Toots from 2024-06-11#
@thudfactor Redirecting to [@RuthMalan](https://mastodon.soci…#
@thudfactor Redirecting to @RuthMalan for the goal. I think I learned about this from her feed.
Mastodon Source 🐘#
“Teams are empowered to make these decisions when they have clear objectives and have a specifi…#
“Teams are empowered to make these decisions when they have clear objectives and have a specific area to work within. Once those two pieces are in place, it’s less important to know the exact features in the roadmap.”
https://www.swarmia.com/blog/structuring-engineering-organizations/
Mastodon Source 🐘#
“After that software engineer was fired for questioning if the AI pin would be ready for launch…#
“After that software engineer was fired for questioning if the AI pin would be ready for launch, the report describes a staff meeting where the founders “said the employee had violated policy by talking negatively about Humane.” It’s hard to make a good product if you can’t honestly talk about the negatives and positives for fear of retaliation.”
Mastodon Source 🐘#
“The board finally told Congress that a leadership failure caused the flawed mirror in our $1.7 billion telescope. Lew reported that NASA’s management of its contractor had been so hostile that they would not report technical problems if they could rationalize them. They were simply tired of the beatings. This finding astounded me.”
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/-/9780470502952/pell_9780470502952_oeb_c01_r1.html
Mastodon Source 🐘#
“…I will take the message more generally and argue that this conceptualization of optimizatio…#
“…I will take the message more generally and argue that this conceptualization of optimization applies also to the evergreen calls for managers to optimize their team’s output and to the likewise frequent orders for us to all optimize our own lives. The problem (or at least one of the problems) is that the twin edicts to simultaneously optimize your team and life and to be flexible in light of an uncertain future are in opposition to each other.”
https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/against-optimization
Mastodon Source 🐘#
Yes…agree…reasonable…Wait, what? “The top three most commonly cited low-value tasks are …#
Yes…agree…reasonable…Wait, what?
“The top three most commonly cited low-value tasks are unnecessary meetings or work events, managing low-value emails, and excessive paperwork or data entry. In a perfect world, we’d minimize these tasks with the help of AI, creating more time to focus on more meaningful work.”
https://slack.com/blog/news/the-workforce-index-june-2024
Mastodon Source 🐘#
What do people self-report they would do with this “liberated time”?
“But when asked how they would prioritize the time they get back from AI, “more admin” topped the list, while innovating and creating, learning and skill-building, and networking with colleagues fell to the bottom.”
Mastodon Source 🐘#
Conclusion: ““If we want to make the most of what AI can offer, it’s up to us as leaders to help our people prioritize the most rewarding work.””
Leaders don’t need to wait for AI to prioritize doing more rewarding or impactful work.
Mastodon Source 🐘#
I agree with the diagnoses in this post. However, what’s considered data, noise, decision-worth…#
I agree with the diagnoses in this post. However, what’s considered data, noise, decision-worthy, and significant are intrinsically socially constructed.
“There is a great paradox at the heart of using data to make product decisions. While data is meant to be objective and scientific, in practice, it’s hardly the case. That’s because being data-driven has limitations. What limits?”
https://andrewchen.substack.com/p/why-its-so-hard-to-be-data-driven
Mastodon Source 🐘#
Output: “The end result has been the growth of a different office culture, one that’s even more…#
Output: “The end result has been the growth of a different office culture, one that’s even more performative, suspicious, and divisive than before the COVID pandemic, the study concludes. “
Outcome: “The key to success, whether staff stay remote, return to office, or go hybrid, is an open culture that listens to employees and doesn’t micromanage, Grantham proposed. “
https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/09/rto_quit_study/
Mastodon Source 🐘#
Pedantic nit o’the day: LLMs don’t perceive and they don’t have experiences. They don’t h…#
Pedantic nit o’the day: LLMs don’t perceive and they don’t have experiences. They don’t have hallucinations. They emit erroneous token sequences.
Mastodon Source 🐘#
“A key challenge when working with LLMs is that they’ll often generate output even when they …#
“A key challenge when working with LLMs is that they’ll often generate output even when they shouldn’t. “
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/what-we-learned-from-a-year-of-building-with-llms-part-i/