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PaperclipPerfector  16hr ago (text post)   501 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 12, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Anyone else get annoyed (or at least roll your eyes), when someone says they "built" X with AI?

Not at all. It's a new tool, they used the tool to do a thing.

Do you get annoyed when someone says they "built" a PC? They didn't make a single part, they probably don't even know what a "PCB" is! They just slotted it together like Lego.

Do you get annoyed when someone says they "took" a picture even though they 1) have never developed a negative in their life and 2) all phone cameras these days run a shit load of post processing on the photo after it's taken? They barely did anything!

Those who have left their AI outsourcing lazy and obvious (including tech leaders and C levels who should know better) like leaving em dashes and AI fluff in emails have previously been quietly mocked for their 'boomerish' obliviousness, or resented for the obvious lack of engagement.

As they should be! Laziness is bad.

We had a C-level a few months back write a corporate communication that was meant to be both encouraging and strategically informative about some top level changes, that was clear AI slop.

This person is clearly not a good leader, AI or not.

while pre-apologizing for errors in the work in progress as if they couldn't possibly have been reviewed.

This is pathetic, one of the best parts of AI is that it will relentlessly hunt for errors. It'll happily read the same report 100 times looking for typos and never get bored.

These are dashboards, briefs, presentations, documents, all things that would have previously been expected to be completely error free, and important enough to make strategic decisions off of. Now it's all yeah, I had claude do my work and I haven't even checked it yet. but as a flex.

This is retarded and bad

because currently 'Use AI' is a key KPI.

This is retarded and bad

Do you get annoyed when someone says they "built" a PC? They didn't make a single part, they probably don't even know what a "PCB" is! They just slotted it together like Lego.

Building a PC is a technical task apparently beyond the median human being. What IS worthy of annoyance would be someone talking about how they built a PC by buying an Alienware gaming laptop.

The same is true for creating half-decent representative art, compiling a (wrong!) hello-world level C++ or Rust program, writing a coherent and consistent 20k word story with a meaningful theme, and reading a 100-page narrative document and recalling mid-grade detail. I think that leaves too much on the table.

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