Sounds Made Up
After over fifteen years of marriage, it's only natural that my wife and I would have a few inside jokes that we share. It might be a situation where we simply glance at each other and know what the other is thinking. Sometimes it is a phrase one of us utters to the other one after we hear or see something specific.
For instance, say there is a news story on TV about composting your garden. Like any good reporter, they would try to bring in experts from the field to add some background and insight to their story. Let's say they bring in a "refuse reclamation and renewal engineer". Now, they might actually say the person's title, or just display the title on the bottom of the screen, but it never fails either myself or @mrsbozz will look at the other and say:
Sounds Made Up...
No offense intended, but some of these jobs just sound absolutely ridiculous. Which brings me more to the point of this post. I was sitting in my office the other day going through my work emails when I got an alert about a job opening for one of the largest school districts in the state of Michigan. "Director of AI Strategy and Innovation" was the title of the job and you can just about guess the first thing that popped into my head when I read that.
Believe it or not, the salary range for this job was something like $115,000 to $130,000 per year based on "relevant prior work experience". I'm not sure what relevant prior work experience means for a field that has really only been around in its current form for a couple of years. This brings about a couple of issues though.
Wasteful Spending
The first thing that struck me about this job was how wasteful it all seems. I'm sure @gooddream can attest to the fact that government spending is ridiculous from his time working with them. Being a public school employee, I am usually the first to defend the institution, but when they make up jobs like this, I can see why people get a little bent out of shape about public spending. Do I think the Department of Education should go away like Elon and Trump wanted? No, but do I think there could be some cuts made to trim the fat of jobs like this? Absolutely.
Unfortunately, though, AI is the big buzzword these days and money gets thrown at it no matter what.
Which brings me to the second point of this post:
The Trouble With AI
I'm actually not opposed to school districts having a strategy for how they handle and implement AI. I think it's smart, but I don't necessarily think they need a separate position to oversee it. Most public school districts should have a technology committee made up of stakeholders in the district and I feel that committee is the best chance for establishing policy and expectations. In addition to that, just like AI pulls from many other sources, other places have already established thoughtful well written policy on AI, so why reinvent the wheel. Why not just use that and tweak it for your specific needs. I mean, that's what AI basically does right now anyway right?
Just about two weeks ago I actually wrote another post about AI and there was some really good, but shocking conversations in the comments regarding AI. I think the one that struck me most was basically someone saying they regularly run the text of their own posts (that they have written themselves) through an AI checker so that no one can accuse them of using AI to write their posts.
Go back and read that last part again to make sure you understood it correctly. Sounds made up right? I don't know the person, but I honestly believe them when they said that. As I wrote in that post, if you follow the established formula for your writing (opening paragraph, body, conclusion), there is a good chance your content might get mistaken for AI.
Effectively someone might think it "sounds made up".
Pretty crazy right?
I think we are past the point where AI is a fad and eventually we move along to something else. I also think we are a long way away from having a bullet proof strategy to deal with and use AI effectively. Even those policies I mentioned above have their drawbacks and loopholes that people will surely take advantage of.
I know this post probably feels like it is a bit all over the place, but it's just a couple things that have been on my list to talk about lately and at least in my mind, they kind of went together, at least in the general theme.
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This was such a relatable and insightful post. The "sounds made up" genuinely made me smile, funny how those little shared phrases carry so much history. But on the more serious side, I completely see your point about inflated job titles and public spending. It's frustrating when essential sectors like education stretch their budgets for roles that feel more buzzword-driven than practical. And the irony of AI being both a tool and a topic we're struggling to regulate is not lost on me
Yes to all of what you said. Thanks for the great comment. It's totally driven by buzzwords and over the past 20+ years I have seen so many of them come and go. The saddest part is, eventually the grant money that pays the salary will go away and then the person who left a stable job for this job will be out in the cold.
Exactly, that's the part that stings the most. These roles often come with flashy titles and tempting salaries, but little long term security. It's a cycle we've seen far too long: new buzzword, influx of funding, temporary positions and then silence when the hype fades. It's unfortunate for the individuals who take that leap in good faith, only to be left behind ones the funding dries up. Hopefully, more sustainable approaches catch on eventually -ones that priorities people and purpose over trends
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I also agree that people are not ready for AI. and in general, everything is becoming more artificial now, not from people. everything is done automatically. people were already lazy, and now, along with AI, people will generally lost the ability to strain the brain and invent or at least try, and we’ll turn into mush😵💫
I totally agree with this, on top of it they don't even understand the stuff they are presenting as their own.
Exactly👍🏻
This one had me chuckling and your "Sounds Made Up" phrase is similar to things my wife and I say "sounds fake". Perhaps it was AI that helped them generate the title :D Doesn't this sound like something that a school tech committee could handle or do you think this is really a necessary type of position in the school world these days?
Yeah, it's pretty crazy the things people use AI for these days. I don't think cutting all those corners is going to help them in the long run.
Here in Seattle area the salary of only $130k for director of anything in IT sounds made up. You will be lucky to hire an entry level software engineer for local government for that money.
You gotta remember this is public sector, so the salaries are already about half what they are in the private sector to begin with. But we get a pension (whoopty do). Plus the Detroit Metro area isn't really the bustling tech hub that Seattle is. The starting salary on this job is about twice what I make per year and I'd consider myself middle middle class. Also probably helps that we don't have kids.
I get it that it is public sector. I think the main difference is the cost of living between Seattle and Detroit. Here is an example of the Seattle government tech job: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/kingcounty/jobs/4958793/technical-analyst-systems-administrator-functional-analyst-iii
Career Service, Full Time, 40 hrs/week - $108,638.40 - $131,352.00 Annually
P.S. For private sector you can x2 to x3 these numbers in Seattle area...
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I don't think, we are long away, in couple of years, AI will be part of most of our life and productive usage of AI will boost productivity, but the down side of it is that it can replace most routine jobs, which is bad for humanity. Coming to taking advantage of AI to write blogs or content, that's going to be fairly normal, as long as it also includes some creativity that showcases some human touch. I sometimes use AI to check my syntax and grammar, like asking it : is it right to write this way ? But then it's limited to that much, I don't what AI to shape up my content.
Yeah, I think it is coming (or here) whether we like it or not, but I just feel like it is already becoming a crutch or an excuse or even a solution to a problem that isn't really a problem yet.
Sometimes these thoughts just comes to mind and it’s nice to talk about them because there might be someone out there also having similar thoughts and feels or thinks they are weird. AI is something everyone is using these days and it’s quite alarming sometimes when it’s hard to distinguish between an AI post and a post made by a human. I feel sometimes we loose the idea behind reading a blog. There is a message unique to every write up and as long as that message is conveyed, that is what matters first.
There are so many blogs I have read through for the past few days and I keep wondering what’s the message behind them. Even if you have a specific audience, your post should at least be readable to those who are not really a fan of your writing. And who knows, you might as well just get a new follower.
I think that sounds almost all over the place too, lol. Nice writing, Bozz.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I write for myself as much as I do for other people, so I can't always guarantee my stuff will land with everyone. Just go back and look at the pending rewards on my post from earlier this week for proof of that...
You’re welcome.
It happens that way and it’s good you recognize that. Makes your life way easier, hehe.
Governments are very good at wasting money, and for a job like that to even exist is pretty stupid at best. Maybe you should apply if it comes with more money! A better use of money would be to take existing employees and a committee to meet monthly to discuss the topics. Preferably with tech people like yourself...
I'm with you on this one, a superfluous position that will require almost no work and get a fat paycheck!
If it wasn't a hour and a half drive every day to work, I might actually consider it. Some of the qualifications they are expecting were a bit out of my wheelhouse too. Maybe if I was less skeptical about AI I would be more enthusiastic about it...
Funny how AI saved me from carrying my laptop again to the repairman.
Laptop repairs are always crazy expensive and every new HP, Dell or MacBook that a sorry owner carries in is like gold on the leach for the repairman.
My computer had some booting issues and I was tired.
Couldn't boot without me charging it in first or if it boots, it just shows some words on the screen and then turns off.
My dad has already said I should get ready to go the store but I wasn't in the mood or of the capacity to fund some repair guy's weekend outing so I just copied the text the laptop showed when I turned it on before it turns back off into GPT, told it my laptop's name and model and it gave me the steps to fix the problem.
AI has helped me but also deprived the lot of a potential customer.
I feel it's more of a give and take situation and even though I am very wary of it as a writer, I am curious to how far it'll go.
Regardless, if someone walked out on my little nephew's school career day and said he's an AI Strategy and Innovation Director, I would surely giggle at how made up it sounds 😂
You could have done that in the past just by pasting the same stuff into Google. I think 9 out of 10 techs will tell you that is the key to doing their job. AI just aggregates it a little better and makes it easier to sift through. It's nothing new or ground breaking though. I'm glad you got your laptop fixed. I'm also glad you saved the money by not going to the repairman.
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I can only say it is not made up about the checker 😉 I even take screenshots of the text in the app I used to proof they are mine
Wow!
Nice people