I read this article back months ago, but only now just connected the moral with my own life.
In telling someone about these experiments and linking this article, I realized that I to had set my mind towards doing the impossible and succeeding. Long story short, I was tasked at work with producing an impossible result and was able to succeed after two days (with downsides, but that was the framework I was working under). The net result was that my boss learned that I could produce miracles upon request and didn’t bother asking how long a task might take, whether a task was possible, viable, sensible, or whatever. He’d just swing by and go “oh hey I need X by [time]” and I’d have to do it. I couldn’t say no because his philosophy was “bang it out.”
Ultimately this had the same toll on my psyche as your AI experiments. Accomplishing the impossible happens when you sit down, shut up, and just do it.
But don’t do it too often, success or fail, or you’ll grind yourself into a paste and be unable to tolerate any more.
I ended up having to quit a job I enjoyed doing for a number of years simply because no one could manage expectations of the guy in charge. I challenged the sun and won on more than one occasion, but the psychological toll on my mood and work relationships soured permanently. I could not continue, work was no longer fun and I could not tolerate management. So I quit at the worst possible time, not intentionally, but just because a request came in and I said, “You know what, no. I don’t have to do this. I’ve put up with this long enough, I was going to tough it out, but this is too much. I quit.”
Go out, accomplish the impossible.
But manage expectations and only do it when absolutely necessary.
I read this article back months ago, but only now just connected the moral with my own life.
In telling someone about these experiments and linking this article, I realized that I to had set my mind towards doing the impossible and succeeding. Long story short, I was tasked at work with producing an impossible result and was able to succeed after two days (with downsides, but that was the framework I was working under). The net result was that my boss learned that I could produce miracles upon request and didn’t bother asking how long a task might take, whether a task was possible, viable, sensible, or whatever. He’d just swing by and go “oh hey I need X by [time]” and I’d have to do it. I couldn’t say no because his philosophy was “bang it out.”
Ultimately this had the same toll on my psyche as your AI experiments. Accomplishing the impossible happens when you sit down, shut up, and just do it.
But don’t do it too often, success or fail, or you’ll grind yourself into a paste and be unable to tolerate any more.
I ended up having to quit a job I enjoyed doing for a number of years simply because no one could manage expectations of the guy in charge. I challenged the sun and won on more than one occasion, but the psychological toll on my mood and work relationships soured permanently. I could not continue, work was no longer fun and I could not tolerate management. So I quit at the worst possible time, not intentionally, but just because a request came in and I said, “You know what, no. I don’t have to do this. I’ve put up with this long enough, I was going to tough it out, but this is too much. I quit.”
Go out, accomplish the impossible.
But manage expectations and only do it when absolutely necessary.