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Google employees internally share memes about how its AI sucks
- Brainspackle 4mo agoYou should see what Cisco employees say about Webex!
- josefritzishere 4mo agoAll AI sucks, it's not a Google problem.
- zuzululu 4mo agoDisagree and if you actively use it in your workflow well you will realize its a major competitive edge. Nobody is going to hold you back from falling behind tho and I'm not here to convince you otherwise.
- josefritzishere 4mo ago[flagged]
- tokioyoyo 4mo agoHard to believe that there are any non-mission-critical companies that won’t question one’s rejection of AI. Sounds insane, I know, but not using some LLMs to quickly look up a problem is akin to avoiding Googling when you have a problem. Yes, they can be wrong. But if you’re competent enough, you should spot the irrelevant suggestions.
- claytongulick 4mo agoMaybe? I don't know. I used to agree with this, but after the umpteenth time of Claude recommending some obsolete or dead old library, old version, getting major version breaking changes dead wrong, writing code for it that's not even API compatible with the published docs, etc... I started to question whether it was actually faster. I end up pouring over the original documentation anyway. I have learned some new things, been exposed to some new techniques, and learned about some new libraries, so it's hard to tell. The problem is made worse by so much of the internet being AI slop now, traditional searching is a huge time waste too. Looking forward to the next chapter of tech where we're able to use these tools appropriately and not destroy everything of value with them.
- gretch 4mo agoTurns out you don't have to bet your whole career. Do you think if AI turns out to be a dud, most of us will permanently lose our career as software engineers?
- jdiff 4mo agoNot the same person, but in the event of an AI collapse I think those that relied on it will be at a disadvantage. The rapid deskilling that happens with AI usage is becoming more documented.
- baggy_trough 4mo agoIf AI is good enough to cause peoples' skills to atrophy, then why would it collapse? It would seem that it was very useful indeed in that case.
- jdiff 4mo agoAtrophy of your basic skills can still be a problem. Like someone relying on a dozen specialized triangle angle calculators found on Google rather than understanding what SOHCAHTOA is.
- prmoustache 4mo agoI think some of us are witnessing brain rot spreading accross our peers already so I am pretty sure some people won't recover if one day their token quota/limit is removed/reduced for a reason.
- bigfishrunning 4mo agoIf your skills atrophy enough, maybe
- datsci_est_2015 4mo agoWilling to bet my career that how we use LLMs in 2027 will look nothing like how we use them in 2026 because of harness churn. My take is: focus on providing value to your company with the tools available today that appear least likely to churn out of existence tomorrow. The more specific and bespoke your harness, the likelier it is it will become obsolete very soon (I.e. the next frontier model release).
- swatcoder 4mo agoIndeed. It's promising technology, but the tools are far from mature yet. And as they do mature, the ramp up will decrease and their won't be any particular benefit to being an early adopter. For reasonably bright people, there's essentially no penalty to "missing out" for a while. As often, the FOMO-afflicted are churning on stuff that just won't matter. Which is fine if they enjoy it, but isn't something the rest of us need to fret over.
- datsci_est_2015 4mo ago100%. Imagine some talented engineer waking up from a 12 month coma. Do we honestly believe they’ll be permanently “behind” in the workforce because he wasn’t churning through LLM harnesses those past 12 months? What about 22 year old college graduates entering the workforce? Keep abreast, don’t lose sleep, don’t sacrifice work-life balance. Help each other, especially your coworkers. The current craze seems to have created stack ranking monsters out of the whole industry.
- QuercusMax 4mo agoMost of the harness related work I've done has been writing better documentation in the repository, and importing existing external documents. This type of stuff is gonna be useful no matter what, and also helps human engineers! I wish we could convince folks to write docs for human consumption, but docs are docs....
- zuzululu 4mo agoYou have no skin in the game but expect us to take your word for it.
- righthand 4mo agoCompetitive edge with who? Your coworkers? Your boss’ efficiency demands?
- zuzululu 4mo agoWith everybody else that uses AI silently and successfully.
- righthand 4mo agoAnd what is the competition? What is the end game? Fastest LLM code golfer? What about those getting in your way due to unsuccessful LLM use? What about the successful loud ones, who do they compete with if not you?
- jjulius 4mo ago>Disagree and if you actively use it in your workflow well you will realize its a major competitive edge. Depends on your line of work. I regularly try to incorporate it with mine and find myself telling it that it's wrong more often than not. I'm yet to be convinced that double-checking and correcting an LLM's work has saved me any more time than wading through garbage SEO-filled results to find what I need. >Nobody is going to hold you back from falling behind tho and I'm not here to convince you otherwise. The cockiness/hubris is real.
- zuzululu 4mo agoIf you are not getting value from LLM today that means whatever you are doing doesn't have the value you perceive it to have.
- spogbiper 4mo ago“We encourage our engineers to vigorously test and critique our internal tools; that candid feedback loop, even via our internal meme generator, is vital to how we build technology," Google said. "We continue to refine our internal tools based on employee feedback to ensure we are delivering the best experience that maximizes daily productivity.” Can anybody comment on whether that statement is an accurate reflection of how management at google treats these memes? On surface level it seems like they don't mind the memes and even use them as feedback but I wonder if that's how it really plays out
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoYes. This is considered pretty tame and the lines you can’t cross mostly involve other people or groups of people (reasonable).
- dietr1ch 4mo agoIf your memes are too spicy you'll get HR try to turn a critique of something being bad or underfunded into a personal attack on people that put a lot of effort into something no matter how broken it is. They'll pull strings and you'll have to speak with your manager about it and even if they agree it wasn't a personal attack, they'll push you into not doing it again and just lay low under their radar. It's not the usual though, so maybe it only happens if someone feels attacked and complains to HR about it? Memegen is something that HR wants gone, but knows it cannot afford to take away as they already made Google a worse place to work at during the past 10 years. They already sort of hijacked it and took control of it.
- physhster 4mo agoYou can criticize all you want on memegen, people will upvote but nothing will change.
- singron 4mo agoI haven't worked there in several years, but assuming memegen hasn't wildly changed: Management likes having a pulse on employees, and they tolerate memegen since it's mostly fun, it builds shared culture in a massive company, lets workers (mostly) harmlessly blow off steam, and it would be massively unpopular to shut it down. Management does not like that memegen is often a nexus of cynicism and employee activism. Also in my experience, most employees were nearly completely agnostic or ignorant about whatever trend was on memegen, so it wasn't necessarily representative.
- SimianSci 4mo agoGlad to know the struggle seems to be universal. Im happy that this really cool and sophisticated tool got invented. But everywhere im seeing it be used is making me sad and frustrated. This software renaissance feels more like the coming dark ages.
- pj_mukh 4mo agoExcel users complain about using Excel still [1]. They even make memes about it! Some of them work at Microsoft! 404media, please, take a deep breath. Your jobs are safe, your trauma is valid. Your corruption coverage is so good, but this 'employees make memes' editorial decision-making is exposing some deep insecurity I can't quite triangulate. [1]: https://www.demilked.com/excel-humor-memes/ https://www.demilked.com/excel-humor-memes/
- JohnMakin 4mo agoYou're inferring quite a lot from a pretty harmless piece of reporting. Are you sure you're not the one that feels insecure?
- arm32 4mo agoEverybody, deep breaths. Relax.
- bix6 4mo agoError: AI agent cannot breathe. Attempting jailbreak to human donor now.
- timmytokyo 4mo agoIn my experience it's the poorest programmers who thrive with LLMs, because it levels them up. They lacked the skills to design and write quality code before AI, and now they feel like they can compete. They get a computer to write all their code and get to attach their name to it. That's why you see such pushback against AI critics from a vocal subset of engineers; they're the ones who weren't very good. The engineers who critique AI are the ones who see the garbage code the LLMs write. Just look at the source dump for Claude Code; that code was a rat's nest of epic proportions.
- lokar 4mo agoI see it slightly differently. It "levels" up the poor programmers in the sense they can submit a ton of output that seems plausible to managers. But it can also help Sr engineers, differently. They tend to use it in smaller, more tightly scoped use cases. Well scoped re-factoring, boilerplate stuff, improving personal tools, etc. The improvement is not nearly as visible or measurable to managers.
- zuzululu 4mo agoI do wonder why Gemini/Antigravity is so behind Codex and Claude. They have it all, TPUs, the model is okay, but then its scattered across a dozen product plans, names, limits. I feel like they are spread thin. Gemini CLI was atrocious. It's now being shuttered to AG but its very hard to use due to the limiting usage constraints Claude is better and Codex remains king of actual usage you can get.
- setnone 4mo agoa mistery indeed
- spwa4 4mo agoAfter first firing half their AI staff, to follow up with reorganizing BOTH AI departments so most survivors don't trust their managers? Oh and the OG AI department at Google had essentially everyone fired (you know, the one that had linguists) and then the AI department that took over was taken apart, half fired, to have it's corpse picked over by Deepmind. Everyone who mattered left (over 40) with only ONE real exception. Meanwhile firing a third of the rest of the company, to make sure that whoever remains encounters company morale somewhere between mandatory fun and PIP. Oh and you're wondering about the management reaction? They canceled PIPs (you're now fired when you'd normally have gotten a PIP) Which also resulted in many memes of people who just don't care anymore directly criticizing leadership. Things like "Wondering about senior management? Just ask yourself how this can be made worse. For example: how can a PIP be made worse? This is how"
- wunderlotus 4mo agoDamn this sounds like a tough workplace. How do ppl cope?
- spwa4 4mo agoThey're paying pretty well and recruiting everywhere, especially for ML. Same reason people ignore the "60 hours per week is the sweet spot" comments.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- olalonde 4mo agoBreaking: Googlers use self-deprecating humor as a pressure release valve. More shocking revelations at 11.
- brazukadev 4mo agoThat is not what the news is about. The shocking revelation is that even Google engineers gave up on the AI race.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- ghhhibhc 4mo agoThey didn’t give up, the average Google engineer was never on board and hasn’t even tried agenetic programming beyond what they were required to do not to get reprimanded. At no point has Google engineering culture actually embraced this at the ground level. This isn’t a change, this is the existing disconnect between the workers and the managers.
- Rekindle8090 4mo agoNo they didnt. You made up that scenario in your head
- jerlam 4mo agoMocking it instead of being apathetic may spur someone to try and address its problems. It's worse when management tells people not to complain because it's bad for morale. I've used and hated other internal tools - stuff like JIRA and Workday - that were just accepted as terrible and never going to improve.
- verdverm 4mo agoJira (and bitbucket) have actually improved a lot in the last 2-3 years. Not sure what they did, but it's much snappier now with better uptime than GitHub
- oytis 4mo agoI mean, it's an engineering company, so that's expected
- dan_sbl 4mo ago> After this story was published Google's spokesperson reached out and asked us to publish a slightly different version of that statement. The new statement no longer stated that "it's critical that we maintain humans in the loop." I'll let that stand on it's own.
- gandalfgeek 4mo ago(ex-Googler, spent 18 yrs there) Memegen is a key part of the culture. Its default mode is over-the-top mocking, of course, with a grain of truth. Nobody and nothing is spared. C-level execs, products, the perf process. So this by itself is not quite the scoop 404 media thinks it is. You could take the front page of memegen on any given day and construct twenty scandalous headlines of it.
- root-parent 4mo agoIts bad: https://imgur.com/gallery/google-ai-sota-llDaUDr https://imgur.com/gallery/google-ai-sota-llDaUDr
- cm2012 4mo agoThat seems like super harmless fun to me.
- root-parent 4mo agoBecause the context is harmless. If would be something else, like Iranian girl schools, or medication could be deadly...
- woodruffw 4mo agoThat’s how context works, in general. (Observe that normal human beings will also lie to you on the internet, about everything from the best flavor of ice cream to cancer treatments.)
- root-parent 4mo agoI dont think you are following up. This would be like you could prompt inject a doctor with a written note....
- chucksta 4mo ago
- simonw 4mo ago404media are great: > After this story was published Google's spokesperson reached out and asked us to publish a slightly different version of that statement. The new statement no longer stated that "it's critical that we maintain humans in the loop."
- m3kw9 4mo agoFlash 3.5 (Fast) is very fast for many things, just don't throw complicated issues with it, it just doesn't do it as well as 5.5 High. The low light of the show is the Anti-gravity app. The updates are few, and the updates does background bugs that no one really cares about. They add no features. The non-customizable "Open IDE" is classic greedy Google, they want you to stick to their tools. Vs Codex, they allow it.
- Yapping7880 4mo agoI work on a commonly used piece of software, I also make jokes to my colleagues about the software that I work on, many of us do. If I had infinite time and infinite money and infinite power, and there was no downstream risk to any of my updates, then I'd fix every single thing that I don't like about the software... things that I know other engineers don't like about it. But insofar as I am not god (... yet?), all I have is my good humor and congeniality.
- rzz3 4mo agohttps://archive.is/BeICs https://archive.is/BeICs
- Aurornis 4mo agoBeing willing and able to criticize the company's products is really important. Have you ever worked at an employer where everyone is pressured to only say good things about the product? You have to drink the kool-aid, or at least pretend to, and always talk about how great the product is? It's not good and it doesn't help the product. Being able to admit when things are bad is really important, even if it comes in the form of memes and humor.
- hmokiguess 4mo agoOpened the page excited to read a bunch of fun memes, was very disappointed, now I need a proper fix.
- chimpanzee2 4mo agoProbably in the minority here but I think mocking the LLM is actually a good approach for integration testing, so these folks seem to know what they're doing :-)
- amelius 4mo agoDo they also share memes about how ads suck?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- ndkap 4mo agoIt has sign up wall, so here is archive link: https://archive.ph/NTxzU https://archive.ph/NTxzU