Over my usual morning coffee and doom scroll before work I came across this Mastodon post about rsync’s latest version being full on AI-slop and breaking a ton of people’s workflows. My mind of course immediately went to all the things I use rsync for in my personal and professional life. And what I felt wasn’t “oh shit I need to make sure things don’t break” it was “Of course…”
My AI thoughts
Suffice to say I’m not a fan. I hate using it at work, it’s nothing but a layer of frustration, a babysitting job when I’m supposed to be a engineer. In my personal life I have one singular use case, parsing photos of recipes for me to digitize, and even then I still have to fact check every little detail because sometimes it’ll decide to completely reword an instruction and mess up a whole recipe. I would always much rather spend the time to do whatever work it purports to automate, because usually I actually learn something along the way.
Why go on?
I’ve asked myself that question about my career a lot lately. My CEO from on high has determined that we are to use AI as much as we can. For a company that supposedly prides itself on it’s electrical sourcing being 100% carbon free and good ecological stewards it feels like I’m being told to take old yeller out back. Even my CTO who is not a fan of AI has given up the fight against the head honcho about this. I wanted to make a difference in my career, to protect the people of the state I love while making a difference in the face of climate change and now I’m being told to burn it all because it’s what the hype machine demands.
As I always do in the spring I recently visited the farm I used to work at to grab some plant starts and chat with my old colleagues. In that moment sitting on the farmhouse porch with my former boss all I wanted to do was beg for my old job back. So what if I lose health insurance and take over a 50% pay cut? At least I’ll still be able to make a difference by providing sustainably grown produce to my neighbors again.
But I can’t, I can’t afford that. My husband and I would lose our house, any money for hobbies, and our stability. But I’m a squeaky wheel, at some point either I’ll get greased to work like the rest I’ll snap off and break. I don’t want either but I’m between a rock and a hard place. Maybe my upcoming vacation will help me recenter, but the BS of the world won’t stop without me.
I just want to make a positive impact.
There is no positives left in the tech industry.
Just slop.