Pretty much every company has AI bros, we know that. And if we’re lucky, there are also some pragmatic, vocal folks fighting for balance and humans.
But there’s also a group of folks caught in the middle who are just trying to get by. They’re leaning into AI because, quite frankly, they’ve been told they have to. They literally don’t have a choice. For any number of good reasons, they need to keep their jobs, so they’re not in any position to publicly push back on their AI overlords right now. And honestly they’re not wrong – pushing back against AI right now is probably not the smartest career move (oops!).
I’ve spoken to a handful of folks at various companies who are effectively being forced to AI all the things, so I think it’s entirely possible many (the majority of?) people are in this boat. They see some utility in the LLM tools, but not to the rabid degree that AI bros and CEOs do. And since they’re not in any position to push back, they have to put on a brave face and support AI initiatives, even though they may not really want to. To colleagues inside the company, these folks may seem like they’re big time AI supporters, when inside they’re slowly dying and just trying to ride it out.
All that to say, try not to jump to any conclusions about any specific person and to what degree they’re using AI in your company. Unless you’ve had a direct, private, honest conversation with them about AI (which involves setting up a lot of trust in the first place), you have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing. It’s possible they’re a hardcore AI bro and then of course you should definitely judge them, but honestly, they’re very likely just trying to stay alive.