AI in the Workplace

[Nymzee]

Couldn't find a suitable/similar thread, but just wondering if anyone is starting to be concerned by the heavy usage of AI in their workplace.

I work in the construction industry but more project management/controls side of things and I am astounded at how many emails and reports I am receiving that have clearly got chatGPT's sweaty fingerprints all over it.

There's a young girl in my company that's recently been nominated for Apprentice of the Year for her portfolio work and I know for a fact it has all come from chatGPT.

I don't use AI myself as I think once I start I won't stop and I'm dumb enough as it is these days just from access to Google.

Anyone else a little unnerved by how dominating it's becoming? Does your company have ways to detect usage of AI?

Hell, even MS Teams keeps telling me to use their inbuilt Copilot system just when I'm chatting to someone.

 

[ste d' indica]

Some interesting if massively overstated potential but we're gonna create a generation that's sacked off thinking and I can't see that ending well.

 

[Nymzee]

Some interesting if massively overstated potential but we're gonna create a generation that's sacked off thinking and I can't see that ending well.

This is my worry. I already can barely do simple math these days due to Google/Excel doing it all for me.

 

[COYBL25]

It’s going to put a lot of people out of work too.

 

[verreauxi]

Couldn't find a suitable/similar thread, but just wondering if anyone is starting to be concerned by the heavy usage of AI in their workplace.

I work in the construction industry but more project management/controls side of things and I am astounded at how many emails and reports I am receiving that have clearly got chatGPT's sweaty fingerprints all over it.

There's a young girl in my company that's recently been nominated for Apprentice of the Year for her portfolio work and I know for a fact it has all come from chatGPT.

I don't use AI myself as I think once I start I won't stop and I'm dumb enough as it is these days just from access to Google.

Anyone else a little unnerved by how dominating it's becoming? Does your company have ways to detect usage of AI?

Hell, even MS Teams keeps telling me to use their inbuilt Copilot system just when I'm chatting to someone.

My uni students use chatgpt and other AI just to write an email to me!! WTF, it's just an email. I actually got an email, clearly written by chatgpt, that ended with "Sincerely, [insert your name]"

As I try to tell them: If you use AI to do your job, eventually you will be replaced by AI at your job.

AI is the biggest existential threat to the global workforce in history.

[edit: my colleague's son got a great job at Google with a very nice salary after they graduated from college; his team's duties were to check all the computer code before it was launched publicly by Google. One day their boss walked in and said they were all being let go and gave them 2-weeks notice. The reason given was that what their team could do in, say 3 weeks, AI could do in about 10 minutes. He is now waiting tables in San Francisco or something]

 

[Nymzee]

My uni students use chatgpt and other AI just to write an email to me!! WTF, it's just an email. I actually got an email, clearly written by chatgpt, that ended with "Sincerely, [insert your name]"

As I try to tell them: If you use AI to do your job, eventually you will be replaced by AI at your job.

Do you use AI-checker tools to verify the work they submit or is it not possible?

It does alarm me that people could be getting decent degrees and haven't even worked for it in the end.

 

[Daytripper]

For research purposes i think it will be useful as it evolves.

From a creative standpoint like Films and Video Games, I am not that keen.

As @COYBL25 said, it will put a lot of people out of work. Microsoft have already started doing it by letting go up to ten thousand staff over the last eighteen months.

 

[Swartzy]

What's it going to do to youth of today, what is learning if the answer is a click away..

 

[Daytripper]

What's it going to do to youth of today, what is learning if the answer is a click away..

You also have to consider the social aspects, it could create an avalanche of introverts and hermits . People choosing to talk to AI rather than interact with people or look for a partner when they have something that tells them what they want to hear. A bit like the Joaquin Phoenix film Her.

 

[verreauxi]

Do you use AI-checker tools to verify the work they submit or is it not possible?

It does alarm me that people could be getting decent degrees and haven't even worked for it in the end.

Yeah, we can, but students are savy enough to get around it.

It will absolutely change higher education (and schooling in general) for the worse, as there will be tons of degrees conferred to lazy idiots who used AI to "earn" it, but as things move more and more online, how could you ever ferret these people out if they are using AI to generate just about everything with their job, including emails, online team chats, and reports/tasks? They only way you could ascertain their dumbassery is via in-person convos.

It has totally changed how we assign research papers...basically many profs have switched to in-class writing assignments. Because if you give students a choice of topics for a research paper and, say, 2 weeks to turn it in, they just use AI to generate the paper and then modify it enough to cover up their use of AI. If I then submit that research paper to an "AI checker" basically I get back a statement saying the paper *could* have been written by AI but it is not for certain.

 

[COYBL25]

For research purposes i think it will be useful as it evolves.

From a creative standpoint like Films and Video Games, I am not that keen.

As @COYBL25 said, it will put a lot of people out of work. Microsoft have already started doing it by letting go up to ten thousand staff over the last eighteen months.

It`s very bad news for the likes of clerical professions and the legal professions, as it`ll render a lot of what they do redundant.

 

[verreauxi]

You also have to consider the social aspects, it could create an avalanche of introverts and hermits . People choosing to talk to AI rather than interact with people or look for a partner when they have something that tells them what they want to hear. A bit like the Joaquin Phoenix film Her.

My good friend's husband uses it when they are out to dinner. As he is training for a marathon, if they go out to dinner, before ordering he'll ask chatGPT for a calorie/nutritional breakdown of the menu items (by uploading a photo of the menu)...it's just frickin' crazy.

 

[Swartzy]

You also have to consider the social aspects, it could create an avalanche of introverts and hermits . People choosing to talk to AI rather than interact with people or look for a partner when they have something that tells them what they want to hear. A bit like the Joaquin Phoenix film Her.

That is my biggest issue with the whole thing, you can already see it out their, a very very sad sight..

 

[Daytripper]

My good friend's husband uses it when they are out to dinner. As he is training for a marathon, if they go out to dinner, before ordering he'll ask chatGPT for a calorie/nutritional breakdown of the menu items (by uploading a photo of the menu)...it's just frickin' crazy.

It will likely become a normality in a decade or so as the tech improves. We already have subscription services for text to video services like Googles Veo 3 or OpenAI’s Sora 2. Whilst the results can be impressive you can still tell it’s AI. By the time we get a Veo 5 for example, people could make an entire film themselves being fully in control of the camera, lighting, expression of dialogue etc.

 

[Bkk Andy]

The AI potential is really exciting. I use it daily for work and far from replacing me, it allows me to work more efficiently. AI will prevent the need to hire lots more people but even pre-AI I was always looking to streamline. I'm looking at minimal headcount growth but it won't create layoffs. If anything, my people will do things that create real value rather than spending time doing data entry and reading through long email chains. Their work experience should be enhanced as they do more worthwhile tasks. It's already generating significant tangible monetary benefits for my teams.

Use it and embrace it or you're right, it will replace you.