Berlin-based business consultant Matt and his colleague were among the first at their workplace to discover ChatGPT, mere weeks after its release. He says the chatbot transformed their workdays overnight. “It was like discovering a video game cheat,” says Matt. “I asked a really technical question from my PhD thesis, and it provided an answer that no one would be able to find without consulting people with very specific expertise. I knew it would be a game changer.”
Day-to-day tasks in his fast-paced environment – such as researching scientific topics, gathering sources and producing thorough presentations to clients – suddenly became a breeze. The only catch: Matt and his colleague had to keep their use of ChatGPT a closely guarded secret. They accessed the tool covertly, mostly on working-from-home days.
“We had a significant competitive advantage against our colleagues – our output was so much faster and they couldn’t comprehend how. Our manager was very impressed and spoke about our performance with senior management,” he says.
Whether the technology is explicitly banned, highly frowned upon or giving some workers a covert leg up, some employees are searching for ways to keep using generative AI tools discreetly. The technology is increasingly becoming an employee backchannel: in a February 2023 study by professional social network Fishbowl, 68% of 5,067 respondents who used AI at work said they don’t disclose usage to their bosses.
Even in instances without workplace bans, employees may still want to keep their use of AI hidden, or at least guarded, from peers. “We don’t have norms established around AI yet – it can initially look like you’re conceding you’re not actually that good at your job if the machine is doing many of your tasks,” says Johnson. “It’s natural that people would want to conceal that.”
As a result, forums are popping up for workers to swap strategies for keeping a low profile. In communities like Reddit, many people seek methods of secretly circumventing workplace bans, either through high-tech solutions (integrating ChatGPT into a native app disguised as a workplace tool) or rudimentary ones to obscure usage (adding a privacy screen, or discreetly accessing the technology on their personal phone at their desk).
The article: “I asked a really technical question from my PhD thesis, and it provided an answer that no one would be able to find without consulting people with very specific expertise."
Me waiting for the part where the AI hallucinated and he got an F on his thesis:
I mean, it might have worked out, but you have to be very careful when asking LLMs for factual information. I’ve tried it at my work and it gave me info that contradicted that from experts.
What kind of PhD thesis? I’m kind of shocked they would say that. I’m in a scientific field, and it falls flat on its face whenever I start to get relatively subspecialized. Not that I haven’t found some uses for it.
I believe this is a person who already has a PhD they defended successfully (presumably by doing all the work themselves, if they’ve only just discovered ChatGPT). So we’re talking about an advanced person who used their thesis subject matter to check ChatGPT’s abilities, not to produce their thesis.
Which is exactly the type of user that can benefit the most from ChatGPT because they can verify its output… but YMMV wildly if you’re a beginner in whatever field you’re querying.
Obviously no one used AI for the title.
Lol fr, this is what ChatGPT 4 outputted for me
“Employees Covertly Embrace AI Tools Like ChatGPT Despite Rising Corporate Concerns”
Seems much better IMO lolol
I think I understand why this is a double-edged sword. Most consulting companies basically invoice hours. Even a lot of software development is charged by the hour. So now empoyees use AI, come up with awesome work much faster, and all that looks like a big advantage - until you get to the end of the month and find out that you now have a lot less billable hours logged.
The bright side is that you can now deliver more projects - so you now have to do much more work to invoice the same as before, and all the competition is now also delivering awesome work. It’s a race to the bottom, more stress and less money for everyone involved.
That’s merely a logistics problem.
The far greater issues is the fact that the AI is an external system with no guarantees of confidentiality or quality. You’re giving this system private business and technical information and getting who-knows-what in return.
Your company and your employees are still the ones on the hook for the final product so everything AI gives you still needs to be verified and vetted by people who know what they’re doing (if you’re not a complete cowboy farm).
Assuming it turns out ok you’ve not saved as much time and resources as you think, and you’ve still given away private information.
If you don’t think someone out there is going through all the private emails and proprietary code submitted to AI you’re being very naive.
in a February 2023 study by professional social network Fishbowl, 68% of 5,067 respondents who used AI at work said they don’t disclose usage to their bosses.
An undemocratic workplace is like a game of poker, right from the interview. I’d pretend I do my job, you’d pretend you pay a fair wage.
One can imagine if such a tool with a dramatic productivity boost has been discovered, there is a reason to vote or choose: if each and all of employees want to double the income or halve the work time.
But when parties compete with each other, there is one only will to fool your boss and probably even coworkers, as it guarantees you can play this card. Flash it too soon and you are either empty-handed or outright disadvantaged by your discovery.
It’s good to read news about new unions and cooperatives. They smoother down this outright hostile environment. Shame they weren’t here before this AI wave,
Much of my job should have been computerized a while back, and we now have numerous tools to automate various tasks. However, my comprehension of the results enables me to distinguish between reliable data and errors, which my boss is unable to do due to their limited understanding of the output.
Having a good boss that understands that is key. Not everyone is so lucky on that front.
