this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
460 points (99.1% liked)
Fuck AI
5461 readers
1163 users here now
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They are pushing it at my work. I spent half a day trying to train Copilot to build me a report from one PDF and one way too formatted excel sheet, no go, the too-formatted excel stumped it, I had to clean it up first. I am booking payroll and the fucking system we use refuses to generate a report with the whole cost, there is one for gross to net and a separate one, not available in excel, and not in a format that can be put in a spreadsheet, for the employer cost. I need to split the total into departments & job cost codes. (ETA the payroll system also doesn't handle the job costing, even after I get total cost, more manual work)
I worked with the department who sends me this trash and glory be, there was a CSV for the gross to net one. Finally wrestled it into getting this right and asked it "what do I ask next time to get this result the first time" and it does now do a reliable job of this BUT:
All it's doing is making a report that the payroll system really and truly ought to be capable of producing. And I guess letting me honestly say, "sure boss, I use the copilot". It's not adding anything at all, just making up for a glaring defect in the reporting available from the payroll company. Give me access to that system and I could build the report, it doesn't need AI at all.
This is my problem with AI where I work. I can use it to get the result I want (eventually) although I have to do some editing.
But I can also use the python script that has been working fine for years, which gets me 99% of the way there in 15 seconds. It would be faster but the script is terribly unoptimized because I'm not a programmer.