I think we might need a support group for disillusioned tech workers.
this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
79 points (97.6% liked)
Technology
42860 readers
167 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
When I see people begin their Anti-AI arguements with "it's bad for the environment" I tune out completely. These motherfuckers have been driving gasoline powered vehicles around for decades, and are totally fine with natural gas fired power plants.
Fuck off.
Theft of ideas and IP?
Buddy, do you not fucking understand how society has improved over the last 10 thousand years? We even have a saying for it, "standing on the shoulders of giants" which as a saying/concept has been around for about the last 800 fucking years, and was made or remembered famously from Issac Newton in 1675.
If we didn't use the ideas and learning from those that came before us, we'd still be living in caves.
Do you know what's more recent than that saying? The entire concept of Intellectual property. Which has only been around a bit more than 500 years.
Buddy is complaining about giving money to large companies, then you look at their linked in profile and see a job history that includes Dropbox, Scribe, and a for-profit healthcare company.
It's hard having two decades of experiences in a domain I suddenly find myself at odds with. Reading about others having the same qualm reassures me that I'm not going crazy. On the other I feel drawn further into an untenable contradictory position.
Once in a while I give in. It's typically when I'm faced with a non trivial problem I realize will take me days of learning before I have any chance of tackling it. My colleagues start suggesting it or share some slop to "help out". So I think fuck it I'll study later for now AI will solve it I need this ticket closed asap. I fire up a "decent" paid model and I start feeding it context. Every time it's a nightmare. Hours of trying stuff that doesn't stick, of questioning, of arguing with a chat bot, of wading through "here are the facts" and "good catch" and "I owe you an apology". It's not a shortcut it's a fucking dead end. Then the bitter aftertaste can only be cleansed with cold hard time consuming actual learning.
At least after hours of arguing with a bot and burning tons of money and energy you have a pile of code you can’t understand without paying a chatbot.
But will the chat bot understand itself? It's fun when you start questioning the LLM line by line about its own slop in the same session and it starts flagging all sorts of things it did wrong. Why didn't it write it correctly in the first place? Or is the fix wrong? Who knows? People I guess. The model is fed on knowledge but whether it will activate in response to your prompt and be restored unadulterated is a coin toss.
No, but it will gladly pretend to understand it. For a price.
7 months ago I quit my job for this reason. I thought long and hard about it even bought a ranch. I have joined another team, but one that is pretty critical of ai. They aren't anti ai, but using it needs to have good reason. I figure this is my last bastion and I'll ride this.
Got room for one more at the ranch?
Absolutely, but you'll have to help me tend to the yaks, and hike through the mountains every so often to forage for food and set up new sensors. :)
I saw the yakherds riding Honda motorcycles all over Gansu. Seems like a blast.
If my current employer goes bust and I lose my job (which doesn't seem unlikely right now), I think I'm out. I'll have about 1.5 years to reinvent myself somehow. But at this point I can't really see myself working in tech for the rest of my life.
Same. If I lose my job I think I'm going to become an electrician instead. That or work on a farm or garden center.
Electrician sounds kind of cool, but the union route (in the US) seems like a pretty serious commitment.
This is the sign I needed to call in sick for the next few days. This shit is so tiring.
Real
Sounds like an opportunity for malicious compliance.
Auth is down? AI did it.