'AI refuser' quit her dream job, and hopes others follow

cagenut

I really hate how the excruciatingly overdue reckoning for tech elites and income inequality is turning into this religious schism over AI and datacenters. We're going to smash the looms rather than figure out how to share them, again.

wildrhythms

I don't appreciate the celebration around acts of individualism rather than collectivizing to improve our workplace for all.

tkel

AI boosters on this site will be very mad that this person exists, but I'm glad there are people that stick to their principles. Principles that aren't just "productivity" or "efficiency". People can and should have other motives that are just as if not more important.

CalRobert

Does Australia have privacy provisions similar to the gdpr?

tancop

Workers should get to decide individually if they want to use AI or not. It's the only fair solution. Unions need to fight for job guarantees not restrict their own members from using tech when they want to.

JimDabell

> Her objections run from the immediate to the apocalyptic: the water and power consumed by data centres, what the technology is doing to people’s capacity to think, and research suggesting advanced AI could pose a risk of human extinction. > Boyle is an outlier, and knows it. She no longer owns a smartphone, has deleted her social media accounts and now lives in a converted Toyota 4WD. > She followed up in writing to Haagsma, setting out research on AI’s labour market and extinction risks and asking the league to pause its adoption. > By mid-June, Boyle had told her managers she would not have Copilot on her laptop, would not put her work through AI systems and would not direct her team to use it. She wrote that the change was causing her significant distress and that she felt unsafe at work. > Boyle is now living in a 1986 Toyota Troop Carrier with her cat, carrying a flip phone and handing cards to strangers on their screens that read: “I’m open to talk, want to have a conversation?” She’s a kook who thinks she’s Sarah Connor. Your employer using Copilot is not a threat to your safety, you don’t get to tell your employer what they can install on their laptop, you don’t get to stop your colleagues from using AI, and if you write to the general manager warning them about the apocalypse you aren’t going to find them very responsive. There are thousands and thousands of people who have been pulling shit like this for every topic under the sun, from contrails to fluoride in the water for generations. We don’t give them publicity because we understand the proportionality of their grievances and react accordingly. This is only making the news because the topic of this person’s fixation happens to be AI.

CalRobert

It seems like a lot of people are disagreeing with something she isn't saying. Surely it makes sense to have some concerns before dumping a bunch of kids' personal info into an AI? Aside from that, the AFL doesn't seem to realize that using AI means uploading data to another company. """ The AFL also gave her a technical answer. Copilot, its technology team explained, can only see files and emails Boyle could already open herself. It doesn’t give anyone new access to anything, the AFL’s information stays on the AFL’s own systems .... """ This statement seems reasonable enough """ Meanwhile, on March 16, Boyle emailed to report that a trainee planned to tidy up a list of registered AFL program participants by putting it through an AI tool. The list held children’s personal details, drawn from PlayHQ, the platform community clubs use to register players. No AI policy existed at the time. “Sharing detailed personal information of our registered participants to third-party AI companies seems like it would be in breach of their privacy,” she wrote. """ Finally, this alone is reason enough to rage quit.... """ Boyle says the facilitator told staff to give their AI assistants human names, rejecting suggestions like “Chatty” as insufficiently human, and to have the AI generate pictures of them. """

delichon

> She wrote that the change was causing her significant distress and that she felt unsafe at work. I can see the long term safety issues but have trouble seeing shorter term ones. Her attitude reminds me of President Benjamin Harrison refusing to touch the newly installed light switches in the White House for fear of electrocution circa 1891. I don't doubt his woman's sincerity or sanity, so I would like to better understand her safety concern. If her answer is "Roko’s Basilisk" I'll be at least sympathetic.