Actual Ad Link: https://www.instagram.com/microsoft365/p/C7j8ipnxIiI/?img_index=1
Awesome article about the ad which sums it up nicely:
https://justinpot.com/watch-me-be-in-three-meetings-at-once/
Three meetings at once. It’s so funny that, when I saw people making fun of it, I assumed it was a meme or an Onion parody. Nope: Microsoft really did run this as an ad on Instagram. This is what they think we want from their supposedly world-changing technology: the ability to attend more meetings.
Now, Copilot’s ability to transcribe a meeting and highlight the key points is cool, and in theory it could make meetings more efficient. It’s easy to imagine, in a healthy work culture, where that gain in time allows people to spend more time doing the actually productive parts of their job.
Instead this ad assumes the opposite will happen. It imagines a future where we use our efficiency gains to attend more meetings. Economists sometimes talk about how the current crop of technology hasn’t lead to commensurate productivity gains—it’s a bit of a mystery in some circles. I would hold up this ad as the explanation: we are all, as a society, using the efficiency gains to attend more pointless meetings.
Some asshole on LinkedIn is creaming his khakis over this
Absolutely stunned by Microsoft’s Copilot! Finally, a tool that understands the art of multitasking at an unheard-of level! Can’t wait to revolutionize my workflow and lead the charge toward a more efficient future. #GameChanger #ProductivityPerfection
#CreamedKhakis
At this point the LinkedIn ass has already painted his own face
We just aren’t all seeing that it’s worth it to rip all the material out of the planet. Craft it a great expense into complex machines and burn our very ancestors for fuel.
So that a speech to text bot that takes imagined assumptions at exponentially more power can write an email that could be done by a person who could also do more complex tasks or hell even fetch a coffee.
Tech bros just trying to figure out why it’s a good thing to get rid of people they just don’t like from being around them and make it seem like a good thing. And I say that as someone that likes tech and often doesn’t like people.
This is so stupid.
it’s not an ad for you. it’s an ad for your bosses
That really doesn’t lessen my horror.
it was never about making anything better for you. no one’s talking about the fact that all these employers are demanding RTO while also increasing VIRTUAL meetings
it was never about making anything better for you.
And that’s why it’s posted here.
i actually was in 2 recently, but one wasn’t important and i muted it when a colleague started showing slides. wouldn’t recommend either way.
Exactly what I want from technology. More work and more responsibilities. It could be smooth sailing and 10 hour weeks for all of us, but thanks to the gracious overlords we’re slaving our lives away. Technology, eh? Isn’t it great.
Not exactly related to this, but I can’t wait for our eventual AI avatars to sit in meetings for us so they can lay us off and have our AI avatar literally take our job, likeness, and persona.
Is that what sovcits are doing
There’s a montage scene in ‘Real Genius’ where a student is going through freshman year at a college. The first time he goes into a particular classroom there are ten students one one tape recorder. Each time he arrives there are more recorders, until finally there’s nothing but recorders and the professor has left a tape machine of his own to play the lecture.
Yes, Val Kilmer was in another movie besides Tombstone!
Remember when AI was going to free us up to do better things? LOL just kidding, 3 meetings at once.
I remember when llms were used to simulate subreddits as a singular entity leading to pretty funny results. Wish we could’ve put a pin in it there.
AI, allowing corporate bureaucracy and inefficiency to continue to grow unscathed.
What you see is a dystopian view of the direction we’re headed with AI due to capitalism. What I see is another way to keep 3 bullshit jobs without being able to wfh
Even the woman on the ad looks “whelmed” and disappointed in the world of tech. I feel like behind those eyes there are thoughts of quitting and moving to Idaho to raise sheep.
Uh, I think she may be a bit too “ethnic” for the vast majority of Idaho.
Disclaimer
Please note that I am not condoning this sentiment, merely calling out Idaho for being majority backwoods regressive.
Also she may be imagining the shitstorm her mother would give her if she did.
Definitely looks like the AI has been sending her transcripts of the vacation it’s been attending with her family.
AI will be used to conduct three meetings at the same time. Employees will still be expected to personally attend all of them.
I don’t want to be even in one meeting at a time without camera on.
That last section of the article you highlighted makes me think about Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. Imagine if everyone going to bullshit meetings actually did something productive for society, or did something that they themselves found fulfilling. Makes me sad.
The great thing about working from home is I can do something else while I’m in meetings.
Imagine if everyone going to bullshit meetings actually did something productive for society, or did something that they themselves found fulfilling.
At some point I’ve decided this is at least 25% of the point of most of the Star Trek storylines, and I’m here for it, sadness and all.
Shit, even Star Trek understood the idea of “hey can we make this a voice call instead of a meeting so I can literally stop the ship from exploding while we hash out the menu for the shipwide picnic”.
It’s fun to think about a world in which all software is open source.
And maybe there aren’t a million developers each building their own password reset functions and website search fields and stuff.
Can I have three jobs at once?
Sure but they will pay 1/4 of your current salary each while expecting a full 40+ hours of availability
while expecting a full 40+ hours of availability
This seems low.
Oh don’t worry it’s for each 1/3 so it’s 120+ hours!
What this will mean is middle management will fire all the line managers. Your only contact with management will be through one of their AI’s.
[Robot Voice] Work harder! Your vacation is denied. Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions! There’s no way your solution will work. Drive this bus off the cliff or find another job! Write a 15-page self-assessment of your accomplishments this quarter. Your performance review is 0 out of 5. Your pay is cut 10%. No, I did not read your self-assessment. I didn’t have time. Our company has failed. I’m giving myself a $2M severance. You are fired.
I already had our CEO send us a speech video of him made with ML during a all-hands, although he said just afterwards it was made with ML. I fully expect this to become the norm in the future, even if we can tell the uncannyness for a while, they will not care.
Iike those encouraging videos of N+5, N+6 and all the way up to N+13 (been there, sleeped through them).
Who actually listens to the dravel? Is it just so bosses can feel meaningful?
That was both wild and entirely accurate at the same time.
Oh boy, three fistfights at once!
She’s a goddamn fucking gem, I love her. She has a bunch of great TikToks and is a super smart lawyer. She don’t miss
*doesn’t
That’s for when you want to write that “she doesn’t afraid of anything”
*isn’t
Sir, I’m not sure you understand that consequences will never be the same
*the consequences
I believe they were being colloquial.
