AI Tools at work
Discussion
Is using AI to its max at work acceptable? I use AI in a limited capacity for transcribing and summarising meetings and checking grammar in e-mails. On the other hand I have a colleague who uses it to the absolute max, will create entire documents using various AI tools, which to be fair read very well indeed. The thing is they then take credit for writing them when they are up to 100% written by AI, for the uninitiated you can run documents through an AI checker and it will tell you the % written by a human and which AI tools have been used. I've been using those tools to check any copy we receive, letters and CVs etc for a while now. The thing is they're pretty useless in meetings, but then the follow up and actions, again written by AI are impressive. So am I being an old miserable git who thinks it's akin to cheating in an exam, or is this perfectly acceptable?
AndyTR said:
Is using AI to its max at work acceptable? I use AI in a limited capacity for transcribing and summarising meetings and checking grammar in e-mails. On the other hand I have a colleague who uses it to the absolute max, will create entire documents using various AI tools, which to be fair read very well indeed. The thing is they then take credit for writing them when they are up to 100% written by AI, for the uninitiated you can run documents through an AI checker and it will tell you the % written by a human and which AI tools have been used. I've been using those tools to check any copy we receive, letters and CVs etc for a while now. The thing is they're pretty useless in meetings, but then the follow up and actions, again written by AI are impressive. So am I being an old miserable git who thinks it's akin to cheating in an exam, or is this perfectly acceptable?
For me it's a tool to make life easier so a good thing. I develop a lot of PowerBI dashboards. In days gone by it would take me ages to write complex measures. Now, i just feed AI the data table name, field names and describe what I want it to do. If I were going back to being a full time software developer, I'd not be writing much of my own code.Well, at what point do we suggest they're cheating? Using Excel? Using a calculator? Using a PC? Using electricity? Sitting on a chair?
Do you pay for the results or do you pay for someone to "work hard"? If the latter, maybe pay a boxer to punch the employee in the back randomly throughout the day to make sure they're struggling to get the results.
You see my point?
The only danger is that (1) he's breaching some kind of copyright law (2) he's producing factually incorrect work (ie poor results). I would ask him what checks he has in place to ensure that the output is not inaccurate.
And on the other hand, it's also worthwhile him considering whether a more junior person could do the role...
Do you pay for the results or do you pay for someone to "work hard"? If the latter, maybe pay a boxer to punch the employee in the back randomly throughout the day to make sure they're struggling to get the results.
You see my point?
The only danger is that (1) he's breaching some kind of copyright law (2) he's producing factually incorrect work (ie poor results). I would ask him what checks he has in place to ensure that the output is not inaccurate.
And on the other hand, it's also worthwhile him considering whether a more junior person could do the role...
AndyTR said:
I've been using those tools to check any copy we receive, letters and CVs etc for a while now.
I trust you don't use AI in your recruitment process if you don't want candidates to use AI.Hoofy you make a very good point. I guess the irk is that the person is clearly stating that they have created x when in some cases it's been 100% created by AI. For those of us who create and a read a lot of copy it's actually very obvious at the moment, though that will change as the tools get better. If I revert to using the same tools I can likely take up a new hobby and probably free up 50% of my time. At some point this is going to put a lot of people out of work or reduce salaries as very junior members of staff could just input various parameters and then sense check the output.
Toon, what tools do you use as the PowerBI stuff is something I'd like to have a dabble in. I have zero coding skills!
Toon, what tools do you use as the PowerBI stuff is something I'd like to have a dabble in. I have zero coding skills!
AndyTR said:
Toon, what tools do you use as the PowerBI stuff is something I'd like to have a dabble in. I have zero coding skills!
Just ChatGPT at the minute. It's really useful for complex Excel formula's, PowerBI calculated fields and measures, etc. The scary thing for me is that my main programming language was Visual Basic and you got paid more or were given better opportunities if you could code in other languages. Now you can just paste the code into AI and ask it to covert it to another coding language. If I'm sending emails, I often ask it to humanise the output and give it more context, i.e. I'm a consultant and want to demonstrate the key points to senior management who are not as technical..."
We are trialing some company specific AI tools but I've not been part of the testing.
AI generated documents show how much unnecessary guff there is in many documents. I can see the day coming where people will get AI to turn the half a dozen key points they want to make in to a document, and then the recipient will take thier document and use AI to distil it down to half a dozen key points 
RizzoTheRat said:
AI generated documents show how much unnecessary guff there is in many documents. I can see the day coming where people will get AI to turn the half a dozen key points they want to make in to a document, and then the recipient will take thier document and use AI to distil it down to half a dozen key points
This happens now, without a doubt. I'll use copilot to summarise an email I can tell is written with AI. PistonRings said:
RizzoTheRat said:
AI generated documents show how much unnecessary guff there is in many documents. I can see the day coming where people will get AI to turn the half a dozen key points they want to make in to a document, and then the recipient will take thier document and use AI to distil it down to half a dozen key points
This happens now, without a doubt. I'll use copilot to summarise an email I can tell is written with AI. 
Part of me thinks that if someone generates an email in AI, it's like the couldn't really be bothered to communicate with you. I don't mind using it to say generate something that someone will find interesting or enjoyable to read, but for a direct email... well, to prove my point and given the day, let me write a love poem with AI and also tell her that I got AI to do it... I'll let you know if I'm eating alone tonight.
PistonRings said:
This happens now, without a doubt. I'll use copilot to summarise an email I can tell is written with AI.
Who the f
k sends e-mails so long you need to summarise them? I'd be tempted to e-mail them back and tell them to summarise it themselves and send me the important bits!RizzoTheRat said:
Who the fk sends e-mails so long you need to summarise them? I'd be tempted to e-mail them back and tell them to summarise it themselves and send me the important bits!
Useless cow orkers.k sends e-mails so long you need to summarise them? I'd be tempted to e-mail them back and tell them to summarise it themselves and send me the important bits!The kind of people who need everyone back in the office so they can rope everyone into pointless meetings that end up generating massive emails. Basically people who avoid doing actual work.
regularly use it to proofread and improve readability.
Starting to use 'agents' that are more autonomous/automated to perform tasks in response to inputs.
A lot of focus today on LLMs like ChatGPT, but the future is autonomous agents that just get stuff done in the background.
Imagine an autonomous investment agent that:
Analyzes market data in real-time, using historical trends, sentiment analysis, and economic indicators.
Executes trades automatically based on predefined risk profiles and strategies.
Learns continuously from its successes and failures, refining its models over time.
Interacts with APIs for stock exchanges, crypto markets, and alternative assets.
Fairly certain this is very close if not already possible.
Starting to use 'agents' that are more autonomous/automated to perform tasks in response to inputs.
A lot of focus today on LLMs like ChatGPT, but the future is autonomous agents that just get stuff done in the background.
Imagine an autonomous investment agent that:
Analyzes market data in real-time, using historical trends, sentiment analysis, and economic indicators.
Executes trades automatically based on predefined risk profiles and strategies.
Learns continuously from its successes and failures, refining its models over time.
Interacts with APIs for stock exchanges, crypto markets, and alternative assets.
Fairly certain this is very close if not already possible.
captain_cynic said:
The tool is the DBA who ran an AI generated query on a production server on a Friday afternoon.
That ended up requiring us to recover the entire server from backups.
In many cases AI does indeed mean Artificial Incompetence.That ended up requiring us to recover the entire server from backups.
As the sole native English speaker for the past 25 years in a predominantly franco-/germanophone working environment, these days I am regularly called upon to transform AI-generated translations into (real) English.
OP: I’d say your colleague has the right idea.
It’s not about working harder.
If you’ve been given the tools, use them.
He obviously knows how to write the correct prompts to get the best output, and I’d suggest he’s reviewing content, editing, etc., to ensure it suits the business and is correct.
Fair play to him.
I use GPT 4_o and Genesis. I’ll do everything possible to make my life easier, especially now I’m older!
It’s not about working harder.
If you’ve been given the tools, use them.
He obviously knows how to write the correct prompts to get the best output, and I’d suggest he’s reviewing content, editing, etc., to ensure it suits the business and is correct.
Fair play to him.
I use GPT 4_o and Genesis. I’ll do everything possible to make my life easier, especially now I’m older!
As these tools get more powerful, those who refuse to, or are unable to, implement them in their workflow will very quickly get made redundant in the workforce. This rapid increase in productivity is why the stock market is pricing in huge increases in company values.
It’s a bit like computers, those who can’t use them don’t have much value in the world.
It’s a bit like computers, those who can’t use them don’t have much value in the world.
We have an internal one.
Great for summarising meeting minutes, comparing documents and drafting emails.
A set of meeting minutes can take a couple of hours, it saves time.
If I have 3 meetings in a week I used to spend 1 day writing minutes now I dictate them put them into the AI and copy them to a client document. I pretty much get that day back to focus on more revenue generation for the business / me.
Get on the bandwagon it's great.
Great for summarising meeting minutes, comparing documents and drafting emails.
A set of meeting minutes can take a couple of hours, it saves time.
If I have 3 meetings in a week I used to spend 1 day writing minutes now I dictate them put them into the AI and copy them to a client document. I pretty much get that day back to focus on more revenue generation for the business / me.
Get on the bandwagon it's great.
I've started using it to suggest copy, format content, give summaries of ideas or concepts, compare "stuff", write Excel formulas.
I do like it, although you have to take anything with a pinch of salt as it can hallucinate. I wouldn't depend on it for anything important without fact checking first.
In some ways I lament the de-skilling aspect. For example I'm now terrible at mental arithmetic because anything involving figures for work I just use a calculator rather than risk making an error. I expect in a few years I will also become worse at copywriting or writing in general as I rely on AI more.
I do like it, although you have to take anything with a pinch of salt as it can hallucinate. I wouldn't depend on it for anything important without fact checking first.
In some ways I lament the de-skilling aspect. For example I'm now terrible at mental arithmetic because anything involving figures for work I just use a calculator rather than risk making an error. I expect in a few years I will also become worse at copywriting or writing in general as I rely on AI more.
MOMACC said:
We have an internal one.
Great for summarising meeting minutes, comparing documents and drafting emails.
A set of meeting minutes can take a couple of hours, it saves time.
If I have 3 meetings in a week I used to spend 1 day writing minutes now I dictate them put them into the AI and copy them to a client document. I pretty much get that day back to focus on more revenue generation for the business / me.
Get on the bandwagon it's great.
Can I just ask about this, what sort of meetings and minutes are we talking about here needing 1 day to write up 3 meetings worth of minutes? How long are these meetings!?Great for summarising meeting minutes, comparing documents and drafting emails.
A set of meeting minutes can take a couple of hours, it saves time.
If I have 3 meetings in a week I used to spend 1 day writing minutes now I dictate them put them into the AI and copy them to a client document. I pretty much get that day back to focus on more revenue generation for the business / me.
Get on the bandwagon it's great.
So, being in Tech I decided I wasn't using it as much as I probably should. I do use Copilot pretty much every day, but there are a lot more useful things out there.
I was doing some research over the weekend and came across this video https://youtu.be/QMInAfhIuTQ?si=dDuF4YAGVrOCZYUt
This sums up well some of the great tools out there and the guy in the Video (Andrew Wilkinson) explains how he is using different AI tools like employees. Its very interesting and I made a load of notes of tools I hadnt heard of to play around with next week.
I was doing some research over the weekend and came across this video https://youtu.be/QMInAfhIuTQ?si=dDuF4YAGVrOCZYUt
This sums up well some of the great tools out there and the guy in the Video (Andrew Wilkinson) explains how he is using different AI tools like employees. Its very interesting and I made a load of notes of tools I hadnt heard of to play around with next week.
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