Do you use AI at your job, does it make it easier - or harder?

[Anonymous]

I'm cautiously optimistic that AI is not replacing my job any time soon, and for the most part it makes it easier by automating a lot of the grunt work so I can focus on the critical thinking and analysis that we sell rather than burning hours with formatting and summarizing. But it makes it harder because I have to filter through the obviously AI-generated crap that people I manage are trying to pass off and spit it right back to them.

[Anonymous]

What's your work? I think that detail needs to be in OP and every post.

[Anonymous]

Medicine: specifically radiology

I find that AI is a good blunt tool. It can summarise a journal article in seconds, where it would take me hours to do the same.

However it can’t replace human empathy, complex decision making and intuitive leaps of faith.

It can’t work out that my patient is hiding that she is an IV drug user or a victim of domestic abuse. Those come from communication and earning the trust of people so they feel safe to divulge these things to you.

[Anonymous]

Easier. I no longer need to ask colleagues in another team to run SQL statements for me. I have learned enough thanks to AI that they gave me read only access. I no longer need to ask favor to the same team so help me write some Python code for me. Thanks to AI, I can now write working code without much assistance.

I am sure some of you were able to do everything I listed without AI. But I was a philosophy major and never had any coding experience in the past. I learned the basics via coursera and MS copilot just accelerated my productivity.

[Anonymous]

I have an "email job" and we just rolled out Copilot. It reminds me of Clippy. It's an extra popup that I have to brush aside before I can do the thing I wanted to do.

I have colleagues who use custom NLP to complete in hours tasks that would have taken weeks, so I do see utility. But those are narrow-purpose custom applications, not the big name commercial products that keep getting tacked onto browsers and office tools.

[Anonymous]

Both. I use it a fair amount, and it can spit out good information. But the amount of time I can spend writing prompts to get the info is significant.

[Anonymous]

My experience so far as a corporate drone is that it's very useful for specific functions and it's also made me busier.

[Anonymous]

For me it's basically a wash (I've got an email job). I have used it once - for a task that I thought was dumb, it was assigned by my boss, and I knew from jump no one was going to read it or take it seriously, and the whole idea was going to die on the vine. Great task for AI - took me an hour instead of a day (and guess what - no one has done more than skim it and it's dead). So that was a plus.

But I have now twice gotten clearly AI written documents/memos from colleagues for comment. They take just as long to read (longer, probably, there's all of a sudden no motivation for brevity), but don't have the actual insights that I need from the actual human person who works at my company, so I ended up having to ask a bunch of follow up questions.

We'll see which side wins out in the long haul.

[Anonymous]

It's helpful for searching and summarizing information. But if it doesn't link to a source I can verify then it's negative value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me it's basically a wash (I've got an email job). I have used it once - for a task that I thought was dumb, it was assigned by my boss, and I knew from jump no one was going to read it or take it seriously, and the whole idea was going to die on the vine. Great task for AI - took me an hour instead of a day (and guess what - no one has done more than skim it and it's dead). So that was a plus.

But I have now twice gotten clearly AI written documents/memos from colleagues for comment. They take just as long to read (longer, probably, there's all of a sudden no motivation for brevity), but don't have the actual insights that I need from the actual human person who works at my company, so I ended up having to ask a bunch of follow up questions.

We'll see which side wins out in the long haul.

AI is the absolute best at doing the fake work no one actually wants but still demands.

It's also good for summarizing the slop that AI generates.

[Anonymous]

As a software engineer, net effect is harder. More code means bigger more complex systems faster and harder to manage. Replacing people's jobs and eliminating entry level positions in software development that's what I do now.

My pay didn't go up either. The only upside is I can get a little better pace.

[Anonymous]

No significant effect yet. I do troubleshooting on residential energy systems (solar and batteries). Manufacturers have always had their proprietary troubleshooting tools and AI hasn't really changed that. There is a time out there when systems will fix themselves but not yet. For now, I'm stuck trying to diagnose the 50052 battery error on an inverter after it self-installed new firmware. The battery, inverter and firmware are all produced by different companies that seem to hate each other.

AI has been a big win for the sales guys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Medicine: specifically radiology

I find that AI is a good blunt tool. It can summarise a journal article in seconds, where it would take me hours to do the same.

However it can’t replace human empathy, complex decision making and intuitive leaps of faith.

It can’t work out that my patient is hiding that she is an IV drug user or a victim of domestic abuse. Those come from communication and earning the trust of people so they feel safe to divulge these things to you.

Radiology might be on the front line of big AI change than other specialties in medicine.
It is going to be much better at diagnosing than doctors, it might not affect you but medical students will see big changes soon.

[Anonymous]

I don't. It's a crutch I don't need.

[Anonymous]

It's great for replying with empathy to questions from membership that are ridiculous/a waste of time. What would have taken 30 minutes now takes 5.