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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   25607 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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Personal anecdote, we had an order from the higher ups that we must use LLMs, and that they will be tracking how often we use them. I asked Windsurf (which they provided me with a license for) and it generated C# code with the following issues (amongst many others):

  • It wrapped all uses of HttpClient in a using block. Despite HttpClient implementing IDisposable, you aren't actually supposed to dispose it because this will lead to socket exhaustion when under load
  • All DB queries it generated were called synchronously. Similarly to the socket exhaustion issue above, this will lead to thread exhaustion (and generally lower capacity for simultaneous connections, throughput, etc.). On the bright side, at least it parameterized them all.

I started generating crap to please whatever tracking mechanisms they are using, but have completely ignored the output.

Did you tell it not to do that in the rules?

If I have to tell it to avoid common footguns then it's faster to just write it myself

Personal anecdote, we had an order from the higher ups that we must use LLMs, and that they will be tracking how often we use them.

In Europe the push for AI is absolutely bonkers. On top of stories like yours, I've seen academics shill like they were sales reps for their field to adopt it, the public sector incentivizing it's workers to dip their toe in the water and start using them, etc. There was an entire infrastructure of workshop providers ready to go within weeks of when GPT-3 was announced, and it was aimed at some of the most calcified sectors of society.

The mundane theory I have is that this is (another one of) Europe's ill-conceived attempt(s) at overtaking the US in terms of innovation. The conspiracy theory is that they really really want to automate surveillance ASAP. Quite possibly it's both, but either way someone high up had a bright idea, and they'll be damned if they don't see it through.

Also they're just aware we don't have the personnel to make Europe work the old way any more. Even the politicians are increasingly aware that mass immigration isn't a long-term solution, though they can't wean themselves off it until something takes its place.

we had an order from the higher ups that we must use LLMs, and that they will be tracking how often we use them

And absolute dipshittery like this is why 95% of LLM projects (whatever that actually means) fail, not because LLMs are stupid, but because the people using them are

Recently at my company, all job level descriptions were updated to include use of AI, and all promotions now have to include a bit about how you use AI.

I'm definitely on the bullish side, but it's quite ridiculous. I just have a script that I run every morning to burn up a bunch of tokens so I meet whatever metric they're tracking. (I did use AI to write that script!)

(I did use AI to write that script!)

Self licking ice cream cone, electric boogaloo. ( the previous one was DEI commitments/forced personal pronouns in e-mail signatures.)

I'm definitely on the bullish side, but it's quite ridiculous. I just have a script that I run every morning to burn up a bunch of tokens so I meet whatever metric they're tracking. (I did use AI to write that script!)

Finally, a goal that can Goodhart itself.

Personal anecdote, we had an order from the higher ups that we must use LLMs, and that they will be tracking how often we use them

You're not the first person to tell me that at various companies. Is there some kind of misaligned incentive there, like a KPI from higher up, or a kickback scheme? Or are they true believers.

Often AI deals require a promise to spend X tokens over Y time period. It’s like promises to spend a certain amount of money on a company’s services without specifying the services to be bought. So if the buyer is under the spend count, they encourage people to use more tokens.

Wait, what happens if you don't hit the minimum? Is there some kind of penalty that's worse than just burning tokens to hit the minimum?

Usually, the buyer has to eat the difference. The seller gets to collect the money.

On the individual level, if you're the director who wanted to put a feather in his cap about how he's a forward-thinker pushing the company forward, you end up with egg on your face. So, before it happens, you mandate that all employees have to use AI. Then, once that goal of token consumption is hit, you declare victory and get a sweet bonus before jumping ship to another company to help modernize their processes by integrating AI based on your success in the first company.

Depends on the contract, I guess. But at minimum you’d have to pay the difference. So if you’ve already sunk the money and your devs aren’t even bothering to use something you’ve spent a cool few million on… well, that’s a pretty natural time for a desperate VP to start the mandates.

1st prize: Cadillac 2nd prize: steak knives 3rd prize: you're fired.

Since most (successful?) adopters get their tools by licensing from GPT or Claude, I would guess it’s an attempt to show return on that investment.

The popular interpretation is of course something about stupid managers following a hype train, but I imagine there is a more charitable explanation along the lines that AI adoption (/workforce replacement) can be expected to result in an increase in productivity and profits once an initial trough of decreased productivity is overcome by building experience and figuring out the best way to integrate AI. The sort of long-term planning that requires going against local incentive gradients (in this case, forcing workers to use AI even if it is detrimental to their productivity for now) is exactly what upper management is there for; if workers/subdivisions doing what is currently optimal were always a winning strategy, management could easily be replaced by a simple profit-based incentive scheme.

If your charitable interpretation is correct, what kind of timescale would you predict before you hit break-even?

Assuming AI use is kept up (whether by compulsion or voluntarily), 1.5-2.5 years (70% confidence interval), maybe?

Investors want to hear that the company is taking advantage of AI technology.

I don't think it's a kickback thing. I work at a megacorp (over 10k employees worldwide) and the focus on AI came all the way from the C suite

Yeah, it screams KPI to me.

We’re techy enough that our investors want to see it, so by God, we’re going to pay someone for their model. Then you’ve got to show that you’re actually using it.

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