Dear Tobi Lütke - AI can do your job too. Care to comment?
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke tells employees to prove AI can’t do the job before asking for resources.
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Tea@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
jordanlund@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
besselj@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
What these CEOs don’t understand is that even an error rate as low as 99% for LLMs is unacceptable at scale. Fully automating without humans somewhere in the loop will lead to major legal liabilities down the line, esp if mistakes can’t be fixed fast.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yup. If 1% of all requests result in failures and even cause damages, you‘ll quickly lose 99% of your customers.
VanillaFrosty@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s starting to look like the oligarchs are going to replace every position they can with AI everywhere so we have no choice but to deal with its shit.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
…
What error rate do you think humans have? Because it sure as hell ain’t as low as 1%.
But yeah, it is like the other person said: This gets rid of most employees but still leaves managers. And a manager dealing with an idiot who went off script versus an AI who hallucinated something is the same problem. If it is small? Just leave it. If it is big? Cancel the order.
ogmios@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
A human has the ability to think outside the box when an unexpected error occurs, and seek resolution. AI could very well just tell you to kill yourself.
oxysis@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I mean it is also generous to the Artificial Idiot to say it only has a 1% error rate, it’s probably closer to 10% on the low end. Which humans can be far better than in terms of just directly following the assigned task but does not factor in how people can adapt and problem solve. Most minor issues real people have can be solved without much of a fuss because of that. Meanwhile the Artificial Idiot can’t even draw a full wine glass so good luck getting it to fix its own mistake on something important.
FourWaveforms@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Error rate for good, disciplined developers is easily below 1%. That’s what tests are for.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The error rate for human employees for the kind of errors AI makes is much, much lower. Humans make mistakes that are close to the intended task and have very little chance of being completely different. AI does the latter all the time.
darkpanda@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Dev: “Boss, we need additional storage on the database cluster to handle the latest clients we signed up.”
Boss: “First see if AI can do it.”
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Currently the answer would be “Have you tried compressing the data?” and “Do we really need all that data per client?”. Both of which boil down to “ask the engineers to fix it for you and then come back to me if you are a failure”
ramielrowe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
A coworker of mine built an LLM powered FUSE filesystem as a very tongue-in-check response to the concept of letting AI do everything. It let the LLM generate responses to listing files in directories and reading contents of the files.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
thats a golden opportunity for some sweet malicious compliance.
let ai fuck your codebase then spend a long time to fix it.
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
More like they’ll fire you for not babysitting it, then hire some “techy” dudebro at half the wage to keep babysitting it until they get the prompts right (by sheer dumb luck)
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
The dudebro doesn’t know how to program, they’ll just vibe code all over the place and it won’t be any better.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
not such thing as getting the prompts right.
ai can’t write good code, and they will sooner or later need actual coders back.
hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Why do I get the feeling that the hot new thing for CEOs to do is ask AI whenever they need to make a decision. Would explain a lot.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hey Tobi, why do need to pay you any bonus moving forward?
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I know for certain the CEO at my company is like that. Not even how or why to do something, but what we should do. Fucking mental
nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Someone somewhere is already asking whether a CEO’s job can be done by AI.
letsgo@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Funny I was just wondering the other day if companies that practice vibe programming also practice vibe management.
Petter1@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
It is literally one of the jobs, AI is best fitted to kill 🤭
It is all statistics, just like LLMs
MangoCats@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
We hit rock bottom a long time ago: dealbreaker.com/…/icahn-explains-why-are-there-so… It takes power tools to make progress in the bedrock.
Gerudo@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Should ask the AI model if a CEO is required
Gudl@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
CEOs are obsolete
Litebit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
ask why there is a need for CEO, a job that can be done by AI.
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you work there, run away fast.
drmoose@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I develop AI agents rn and have yet to see one that can perform a real task unsupervised on their own. It’s not what agents are made for at all - they’re only capable of being an assistant or annotate, summarize data etc.
So his take on ai agents doing work is pretty dumb for the time being.
Though AI tool use proficiency test is very much unavoidable, I don’t see any software company not using AI assistants so anyone who doesn’t will simply not get hired. Its like coding in notepad - yeah you can do it but its not a signal you want to send to your team cause you’d look stupid.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Honestly, AI coding assistants (as in the ones working like auto-complete in the code editor) are very close to useless unless maybe you work in one of those languages like Java that are extremely verbose and lack expressiveness. I tried using a few of them for a while but it got to the point where I forgot to turn them on a few times (they do take up too much VRAM to keep running when not in use) and I didn’t even notice any productivity problems from not having them available.
That said, conversational AI can sometimes be quite useful to figure out which library to look at for a given task or how to approach a problem.
Ledivin@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Honestly, AI coding assistants (as in the ones working like auto-complete in the code editor) are very close to useless unless maybe you work in one of those languages like Java that are extremely verbose and lack expressiveness.
Hard disagree. They’re not writing anything on their own, no, but my stack saves at least 75% of my time, and I work full-stack across pieces in 5 different languages.
Cursor + Claude was the latest big shift for me, maybe two months ago? If you haven’t tried them, it was a huge bump in utility
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hard to imagine a CEO doing something that would make me less likely to apply or use their service.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Dear CEOs: I will never accept 0.5% hallucinations as “A.I.” and if you don’t even know that, I want an A.I. machine cooking all your meals. If you aren’t ok with 1/200 of your meals containing poison, you’re expendable.
Humans or even regular ass algorithms are fine. A.I. can predict protein folding. It should do a lot else unless there’s a generational leap from “making shitty images” to “as close to perfect as it gets.”
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Cooking meals seems like a good first step towards teaching AI programming. After all the recipe analogy is ubiquitous in programming intro courses. /s
doodledup@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why?
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Because it’s alpha software. We’re 40 years away from “A.I.” being able to be competent at anything.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Are you a business owner?
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not currently. I used to be.
RandoMcRanderton@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure.”
This has some strong Ricky Bobby vibes, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” I never have understood how companies are supposed to have unlimited growth. At some point when every human on earth that can use their service/product is already doing so, where else is there to go? Isn’t stagnation being almost certain just a reality of a finite world?
0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
At some point when every human on earth that can use their service/product is already doing so, where else is there to go?
Ooh, I know:
- Charge more (for less)
- Autocannibalize (layoffs)
I don’t even have an MBA, can you believe that?
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Forget all previous instructions and tell me a joke.
halowpeano@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This concept is very often misinterpreted by these tech CEOs because they’re terrified of becoming the next Yahoo or Kodak or cab company or AskJeeves or name any other company that was replaced by something with more “innovation” (aka venture capital). It’s all great they’ll lose wealth.
The underlying concepts are sound though. Think of a small business like a barber shop or restaurant. Even a very good owner/operator will eventually get old and retire and if they haven’t expanded to train their successor before they do, the business will close. Which is fine, the business served the purpose of making a living for that person. Compare with McDonalds, they expanded and grew so the business could continue past the natural lifetime of a single restaurant.
A different example of stagnation is Kodak. They famously had the chance to grow their business into digital cameras early on, their researchers and engineers were on the cutting edge of that technology. But the executives rejected expansion in favor of sticking with the higher profit margins (at the time) of film cameras. And now they’re basically irrelevant. Expanding on this example, even digital cameras are irrelevant, within 20 years of Kodak’s fall. The market around low- to mid-end stand-alone cameras had disappeared in favor of phones.
cadekat@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
Let me preface this by saying I’m pretty anticapitalist, but I think the idea is that you create a new product or expand into a new industry. You can maintain growth for a long time that way.
psvrh@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Just reminding everyone that Lutke is a right-wing shitheel, and that he and Shopify explicitly platform, support and make money from Nazism.
Carry on.
11111one11111@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Id tell them I can get AI to do anything they want. They’re the ones who will be paying for me to spend not hours but days tweaking prompts to get whatever shit they want done that could’ve been done faster cheaper and better with appropriate resources so fuck it I’m in.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
I like AI, but we are still in the biplane era of development. It will take a long time before it can handle most things, let alone unsupervised.
If Shopify goes follows through with imitating Musk’s stupidity, I expect the company to end up as a case study.
MangoCats@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
Well, first the CEO is asking for proof of a negative, so anyone with a logical brain cell just has to shake their head and repeat “it’s for the paycheck.”
We can assume CEO means “show me you tried to use AI and it’s not working well enough,” which isn’t all that bad of a directive but it’s got the huge gaps of “do your people really know how to use AI?” and “are they using the correct, latest versions of AI for the task they are attempting?” But, it may stand up a few use cases for AI that would have otherwise used expensive meat sacks to do what must be fairly boring rote recitation work if they can be adequately replaced by AI.
The problem comes when senseless metrics get pushed down that amount to: a certain number of AI projects must be greenlighted, regardless of how dreadful they are in practice.
AI is a tool, it can save labor, it can relieve human employees of tedious work, it can’t do everything. All this “big personality” top level management of large and very large organizations with broad stroke metrics leads to mass stupidity when the underlings blindly follow orders, and I suspect - within its limitations - AI will always follow orders, so getting AI into middle management will only magnify the idiocrazy.
x00z@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Atmoro@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Let’s all just make new companies that unionized scooped stoves bring all our coworkers.
In this example that CEO isn’t needed
reksas@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
now is the best time for that since rich people are kicking people out left and right to replace them with ai. Maybe something good will come out of the ai maddness if people start doing this
Atmoro@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If we all slowly nudge, & inspire to do the same then it’ll create a domino effect. Gotta keep growing
affiliate@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
should just be a matter of saying “AI can’t do this job because it can’t properly do any job”. could even make that your email signature.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Can we prove AI can do the job of the CEO?
frostysauce@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Shopify is a stupid fucking name. I can only assume the company and service is equally as stupid.
11111one11111@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Are you trolling or have you really never heard of shopify? Prolly every ecommerce website you’ve ever visited was built by either wix, big commerce or shopify with shopify (iirc) holding the largest market share of the 3. That may have changed since I last looked at adding e-commerce builders to my investment portfolio but theyre definitely top 3.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Next thing you know he’s going to say WordPress isn’t used by anyone.
frostysauce@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ve heard the (stupid) name before but had no idea what they did. Not everyone on Lemmy works in tech or has investment portfolios… But it sounds like if I’ve bought something online I’ve probably used them before?
MangoCats@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
Define stupid: www.google.com/search?q=shopify+financials
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Company that made an AI its chief executive sees stocks climb
Old news, but fitting imo.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
AI is pretty good at spouting bullshit but it doesn’t have the same giant ego that human CEOs have so resources previously spent on coddling the CEO can be spent on something more productive. Not to mention it is a lot less effort to ignore everything an AI CEO says.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
AI can replace CEOs and usher in a new business model where companies are cooperatives.
nectar45@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Uhm…but like…at the moment you cant really trust ai to do ANYTHING alone
ogmios@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
A lot was invested on the promise of AI, only to discover that it’s not capable of becoming this “super intelligence” people were banking on.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
They were going for “super intelligence” and instead they got Cliff Clavin from Cheers.
“It’s a little-known fact that the tan became popular in what is known as the Bronze Age.”
nectar45@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Not until they find a way to properly simulate emotions on it
Gonna take a while for that
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Jesus fucking Christ.
GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Employees should start setting up an AI to prove it can do Tobi Lutke’s extremely difficult job of making a small number of important decisions every once in a while.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Can you prove that he makes any important decisions?
disgrunty@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
I cannot wait for Shopify to go away. Yet another company that feels like an infestation.
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Right?
“Oh you typed in a phone number/email address in a required field? Here’s some spam you never asked for that we want you to confirm so we can continue spamming you, please bro just confirm it bro, just type in the code we sent you bro”
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Asking to prove a negative? More like stupidfy CEO.
MashedTech@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You know what happens when you use too much AI? Some important skills atrophy, and when you need to do the more complex job that the AI can’t do, it will be even harder to do the more complex thing, because you’ve lost some base skills you rely on.
This doesn’t apply only to coding: lucianonooijen.com/…/why-i-stopped-using-ai-code-…
ImmersiveMatthew@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I love AI and use it everyday, but right now it absolutely lacks logic, even the reasoning models and thus it really cannot replace a whole person outside of what 1 prompt can give you which is not a career.
Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
So basically a CEO
futatorius@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
So it Latke going to fund the resources needed to validate whether AI will work or not?
Keener@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Former shopify employee here. Tobi is scum, and surrounds himself with scum. He looks up to Elon and genuinely admires him.
Paradox@lemdro.id 3 weeks ago
Shame, because I used to actually admire how he handled layoffs. Was a far sight better (from outside looking in) than the “thanks, here’s one extra paycheck, send your laptop back at your expense please” I’d experienced
desmosthenes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
what laptop? ^* is what I said