BOFH: If you can't beat the AI, let it live inside you

Workplace transformation begins with a scalpel and a 12v feed

Episode 14 The Company has apparently formulated a master plan to create an "AI silo team" to leverage something or other to ensure excellence in some other thing that I lapsed into a coma over before they could explain.

Someone's obviously been thinking about this for some time, as the project has a terms-of-reference document that's drier than Greta Thunberg's joke book.

I lurch out of my coma somewhere around the second hour of the first meeting. Apparently, I've been asked a question.

"Well, it depends on what you mean," I say, covering my power save. "You've used a fairly broad brush for that question."

"It's not that broad. Why don't we run our own AI system?" my inquisitor asks.

Answering a question with a question almost always helps with recovering from sleep mode.

"You want a simple answer?" I ask, buying even more time.

"OK."

"The simple answer is money. It costs a lot of money to create, tweak, and tune our own AI. Then there's the time involved. And for what?"

"To make better use of AI."

"As we're not actually using AI at the moment. Actually using AI would qualify as making better use of it," I say.

"I use AI!" a beancounter in our silo says.

"As a glorified grammar checker," I reply. "But you're not using it in a way that improves the way you do your job. You're still doing the same old thing, just with an AI prosthesis."

"But that's what the AI silo project will help uncover!"

"No it won't."

"It will! If we work together, we could transform the Company!"

"No we can't."

"I think you're being rather negative."

"No I'm not."

OK, I admit it, I am being negative. But with good reason.

"Tell me," I continue. "Where do you hear the word 'silo' used most often. Anyone? Bueller?"

"I..."

"Yes! You hear the word silo just before a restructure. We'll be told that the Company shouldn't be doing things in silos, but instead in cross-functional teams. And what happens to all the people in the silo?"

"I..."

"Yep, down the S-bend faster than the chicken vindaloo you left in the sun for three days before eating. And let's not forget that the Company has created this silo – and even called it a silo. It's the business equivalent of a 'kick me' sign taped to your back. It means that the people in this room are likely to be the first thing replaced by the AI they're supposed to leverage."

"No. I've just been appointed as the head of wellness!"

"And you'll be gone quicker than you can say constructive dismissal. Look around you. Everyone in this room is either a pain in the arse to management or corporate deadwood, and if you listen really carefully, you can hear the chainsaw blade being sharpened in the distance."

"I can't hear anything?" someone bleats.

"Because you're deadwood," the PFY says, some would say unkindly.

"You don't seem to be worried by that," another person comments.

"No, but then the PFY and I have years of carefully curated camera footage from all over the building, all hours of the day, covering everything from unwanted personal attention through falsification of timesheets to major larceny. We've got more get-out-of-jail-free cards than a South American dictator's Monopoly set."

"So, what, you think they're going to make us all redundant?"

"I think they're expecting AI to make you redundant. Either (a) we'll come up with some plan which will mean that AI identifies you as redundant, OR (b) the project will come up with nothing and they'll disband the silo as a big mistake. By then, your department will have restructured several times. If it makes you feel better, the restructure will probably be done by AI."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

"Well, you could..." I say, petering out annoyingly.

"What?!"

"I'm not sure I should..." I continue, feigning indecision.

"WHAT?"

"I'm thinking the best way to protect your jobs would be to... become part of the AI system itself. Something that it relies on. Something that it needs to function."

"How?"

"I'm thinking embedded devices."

"Like the computer in my fridge?"

"No, I mean like the stuff that insane academics and crazy billionaires advocate putting in our bodies. Tiny devices the AI could make use of."

"How?" one of the group asks suspiciously.

"Think about it. You're moving through the office – AI could use your experience for determining comfort and lighting levels. It could schedule office operations like cleaning and maintenance for times when it knows you're out. You'd never need to carry an access card, you wouldn't need your wallet at the cafe, we could turn on secure printing, and so on. It would make the workplace more efficient and you'd be the people who'd implement this for the rest of the building. It could take years to fully roll out. Years of paid employment."

"How... small would it be?"

"Oh, you'd hardly notice it."

...

"So, you're proposing we fit everyone in the company with electronic devices?" the HR director asks.

"Yep, and the AI silo team have volunteered to trial it."

"And we have the technology?"

"I've already ordered the Raspberry Pi Model 1A units and the 9AH 12v batteries."

• BOFH: Previous episodes on The Register
• The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99