I got a call from someone I don't know.
"Hi. We have a FreeBSD server. It's been working perfectly for years, but it hasn't been updated since then. We asked AI to update it, but now it won't boot anymore. It didn't even make a backup before starting. The AI keeps trying things, everything is down, and we've already spent over €500 in tokens. Can you help us?"
"Sure. €500, plus the time it'll take me to try to fix it. Assuming it can still be fixed and nothing important has been deleted."
"That much?"
Some silence.
"Well, I hope AI takes your job away!" And he hung up.
Believing that autopilot automatically makes you an invulnerable professional pilot will ruin far more people than job losses will.
I don't know if AI will take my job away, but it's already cost them €500 and, probably, their server.
@stefano Let them boil in the soup of their own creation. The ability to *not* rely on LLMs is an invaluable asset. Clients which don't understand this already will understand eventually.
@stefano I recently had someone ask me to set up WordPress for them. I agreed and they asked if I would be using AI to do the work. I assured them no, it is a simple (for me) task which takes just a few minutes.
They then clarified they were asking me to use AI to do the install. They thought using AI would somehow make the vanilla WordPress setup better. They were fine with it taking longer, even, if I somehow involved AI in the process they had already offloaded to me.
@distrowatch @stefano "oh, if you want me to use AI I need $3000 extra for buying all the tokens"
@distrowatch @stefano I use AI* all the time in my work.
* That is, my actual intelligence and not the fake kind.
@stefano apps and social networks have spawned a generation of people who think they shouldn’t have to pay for anything. Only they should make money not you.
@Ox1de @stefano : well, they are perfectly fine paying a lot of money to big corporations (Microsoft or Google, Apple for the laptops, OpenAI, Anthropic…)
They just don’t want to pay an human.
Probably because they are uncomfortable with the fact that this human will know more about the subject than they are.
(I mean, 500€ is cheap ! They already wasted as much without batting an eye )
But very good call: 500€ to undo the shit done by LLMs!
It is truly wild that this idea that things are more trustworthy if they're said by a computer somehow took hold among so many people.
@stefano Almost my entire income is unfucking bad AI nonsense, much of it starts like this story.
And it almost always comes with a phase in the negotiations where they beg me to reduce my rates because they have already spent so much money on AI.
But that isn't my fault, nor my problem.
Never been told off like this though.
@stefano you’re charging the same amount to rescue my truck that I spent getting it stuck? Outrageous!
@stefano I think folks really have a lack of value for our profession because it's "computer skills".
It's the same attitude as "oh it's just plumbing" and before you know it you're knee deep in dirty water.
No matter how desperate we are for money, we must value our time. And like just get a plumber in.
We don't have to be good at everything. It's a chance to get to know folks and you never know the plumber might know a business that need your professional help.
@onepict True. Years ago, "it's an easy task! The 12 years old son of my friend could do it".
My reply was: "Let him do that, but don't call me when everything will be gone".
At times, it happened. Sometimes, they just went out of business.
@theorangetheme @mwl @stefano I honestly hate doing it, but it is the only work I've been finding lately. I've had to sign an NDA for every single gig I have had doing it, they always wanna haggle over the price, and they always complain that the fix takes too long.
The last part is what really drives me bonkers. They spent a month wasting money on an AI solution that made their issue worse, but they expect me to wave my magic wand and fix it in an hour.
And so, so many of them will try it again. I've gotten three callbacks this year that were basically, "We aimed AI at your fix and now it's broke, we need you to come back in (and do a better job this time)."
I have taken to stating in my contract terms that if you use AI on my work, it completely voids anything resembling a warranty or culpability on my part. I will not be held responsible because people are idiots. Doesn't stop them from trying though.
If AI is the future of IT, I don't want to work in IT anymore.
@stefano Well, "AI" will certainly take his away… because he's clearly not competent to manage a FreeBSD server.
You don't mess with something that is years old without first performing a back-up. Ever.
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@highvoltage @stefano I agree and I think it's by design, it's part of the lock in process
@stefano I don't know, feels like the +500 is punishment for reaching to AI instead of a person, and you chose that instead as a teaching moment of "don't trust AIs ever again".
I know lots of non computering people who use AI for one reason or another, and I don't scold them, but I take every opportunity to try to teach them. Last Sunday I explained some issues about AI data centers, and the people honestly didn't know. The one that asked most questions said themselves were "a total ignorant".
@mdione no punishment at all. If you call me and say "I need to upgrade my server", it's one thing. If you call me and say "my server isn't working, not booting anymore, I do not have any backups, I don't know what happens", I need to investigate first.
I'm not punishing anyone, but you can't expect to call me and fix it in 10 minutes, offering a coffee as a payment.
@stefano ah, so your prices are like that, the way you put it in the toot sounded like "the same you already spent in IA plus the hours of work".
@mdione No, prices aren't like that. They may vary. In this specific situation, considering what they told me, I was quite sure it was going to be a complicated task. So that's why I kept myself higher than usual.
@stefano yeah, maybe... TBH I don't do freelancing; I have done some in the past, but not as my main income. OTOH, I once recovered a partition table for free (I even wrote about it; it's part of my CV :) because it was interesting to do, I knew the person, and their PhD depended on it. I never took into account if it was their fault or not (it wasn't).
But again, not my breadwinner. And you seem fine with not taking jobs.
@mdione I don't like losing jobs, actually. But from the tone of the conversation, the situation itself, and my experience, I had the feeling this wasn't going to be just a job. It was going to be a responsibility I didn't want to take on.
I've learned to recognise situations that can easily turn into "We tried everything, then called a professional, and even he couldn't fix it."
The €500 spent on AI tokens are already gone, and that's apparently fine. But if I spend hours investigating and can't recover the server, suddenly my time becomes something to argue about. And if I fix it in ten minutes? "Why should we pay so much? It only took you ten minutes!"
I've seen this kind of situation before. And while I genuinely enjoy helping people, sometimes even for free, I've also learned when it's better to walk away.
It's not something I enjoy doing. But sometimes avoiding trouble is worth more than getting another job. 😉
