Living the Good Life - mortgage free and living in line with our values

EssexHebridean

I feel rather similar about the AI stuff Vix - although there is also the perspective that I don't think we're likely to be able to turn that particular ship around now, so with the surveys etc there is the view that at least having input might just help make it better - and if we are going to be stuck with it anyway, at least ensuring it is as good as possible seems logical. It's a tricky one though isn't it. 

edinburgher

I think we all have our red lines when it comes to principles, it can be very enriching hearing about what others are and why.  

I was going to go off on a wee tangent about some of the differences and contradictions that I come across on MFW (particularly when it comes to money), but it would have seemed like I was having an unhelpful dig at some of my peers, I'm sure we all have something we could rather be better/purer at when it comes to living a more ethical life. I don't feel that TMV was having a go at me, I'll make that completely clear

In terms of AI specifically, I used to feel very similar about careers where "creative destruction" was accepted as the norm, I can remember having a very spirited disagreement with Monevator or similar about the growth in Oober-type businesses some years ago. I'm not sure how I feel now... 

On the one hand, I have empathy for the poor sods who will be forced out of jobs they may enjoy by shiny but imperfect technology that is good enough to avoid paying a human. On the other hand, I think that AI is massively overrated at the moment and that plenty of jobs will remain. It all feels a bit .com boom. I recently used AI to help reduce down the contents of a job application and to help me come up with interview examples. It was ok with this if given strict prompts and reminders, I basically treated it as a pair of listening ears that couldn't stop listening no matter how bored it was (Mrs E must be so grateful) Even if I'm wrong and it does us all out of a job, that becomes a societal problem and governments will be forced to step in with appropriate taxation to fund universal basic income for us dunderhead meatbags. I can't see that happening in my lifetime? 

In related news, I really dislike AI, I am sick to death of the slop it churns out. At the same time, if they want to keep paying me to review AI content, I'll happily save up for the biggest taser I can find when the robots come for us Dear internet/actual police, I own (and have no intention of owning) anything more dangerous than a rolling pin  I did a wee bit of reading yesterday to see how I could prevent AI results from making their way into my internet searches. Adding "-ai " followed by your search term seems to work quite well.  

EssexHebridean

Ed, I'm inclined to feel aligned with that viewpoint as well. Right now it feels that so many people are treating AI as some sort of god-on-a-pedestal that can do no wrong, and that in itself is causing issues all over - but equally it doesn't seem likely that situation will prevail long term, unless AI gets an awful lot better than it is right now! I suspect those of us who are maintaining the sort of balanced view you are setting out above will end up proving to be correct, but I can certainly see how anyone whose living could end up being sacrificed to the bots would be feeling awful defensive about it too! 

I have at least finally got around to submitting the ID for Prolific, so this conversation might end up being of practical value before all that long, too! 

themadvix

Feeling too rough to respond properly and we’re away tomorrow, but will respond properly when we’re back - some great thoughts from all! And Greenbee, no, I’ve not seen Idiocracy - might have to have a watch!
 Glad you didn’t take it as criticism Ed, certainly wasn’t intended that way. And yes, I’m aware that there are things that could make me a hypocrite (a Tesla, anyone?) And that I use AI plenty (hey Siri - although frankly what’s intelligent about her, I’m not sure) - totally accept that we all have blind spots/things we can only do/take so far. 😊

 Anyway, back later in the week, hopefully feeling less rough!

rtandon27

Enjoy your time away & feel better soon!

beanielou

Feel better soon. 

QueenJess

Well I think @edinburgher has it all covered, so not much more to add! I am also sick of the AI hype - yes there are cases where it is helpful, but not to the extent people seem to think. When people use it in a search engine and think they can come up with the same answer as a human for my job, I just roll my eyes as you really need experience plus human for what I do. It never has the right answer as I deal with too complex scenarios to ask a simple question.

Aside from possible work uses (that actually I have not adopted as not found a good use case yet), I avoid it like the plague in my personal life. I need a convincing case to use it and not found one. I use DuckDuckGo as a search engine and you can permanently turn off AI in the settings.

EssexHebridean

Oh Vix I hope you have felt much better for your time away - rotten timing for a lurgy! 

themadvix

Afternoon all,

Finally back, at my desk and feeling a lot more human!

Re AI, Mr MV uses it as work for coding - I can see it has its uses and there is definitely skill to prompting it. I would argue that someone else could be doing the work (an actual human software engineer), but his argument is that they've never provided those sort of resources and it would take him forever to try to work out how to do it on his own. And the bubble, the hype etc. couldn't agree more. I wouldn't want to be invested in it currently (and I think all the conversation here was prior to the Gr0k nastiness).

Cough finally receding - still coughing but back to it being an irritating cough rather than a debilitating chesty cough. It wasn't great while we were away for my birthday last week, but we had a nice time nonetheless - lovely sea air and gentle exercise, bought some clothes and some perfume with some birthday money and ate lovely food. Friday was GMIL's funeral, which went as well as can be expected. There was a lot left over from the buffet, so I made sure it was packed up and we divvied it up at the in-laws'. We'll have the last of it tonight (cheese, crackers and some falafel with last night's leftovers. It fed Mr MV for lunch yesterday and did for snacks on Saturday. Saturday afternoon we went for birthday tapas with BIL and SIL - lunchtime was good as it was their lunch offer, so a bit cheaper than normal, not that that helped me, as BIL and SIL bought my lunch as my present (which, of course, Mr MV would have paid for, so for the second year in a row, I feel a bit miffed - especially as they didn't do the same for Mr MV's birthday tapas which cost an awful lot more and I paid for! I can't complain really - we had a nice time).

Today has felt like the first day back really - Mr MV had to get up at 6.30 for an office day, which was a bit of a shock to the system. He's meeting his new team today, although he won't start in the role until next month. I've done some admin work and some Cambridge work. I've also been to the allotment, harvested some enormous parsnips, some tiny carrots, some dubious quality oca (they needed harvesting about two weeks ago and some are very soft, so I think they may be past it) and some greens for a meal I've realised I'm now not likely to cook until Wednesday night (oh well). Did some weeding too and it was lovely to be outside in the fresh air, hands in the soil (with waterproof gloves on, I'm not mad!).

In the name of technological progress one of my US clients has introduced an utterly backwards system for jobs and accepting POs that is taking me far longer to go through than the work is worth. I am seriously unimpressed and things had better improve rapidly. They used to send me one PO per project per month, with a cumulative total. Now I have to accept a PO for each tiny bit of work (sometimes less than £1) which takes about 30 seconds for each one because the system is so poorly set up. I have complained to my contact and asked for the contact details for the developer. This is not a functional system as it stands. (I am typing here while the system is doing extensive thinking for each tiny PO). And I think once I've accepted them, he then has to approve them (all for work already completed) before I can then invoice for it. Who thought this was in any way a suitable system for this type of work? I am not the only one who will be unimpressed with the set up. (ETA Contact says they are aware of the issue and bulk acceptance will be happening at some point - phew! I've gone back to him though because it won't let me add all the POs to my invoice! 🙄)

In terms of Cambridge, we are still waiting to hear about the restructure, but my boss/friend will definitely be leaving. I am very unmotivated still, as are the rest of her team, I imagine (albeit, we've all had a nice break). I am not sure what the future holds here - I can see that they will need me for 6 months for report writing, pretty much regardless of what the restructure brings about as my colleague who I've been training up to do some will almost certainly be leaving... But the other stuff I do, who knows. I'm not sure I'll want to continue for much longer - the new management is not making it a pleasant place to work and others have left too. We'll see.

MS things:
* 1P surveys - very close to payout now
* Parsnips - I should think 2kgs (about 5 parsnips, to give some idea of their size!). I'll part roast these and freeze for roast dinners - especially as Mr MV doesn't like them (more for me!)
* R'ford couldn't deliver my blood oranges 😭 - £4.95 credit on my account. Doesn't make up for the lack of blood oranges though!
* Funeral buffet leftovers
* Mr MV away for work tomorrow, so won't need feeding (I got a baked of baked potatoes from R'ford to enjoy while he's on his work trips 😁)

Gratitudes:
* Some very generous presents
* Lovely time away with Mr MV last week
* Nice send-off for GMIL
* Allotment time - I've missed it

Have a good evening all!

edinburgher

Is Cambridge your main job @themadvix? I am never quite sure because you are tactfully discrete about your work