed me on it a bit, and I was honest about it (but again, from what I recall it was pretty minor in the scheme of even day to day things). I had my immediate boss exasperatedly ask me later that day why I told this guy what I had

    • EnsignRedshirt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      It drives me insane! People keep talking about what AI is going to do while ignoring that it currently doesn’t do anything. Every application is just a tech demo or a needless augmentation of something that already existed. Anyone who has “lost their job” to AI was already going to be fired and got “we replaced you with AI” as an excuse. Nonsense all the way down.

      • TheBroodian [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        Same story as with nft’s, it was always tremendously obvious on its face to be an absolute scam that had no practical purpose or value, yet inflated to nonsensical proportions nevertheless - all of which was also incredibly infuriating to me

    • iridaniotter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      If I had to guess, the bosses see the glamorous PR videos the companies put out, tell their managers to get it done, and you end up with a large chain of people (and a time delay) between the people who have to use it and know it doesn’t do what people think it does, and the people demanding they use it because they think it’s real.

      • Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        I’m watching this play out in real time where I work. I was hoping that what it meant was they would train a neural net for making automated, semi-intelligent optimizations on our utility systems based on known inputs and usage patterns, but in reality it probably means a bunch of customer service people are about to get laid off for six months and then rehired or replaced when the magic bean[i]s don’t pan out as expected. The CTO will get a golden parachute and move on to greener pastures, and we’ll get some new asshole who is even more backwards than the last two, and rates will go up anyway because Texas will be too hot or too cold for a week, so everyone else must suffer.