Performance Review by AI
Talk about AI is talk about the future. Performance reviews in the age of AI -- I can see it coming.
I have heard in various forms that in the future those who don't use AI will be replaced by those that do.
This is usually put forward by the techno-optimists. But this isnt't brought up in the same breath with other utopian vision casting of our AI future. I sense that it is meant to instill some (at best, healthy) fear.
Because it could be restated as, "If you don't use AI, you will be left behind." And no one wants that. We want to fit in, be appreciated and be relevant. Least of all, we want a job. "Please, sir, can I have so more?"
This sounds like a stick not a carrot.
Who will carry the stick and who will get hit by it?
I've heard this phrase we're talking about said by people who hire and fire programmers.
I've heard the defense too. "Oh, but he didn't mean that if you don't use AI that you'll be fired. It'll just happen naturally."
Yes, it'll likely never be directly stated that, "You didn't use AI, therefore you're fired."
But performance rating is soooo subjective and affected by perception as much as reality.
So in a company that does little objective measuring of performance (which is its own game), your lack of faith in AI can quickly become "he feels less performant lately" at the wrong moment.
With AI being the darling of company leadership as the next silver bullet, ("Oh, but we're more realistic than to think any thing a silver bullet. Of course not. But it is a paradigm shift, will fundamentally improve our business and will exponentially improve our employee productivity.") it becomes the answer to your performance or the lack thereof.
Late on that? Must not have used AI. All fast programmers do. All who do are fast.
Bug in production? Must not have done the AI code review. AI catches more bugs than fallible humans.
Isn't a good fit? Must be a skeptical about AI. AI is our vision, and our vision is AI.
Isn't pleasant in the office? Well, he's remote, but an AI analysis of his last video call indicates that he fails to use deoderant.
I'll have you know that I instructed my LLM agent to use deoderant on my avatar so I didn't have to waste my time every morning.