Category: Management

How AI Replaced Me

We’re watching an already isolating industry become even more dehumanized in real time. Programmers are getting laid off in favor of AI agents. Companies are replacing budgets earmarked for salaries and repurposing them for the purchase of AI tokens (the calculated cost of running a prompt) because “AI is always the answer!” My former company used to pride itself on saying that our support chat was a human being, until we quietly replaced that person with an AI chat bot. Just as manufacturing went through waves of change from which it never really recovered, as robots replaced line workers and jobs went to countries with lower wages and weaker labor laws, AI and outsourcing are coming for tech workers.

But while some people get replaced, the remaining workers are getting pushed to their breaking point and being subjected to ever more intrusive forms of surveillance.

→ Oakland Review of Books

The Secret Lives of Facebook Moderators in America

That people don’t know there are human beings doing this work is, of course, by design. Facebook would rather talk about its advancements in artificial intelligence, and dangle the prospect that its reliance on human moderators will decline over time.

But given the limits of the technology, and the infinite varieties of human speech, such a day appears to be very far away. In the meantime, the call center model of content moderation is taking an ugly toll on many of its workers. As first responders on platforms with billions of users, they are performing a critical function of modern civil society, while being paid less than half as much as many others who work on the front lines. They do the work as long as they can — and when they leave, an NDA ensures that they retreat even further into the shadows.

To Facebook, it will seem as if they never worked there at all. Technically, they never did.

→ The Verge

Your Life Is Tetris — Stop Playing It Like Chess

The decision to quit was liberating, terrifying, and confusing. Why did I feel so free when I had given up one of my first loves? But quitting felt good for the reason that starting to play chess felt right in the first place—it was entirely my choice to do so. And with that decision, my competitive, causal chess mindset began to weaken, and my perspective finally cleared.

Meanwhile, Tetris began to fill my gaming void. I play Tetris every day, and every day I pick up the game knowing that I will lose. How long will I play before I lose? How fast will the pieces go? How much will I score? Those are the metrics the game tracks. But I added a way to win—I win if I play Tetris every day.

→ Quartz

Volkswagen and the Future of Honesty

The market is giving its own answer to the question “Is honesty for suckers?” Its response is: “No, honesty is for those who want to maximize value over the long term.” Of course, some corporations will get away with cheating. But the risk is always there that they will be caught. And often – especially for corporations whose brands’ reputation is a major asset – the risk just isn’t worth taking.

Honesty maximizes value over the long term, even if by “value” we mean only the monetary return to shareholders. It is even more obviously true if value includes the sense of satisfaction that all those involved take from their work. Several studies have shown that members of the generation that has come of age in the new millennium are more interested in having an impact on the world than in earning money for its own sake. This is the generation that has spawned “effective altruism,” which encourages giving money away, as long as it is done efficiently.

→ Project Syndicate