4 ms·

> Bob needs a new computer for his job.... In order to obtain a new work computer he has to create a 4 paragraph business case explaining why the new computer w

> Bob needs a new computer for his job.... In order to obtain a new work computer he has to create a 4 paragraph business case explaining why the new computer will improve his productivity. > Bob’s manager receives 4 paragraphs of dense prose and realises from the first line that he’s going to have to read the whole thing carefully to work out what he’s being asked for and why. Instead, he copies the email into the LLM.... The 4 paragraphs are summarised as “The sender needs a new computer as his current one is old and slow and makes him unproductive.” The manager approves the request. "LLM inflation" as a "bad" thing often reflects a "bad" system. In the case described, the bad system is the expectation that one has to write, or is more likely to obtain a favorable result from writing, a 4 paragraph business case. Since Bob inflates his words to fill 4 paragraphs and the manager deflates them to summarise, it's clear that the 4 paragraph expectation/incentive is the "bad" thing here. This phenomenon of assigning the cause of "bad" things to LLMs is pretty rife. In fact, one could say that the LLM is optimizing given the system requirement: it's a lot easier to get around this bad framework.

hdgvhicv 1y ago
The broken thing here is that Bob, costing $10k a week, is after a new computer costing $100 a week.
- kelipso 1y ago
  This part I always found funny. Significantly increase productivity of the team for a fraction of the price of employing them? Absolutely not.
  - jermaustin1 1y ago
    I'm a consultant, and have been for 20 years now (except for a 2 year stint as an employee for the benefits and relocation assistance to move my family from Texas to NYC). At the NYC employment job, I was on a 2 year upgrade cycle being a software developer. Just whatever the current year Dell corpo laptop was. No procurement procedures, just IT got 2 year replacements, our laptops went to the non IT workforce after reimaging. As a consultant I usually bring my own device, and my laptops are usually WAY more capable since I will run each client on their own VM - makes it easy to delete the client when the contract is up. But I've had one client who did not allow BYOD, and any billed work had to be done on their hardware. That was fine, except that the desktop I was given was already a 12 year old dual core non-hyperthreading CPU that wasn't meant for developers even when it was built. I begged and pleaded for 6+ months for me to either bring in my own hardware they could image now and wipe at the end of the contract, or to please buy me a PC from this decade. It took 3 years to get the budget approval for a $2000 tower, roughly the equivalent of 15 hours of pay. The thing that finally pushed it over the edge, was that my PC could not handle Teams + Visual Studio at the same time, and manager couldn't handle that he couldn't watch me program. All of that to say I doubt these non-data-driven organizations are basing these decisions on anything other than micromanagement. Nothing to do with measured or assumed productivity, nothing to do with costs, so all I can think is they have to be a "decision maker" on all aspects.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    I never understood why no company I worked at could hire someone just to manage the kitchen instead of paying engineers massive salaries to argue about unloading the dishwasher.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  Whether it's an additional $100/week for base salary or $100/week for overhead Bob is always going to be after another $100/week regardless what his current cost is. If Bob wants to manage the overheads directly (most don't) like salary costs then he probably wants more of a contractor type position. As to the content of the letter, the 4 paragraphs are supposed to be "these are reasons I think were missed and why it'll cost more to not correct it" not just "I put effort to write 4 paragraphs of stuff" friction alone. Having run a short stint as an internal IT manager at an IT focused company... it's astounding how many non-standard/out-of-cycle laptop request are actually either basic user error (even for the most brilliant technical employees) or basic IT systems problems (e.g. poorly tested management/security tool changes eating up performance/battery in certain configurations) that a new laptop won't actually solve. E.g. reports of "my battery runs out in 2 hours and my IM is dog slow" but they are on an M1/M2 MacBook Pro and probably wouldn't notice if they got an M1 or M4 MacBook back as their issue isn't actually the hardware. When someone writes an email or ticket explaining why their use case just wasn't accounted for it's generally pretty obvious they really do need something different.
- neutronicus 1y ago
  If Bob's job is anything like mine, Bob's new computer will take a week to set up
  - dizlexic 1y ago
    this is the biggest deterrent to me requesting a new computer at work.
  - ryanmcbride 1y ago
    Sounds like your company needs to spend some time working on their onboarding process. Probably more effective than just hoping no one ever needs a new computer.
  - libraryatnight 1y ago
    I used to get hype for laptop refresh days, but I'll ignore them now if my stuffs working fine just to spare myself the nuisance.
Aransentin 1y ago
The 4-paragraph business case was useful for creating friction, which meant that if you couldn't be bothered to write 4 paragraphs you very likely didn't need the computer upgrade in the first place. This might have been a genuinely useful system, something which broke down with the existence of LLMs.
- handoflixue 1y ago
  The problem is, I'm a verbose writer and can trivially churn out 4 paragraphs - another person is going to struggle. The friction is targeting the wrong area: this is a 15 minute break for me, and an hour long nightmare for my dyslexic co-worker. Social media will give you a good idea what sort of person enjoys writing 4 paragraphs when something goes wrong; do you really want to incentivize that?
- MontyCarloHall 1y ago
  The only definitively non-renewable resource is time. Time is often spent like a currency, whose monetary instrument is some tangible proxy of how much time elapsed. Verbosity was an excellent proxy, at least prior to the advent of generative AI. As you said, the reason Bob needs to write 4 paragraphs to get a new PC is to prove that he spent the requisite time for that computer, and is thus serious about the request. It’s the same reason management consultants and investment bankers spend 80+ hours a week working on enormous slide decks that only ever get skimmed by their clients: it proves to the clients that the firm spent time on them, and is thus serious about the case/deal. It’s also the same reason a concise thank-you note “thanks for the invite! we had a blast!” or a concise condolence note “very sorry for your loss” get a lot less well-received than a couple verbose paragraphs on how great the event was or how much the deceased will be missed, even if all that extra verbiage confers absolutely nothing beyond the core sentiment. (The very best notes, of course, use their extra words to convey something personally meaningful beyond “thanks” or “sorry.”) Gen-AI completely negates meaningless verbosity as a proxy of time spent. It will be interesting to see what emerges as a new proxy, since time-as-currency is extremely engrained into the fabric of human social interactions.
  - protonbob 1y ago
ToucanLoucan 1y ago
> In fact, one could say that the LLM is optimizing given the system requirement: it's a lot easier to get around this bad framework. Sure, as long as we completely disregard the water, power and silicon wasted to accomplish this goal.
patcon 1y ago
I love this article for how it gets the thinking, and I love your response. I've been aware of similar dynamic in politics, where the collective action/intelligence of the internet destroyed all the old signals politicians used to rely on. Emails don't mean anything like letters used to mean. Even phone calls are automated now. Your words and experience matter more in a statistical big data sense, rather than individually. --- This puts me in sci-fi world-building mode, wondering what the absurd extension is... maybe it's just proving burned time investment. So maybe in an imagined world where LLMs are available to all as extensions of thought via neural implant, you can't be taken seriously for even the simplest direct statements unless you prove your mind sat and did nothing (aka wasted it's time) for some arbitrary period of time. So if you sat in the corner and registered inactive boredom for 2h, and attached a non-renewable proof of that to a written word, then people would take your perspective seriously, because you expended (though not "gave") your limited attention/time to the request for some significant amount of time
- spencerflem 1y ago
  There's a 1992 modern art piece that was a blank canvas that the artist promised they spent 1000 hours staring directly at https://www.mirandawhall.space/1000-hours-of-staring/ https://www.mirandawhall.space/1000-hours-of-staring/
- djoldman 1y ago
  Politics is the OG bad system. Because politicians literally write the rules of the system, it's incredibly difficult to prevent abuse, bad incentives, and inefficiency. One of the most fundamentally broken aspects of the US system is that: 1. politicians stay in power by being elected. 2. people are not required to vote and casting a vote incurs a cost (time, travel, expense), therefore not everyone votes. 3. politicians just have to get the votes of the fraction of people who actually do vote and can ignore those who don't.
  - antisthenes 1y ago
    Politicians are just an extension of the ruling class. Under capitalism, that is large capitalists. What may seem like abuse and bad incentives to YOU are perfectly aligned goals for THEM.
jdubs1984 1y ago
> Bob’s manager receives 4 paragraphs of dense prose and realises from the first line that he’s going to have to read the whole thing carefully to work out what he’s being asked for and why. Instead, he copies the email into the LLM.... The 4 paragraphs are summarised as “The sender needs a new computer as his current one is old and slow and makes him unproductive.” The manager approves the request. Bob’s manager is lazy and or an idiot. Probably both.

hdgvhicv 1y ago

The broken thing here is that Bob, costing $10k a week, is after a new computer costing $100 a week.

kelipso 1y ago
This part I always found funny. Significantly increase productivity of the team for a fraction of the price of employing them? Absolutely not.
- jermaustin1 1y ago
  I'm a consultant, and have been for 20 years now (except for a 2 year stint as an employee for the benefits and relocation assistance to move my family from Texas to NYC). At the NYC employment job, I was on a 2 year upgrade cycle being a software developer. Just whatever the current year Dell corpo laptop was. No procurement procedures, just IT got 2 year replacements, our laptops went to the non IT workforce after reimaging. As a consultant I usually bring my own device, and my laptops are usually WAY more capable since I will run each client on their own VM - makes it easy to delete the client when the contract is up. But I've had one client who did not allow BYOD, and any billed work had to be done on their hardware. That was fine, except that the desktop I was given was already a 12 year old dual core non-hyperthreading CPU that wasn't meant for developers even when it was built. I begged and pleaded for 6+ months for me to either bring in my own hardware they could image now and wipe at the end of the contract, or to please buy me a PC from this decade. It took 3 years to get the budget approval for a $2000 tower, roughly the equivalent of 15 hours of pay. The thing that finally pushed it over the edge, was that my PC could not handle Teams + Visual Studio at the same time, and manager couldn't handle that he couldn't watch me program. All of that to say I doubt these non-data-driven organizations are basing these decisions on anything other than micromanagement. Nothing to do with measured or assumed productivity, nothing to do with costs, so all I can think is they have to be a "decision maker" on all aspects.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  I never understood why no company I worked at could hire someone just to manage the kitchen instead of paying engineers massive salaries to argue about unloading the dishwasher.
zamadatix 1y ago
Whether it's an additional $100/week for base salary or $100/week for overhead Bob is always going to be after another $100/week regardless what his current cost is. If Bob wants to manage the overheads directly (most don't) like salary costs then he probably wants more of a contractor type position. As to the content of the letter, the 4 paragraphs are supposed to be "these are reasons I think were missed and why it'll cost more to not correct it" not just "I put effort to write 4 paragraphs of stuff" friction alone. Having run a short stint as an internal IT manager at an IT focused company... it's astounding how many non-standard/out-of-cycle laptop request are actually either basic user error (even for the most brilliant technical employees) or basic IT systems problems (e.g. poorly tested management/security tool changes eating up performance/battery in certain configurations) that a new laptop won't actually solve. E.g. reports of "my battery runs out in 2 hours and my IM is dog slow" but they are on an M1/M2 MacBook Pro and probably wouldn't notice if they got an M1 or M4 MacBook back as their issue isn't actually the hardware. When someone writes an email or ticket explaining why their use case just wasn't accounted for it's generally pretty obvious they really do need something different.
neutronicus 1y ago
If Bob's job is anything like mine, Bob's new computer will take a week to set up
- dizlexic 1y ago
  this is the biggest deterrent to me requesting a new computer at work.
- ryanmcbride 1y ago
  Sounds like your company needs to spend some time working on their onboarding process. Probably more effective than just hoping no one ever needs a new computer.
- libraryatnight 1y ago
  I used to get hype for laptop refresh days, but I'll ignore them now if my stuffs working fine just to spare myself the nuisance.

Aransentin 1y ago

The 4-paragraph business case was useful for creating friction, which meant that if you couldn't be bothered to write 4 paragraphs you very likely didn't need the computer upgrade in the first place. This might have been a genuinely useful system, something which broke down with the existence of LLMs.

handoflixue 1y ago
The problem is, I'm a verbose writer and can trivially churn out 4 paragraphs - another person is going to struggle. The friction is targeting the wrong area: this is a 15 minute break for me, and an hour long nightmare for my dyslexic co-worker. Social media will give you a good idea what sort of person enjoys writing 4 paragraphs when something goes wrong; do you really want to incentivize that?
MontyCarloHall 1y ago
The only definitively non-renewable resource is time. Time is often spent like a currency, whose monetary instrument is some tangible proxy of how much time elapsed. Verbosity was an excellent proxy, at least prior to the advent of generative AI. As you said, the reason Bob needs to write 4 paragraphs to get a new PC is to prove that he spent the requisite time for that computer, and is thus serious about the request. It’s the same reason management consultants and investment bankers spend 80+ hours a week working on enormous slide decks that only ever get skimmed by their clients: it proves to the clients that the firm spent time on them, and is thus serious about the case/deal. It’s also the same reason a concise thank-you note “thanks for the invite! we had a blast!” or a concise condolence note “very sorry for your loss” get a lot less well-received than a couple verbose paragraphs on how great the event was or how much the deceased will be missed, even if all that extra verbiage confers absolutely nothing beyond the core sentiment. (The very best notes, of course, use their extra words to convey something personally meaningful beyond “thanks” or “sorry.”) Gen-AI completely negates meaningless verbosity as a proxy of time spent. It will be interesting to see what emerges as a new proxy, since time-as-currency is extremely engrained into the fabric of human social interactions.
- protonbob 1y ago

ToucanLoucan 1y ago

> In fact, one could say that the LLM is optimizing given the system requirement: it's a lot easier to get around this bad framework. Sure, as long as we completely disregard the water, power and silicon wasted to accomplish this goal.

patcon 1y ago

I love this article for how it gets the thinking, and I love your response. I've been aware of similar dynamic in politics, where the collective action/intelligence of the internet destroyed all the old signals politicians used to rely on. Emails don't mean anything like letters used to mean. Even phone calls are automated now. Your words and experience matter more in a statistical big data sense, rather than individually. --- This puts me in sci-fi world-building mode, wondering what the absurd extension is... maybe it's just proving burned time investment. So maybe in an imagined world where LLMs are available to all as extensions of thought via neural implant, you can't be taken seriously for even the simplest direct statements unless you prove your mind sat and did nothing (aka wasted it's time) for some arbitrary period of time. So if you sat in the corner and registered inactive boredom for 2h, and attached a non-renewable proof of that to a written word, then people would take your perspective seriously, because you expended (though not "gave") your limited attention/time to the request for some significant amount of time

spencerflem 1y ago
There's a 1992 modern art piece that was a blank canvas that the artist promised they spent 1000 hours staring directly at https://www.mirandawhall.space/1000-hours-of-staring/ https://www.mirandawhall.space/1000-hours-of-staring/
djoldman 1y ago
Politics is the OG bad system. Because politicians literally write the rules of the system, it's incredibly difficult to prevent abuse, bad incentives, and inefficiency. One of the most fundamentally broken aspects of the US system is that: 1. politicians stay in power by being elected. 2. people are not required to vote and casting a vote incurs a cost (time, travel, expense), therefore not everyone votes. 3. politicians just have to get the votes of the fraction of people who actually do vote and can ignore those who don't.
- antisthenes 1y ago
  Politicians are just an extension of the ruling class. Under capitalism, that is large capitalists. What may seem like abuse and bad incentives to YOU are perfectly aligned goals for THEM.

jdubs1984 1y ago

> Bob’s manager receives 4 paragraphs of dense prose and realises from the first line that he’s going to have to read the whole thing carefully to work out what he’s being asked for and why. Instead, he copies the email into the LLM.... The 4 paragraphs are summarised as “The sender needs a new computer as his current one is old and slow and makes him unproductive.” The manager approves the request. Bob’s manager is lazy and or an idiot. Probably both.