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The flip side to this is that if you come to depend on a companies AI, then if you leave or are let go, you are leaving a significant part of yourself behind th

The flip side to this is that if you come to depend on a companies AI, then if you leave or are let go, you are leaving a significant part of yourself behind that you cannot take with you. This is a real problem companies need to address before I even begin to trust or rely on these tools. It's going to lead to massive growth of shadow IT.

wkat4242 2y ago
Also the 'agent' features. Our company has been blocking all agent features from regular employee access because they don't want random users building their own automations. This kind of stuff requires care and an eye for regulations like GDPR. To permit this as Microsoft wants would lead to a lot of shadow IT. Which will be really hard to get rid of. I compare it to lotus notes which beside being an email client was also a competent database. Over the decades we used it users built up a huge library of hobby tools, many of which wormed their way into critical business processes. Making it really difficult to move away to another solution because the people that knew how it worked were long gone. I suspect this is exactly what Microsoft wants. Us being locked into copilot so they can charge ever more for it. This is kinda their business model anyway. Under the hood it's really not that special, it's just ChatGPT. Some special sauce to make it talk to office 365 but that's about it.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  > Us being locked into copilot the customer of MSFT is management; product design and implementation for the C-Suite, their lawyers and their investors . You are a tool ; there is no us in this picture.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    True, that's a very apt description. It's exactly how it feels when I deal with them. Their staff always have this condescending attitude.
- fluidcruft 2y ago
  All I need is Citix and I can automate anything. If it's on a screen and I have a mouse and/or keyboard I can automate it.
  - MrLeap 2y ago
    I'd jokingly say "Can you automate authentic human connection?" but I wager we're about 2 years away from a million people granting power of attorney to their apple body pillows so I'm going to take it for granted that your claim is completely true to all extremes.
- fluidcruft 2y ago
  Oh the horrors of people using and adapting machines to improve their own workflows and improve their own productivity.
  - MrLeap 2y ago
    What came to mind first is a situation where like, your company has a public API endpoint that sends emails for your SaaS. It accepts destination and email content as parameters. One day you find a deposed member of Nigerian royalty has used it to appeal to an entire address list worth of strangers to help them get money out of the country. They're clearly desperate, that's why they used your password reset form's API. If your infrastructure is set up correctly, you can intercept that opportunity before it reaches the masses. Cut out the middleman. Deal with the prince directly. It's all yours now. It's your time. Daddy's eating steak tonight.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    The problem is the continuity. Nobody to maintain it after the employee departs. And also legal compliance. For GDPR you have to be careful of where you store personal info, how you protect it etc. We don't want it ending up on random S3 buckets. For these reasons we centralise such things. Most employees won't care about that, they're just looking for the easiest way to get their job done. But that can lead to hundreds of millions in fines not to mention the reputation damage. I don't like things being locked down either. But I understand the reasoning behind it.
userbinator 2y ago
then if you leave or are let go, you are leaving a significant part of yourself behind that you cannot take with you. I suspect that's "a feature, not a bug" in the company's view.
- fluidcruft 2y ago
  Yes, but as an information worker it means and I avoid the company's infrastructure like the plague. There should be a symbiotic solution here, but corporate IT tend to have their heads up their asses.
eikenberry 2y ago
Local, open source models are the answer to this. You never lose access and should be able to grow with you for years.
- fluidcruft 2y ago
  Yes, but only if on your own hardware or as a service that stays with the individual rather than the company.
  - eikenberry 2y ago
    Locally run, open source models, on your own hardware is the only way to really own it. Services put you at the whim of a company and I don't like the idea of handing control of parts of my stack to anyone.
brookst 2y ago
Is it that different from corporate culture? Someone who makes big contributions to culture is extremely valuable, and that’s left behind as well. I could see evaluation of one’s ability to contribute to training corpus being just as important as cultural contribution (e.g. leadership, team building, etc).
cmiles74 2y ago
That wacky article in the NY Times where Sergey Brin recommends everyone at Google put in 60 hours a week had a bit about how hey thinks all employees need to be using their AI products more: He highlighted the need for Google’s employees to use more of its A.I. for coding, saying the A.I.’s improving itself would lead to A.G.I. He also called on employees working on Gemini to be “the most efficient coders and A.I. scientists in the world by using our own A.I.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/technology/google-sergey-brin-return-to-office.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0U4.A8Eb.6hfgL-MPLsba&smid=url-share&utm_source=tldrnewsletter https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/technology/google-sergey-...
- 38123 2y ago
  [flagged]
- SrslyJosh 2y ago
  > That wacky article in the NY Times where Sergey Brin recommends everyone at Google put in 60 hours a week Ah, yes, work 60 hour weeks so that Google can create AGI and lay off half of their employees. A brilliant plan for workers. (I don't think they will create AGI, and "everyone working 60 hours a week" is the same kind of executive brainrot that leads to AAA games with $100 million+ budgets that get mediocre reviews. Throwing more resources at a problem does not guarantee a better outcome.)
mattlondon 2y ago
Anecdote: I recently opened VScode on my personal laptop for the first time in a year or two and, having got used to the internal AI assistance we have at work, my own non-AI-enhanced VScode felt so primitive. Like using Win95-era notepad.exe or something. It was palpable - that was "a moment" for me. Programming has changed.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  Lol meanwhile I got to install correct syntax highlighting plugin after like two years at my company
- amalcon 2y ago
  You have just made me realize that I did the same thing a couple weeks ago, and didn't even notice that the AI integration was missing. (I find it moderately useful at work, but apparently not enough to realize it's missing unprompted).

wkat4242 2y ago

Also the 'agent' features. Our company has been blocking all agent features from regular employee access because they don't want random users building their own automations. This kind of stuff requires care and an eye for regulations like GDPR. To permit this as Microsoft wants would lead to a lot of shadow IT. Which will be really hard to get rid of. I compare it to lotus notes which beside being an email client was also a competent database. Over the decades we used it users built up a huge library of hobby tools, many of which wormed their way into critical business processes. Making it really difficult to move away to another solution because the people that knew how it worked were long gone. I suspect this is exactly what Microsoft wants. Us being locked into copilot so they can charge ever more for it. This is kinda their business model anyway. Under the hood it's really not that special, it's just ChatGPT. Some special sauce to make it talk to office 365 but that's about it.

mistrial9 2y ago
> Us being locked into copilot the customer of MSFT is management; product design and implementation for the C-Suite, their lawyers and their investors . You are a tool ; there is no us in this picture.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  True, that's a very apt description. It's exactly how it feels when I deal with them. Their staff always have this condescending attitude.
fluidcruft 2y ago
All I need is Citix and I can automate anything. If it's on a screen and I have a mouse and/or keyboard I can automate it.
- MrLeap 2y ago
  I'd jokingly say "Can you automate authentic human connection?" but I wager we're about 2 years away from a million people granting power of attorney to their apple body pillows so I'm going to take it for granted that your claim is completely true to all extremes.
fluidcruft 2y ago
Oh the horrors of people using and adapting machines to improve their own workflows and improve their own productivity.
- MrLeap 2y ago
  What came to mind first is a situation where like, your company has a public API endpoint that sends emails for your SaaS. It accepts destination and email content as parameters. One day you find a deposed member of Nigerian royalty has used it to appeal to an entire address list worth of strangers to help them get money out of the country. They're clearly desperate, that's why they used your password reset form's API. If your infrastructure is set up correctly, you can intercept that opportunity before it reaches the masses. Cut out the middleman. Deal with the prince directly. It's all yours now. It's your time. Daddy's eating steak tonight.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  The problem is the continuity. Nobody to maintain it after the employee departs. And also legal compliance. For GDPR you have to be careful of where you store personal info, how you protect it etc. We don't want it ending up on random S3 buckets. For these reasons we centralise such things. Most employees won't care about that, they're just looking for the easiest way to get their job done. But that can lead to hundreds of millions in fines not to mention the reputation damage. I don't like things being locked down either. But I understand the reasoning behind it.

userbinator 2y ago

then if you leave or are let go, you are leaving a significant part of yourself behind that you cannot take with you. I suspect that's "a feature, not a bug" in the company's view.

fluidcruft 2y ago
Yes, but as an information worker it means and I avoid the company's infrastructure like the plague. There should be a symbiotic solution here, but corporate IT tend to have their heads up their asses.

eikenberry 2y ago

Local, open source models are the answer to this. You never lose access and should be able to grow with you for years.

fluidcruft 2y ago
Yes, but only if on your own hardware or as a service that stays with the individual rather than the company.
- eikenberry 2y ago
  Locally run, open source models, on your own hardware is the only way to really own it. Services put you at the whim of a company and I don't like the idea of handing control of parts of my stack to anyone.

brookst 2y ago

Is it that different from corporate culture? Someone who makes big contributions to culture is extremely valuable, and that’s left behind as well. I could see evaluation of one’s ability to contribute to training corpus being just as important as cultural contribution (e.g. leadership, team building, etc).

cmiles74 2y ago

That wacky article in the NY Times where Sergey Brin recommends everyone at Google put in 60 hours a week had a bit about how hey thinks all employees need to be using their AI products more: He highlighted the need for Google’s employees to use more of its A.I. for coding, saying the A.I.’s improving itself would lead to A.G.I. He also called on employees working on Gemini to be “the most efficient coders and A.I. scientists in the world by using our own A.I.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/technology/google-sergey-brin-return-to-office.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0U4.A8Eb.6hfgL-MPLsba&smid=url-share&utm_source=tldrnewsletter https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/technology/google-sergey-...

38123 2y ago
[flagged]
SrslyJosh 2y ago
> That wacky article in the NY Times where Sergey Brin recommends everyone at Google put in 60 hours a week Ah, yes, work 60 hour weeks so that Google can create AGI and lay off half of their employees. A brilliant plan for workers. (I don't think they will create AGI, and "everyone working 60 hours a week" is the same kind of executive brainrot that leads to AAA games with $100 million+ budgets that get mediocre reviews. Throwing more resources at a problem does not guarantee a better outcome.)

mattlondon 2y ago

Anecdote: I recently opened VScode on my personal laptop for the first time in a year or two and, having got used to the internal AI assistance we have at work, my own non-AI-enhanced VScode felt so primitive. Like using Win95-era notepad.exe or something. It was palpable - that was "a moment" for me. Programming has changed.

anal_reactor 2y ago
Lol meanwhile I got to install correct syntax highlighting plugin after like two years at my company
amalcon 2y ago
You have just made me realize that I did the same thing a couple weeks ago, and didn't even notice that the AI integration was missing. (I find it moderately useful at work, but apparently not enough to realize it's missing unprompted).