Comment on UK government trial of Microsoft's M365 Copilot finds no clear productivity boost

• cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  People probably tried it, found out that it’s crap and stopped using it.

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  • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Its hardly possible to actually test it properly in relation to your work and changes in productivity with a single query per day. It

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    • 31ank@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They probably did multiple queries per day at the beginning, found out it isn’t worth it and stopped using it …

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      • Womble@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Thats complete speculation on your part though. It could equally be people hardly used it at first then started to use it more as they found ways it was helpful. Unless you see the data there's no reason to say one or the other.

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      • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Maybe, maybe not we actually have no idea as the article doesn’t mention it. Nevertheless, doing infrequent queries is an equally likely scenario, given that people are really bad at changing their habits and existing workflows regardless of potential benefits.

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    • tartarin@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You assume the average usage is representative of the actual usage. You averaged the actions over the time period, nothing’s says the users didn’t performed the averaged 72 actions within the first three days or any time restricted window within the whole period of time and got bored with it seeing no or low value.

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s also possible a handful of power users use it a ton and found value, while the quiet majority only used it a few times because they were required to and didn’t see value.

        We need more details to draw conclusions.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’m not a programmer, so it’s got nothing tonoffer me. Mostly my job is to write documentation for propriety software and hardware, stuff the AI knows nothing about, not everyone in the world can maker use of AI and it doesn’t require a PhD and 30!days of constant usage to work that out.

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      • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’m not saying AI specifically is useful, just that people in general tend to resist change in their work methods regardless of what they are.

        I also work with a lot of proprietary knowledge, chemical and infrastructure in my case, and AI still can be useful when used properly. We use a local model and have provided it with all our internal docs and specs, and limited answers to knowledge from these, so we can search thousands of documents much faster, and it links to the sources for it’s answers.

        Doesn’t do my job for me, but it sure as shit makes it easier to have a proper internal search engine that can access information inside documents and not just the titles.

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Then maybe it’s not useful for you. That doesn’t mean AI isn’t useful for a number of other roles.

        I’m a software developer and find its code generation to be awful, but I also find that it’s great at looking up technical information. Maybe I’m looking for a library to accomplish a task, and I want to compare features. Or maybe I’m having trouble finding usage examples for a relatively niche library. Those are task the AI is great at, because it can look at tons of blog posts, stack overflow questions, etc, and generate me something reasonable that I can verify against official docs.

        If my workflow was. mostly email and internal documentation, yeah, AI wouldn’t be that useful. If my workflow relies on existing documentation that’s perhaps a little hard to find or a bit poor, then AI is great. Find the right use case and it can save time.

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• echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  We have it on our system at work. When we asked what management expected it to be used for they didn’t have an answer.

  We have a shell script that ingests a list of user IDs and resets their active directory passwords, then locks the account, then sends them an email telling them to contact the support desk to unlock the account. It a cron job that runs ever Monday morning.

  What do a need an AI for when we can just use that? A script that can be easily read understood and upgraded, new concerns about it going off-piste and doing something random and unpredictable.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Well yeah, AI shouldn’t replace existing, working solutions, it should be used in the research phase for new solutions as a companion to existing tools.

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• Jhex@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  .this basically just shows that AI assistants provide no benefit when they’re not used and nothing else.

  so you think they may be useful but people just like to work harder? or perhps, they tried and saw no benefit at all and moved on?

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  • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Having been part of multiple projects introducing new software tools (not AI) to departments before, people are usually just stubborn and don’t want to change their ways, even if it enables a smoother work-flow with minimal training/practice.

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    • Jhex@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The devil is in the details… what you describe screams to me what I call the “new boss syndrome”. New boss comes in and they feel the need to pee on everyone to mark their territory so they MUST bring in some genius change.

      99% of the time, they are bringing in some forced change for the sake of change or something that worked on their previous place without taking into consideration the context.

      I do not know almost anyone who prefers to work harder… either the changes proposed make no sense (or it’s too complex for people to understand the benefit) or the change is superfluous. That is usually where resistance to change comes from.

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    • rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      In all your software deployments did you blame the users for not getting it or did you redesign the software because it sucked (according to your users)?

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      • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I was one of the users, these are my observations with my colleagues reactions.

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      • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’ve occasionally been part of training hourly workers on software new to them. Having really, really detailed work instructions and walking through all the steps with themthe first time has helped me win over people who were initially really opposed to the products.

        My experience with salaried workers has been they are more likely to try new software on their own, but if they don’t have much flexible time they usually choose to keep doing the established less efficient routine over investing one-time learning curve and setup time to start a new more efficient routine. Myself included - I have for many yeara been aware of software my employer provides that would reduce the time spent on regular tasks, but I know the learning curve and setup is in the dozens of hours, and I haven’t carved out time to do that.

        So to answer the question, neither. The problem may be neither the software nor the users, but something else about the work environment.

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• panda_abyss@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Worth noting the average includes the people who did use it a lot too.

  So you can conclude people basically did not use it at all.

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