fast movers
I work for an American company with branches in Europe. The company has totally embraced AI, as employees we are constantly being told to adopt it in all our work. The company actively logs how much the AI system is being used and, seeing as we have to log in to use it, I guess they're monitoring each individual employee's use of it.
Our boss, the top dog, is fully on board; proselytising from his glassy office about how it's going to revolutionise our business. Recently it feels like he's been drinking the tech-bro Kool-Aid. In a recent missive to all staff he stressed the importance of moving quickly and being prepared to fail. "Move fast and break stuff!" he said, making out as if he had just thought of it. Failing makes us stronger, failing leads to learning and therefore to future success he reckoned
I found that concept utterly baffling, especially when it's being broadcast from the mouth of the very man in control of this company and a lot of people's livelihoods.
This "moving fast, breaking things and failing" feels like a concept that has been dreamed up by someone for whom failure has no consequences. Someone who is protected from the fallout of a failure.
If your parents can spare a hundred grand or more and set you up in business in their garage then you're not really bothered if your business fails. Not your money, not your problem, it was spare money anyway and you could always live in the garage if your folks were sufficiently upset with your failed online book selling business.
Similarly, throwing some spare dosh from the family emerald mine business at an emerging electric car company isn't really risky when there's plenty more rand where that came from.
Me, moving fast and breaking, say, a customer database, or erasing ten years of sales records because I thought AI could do it better, thus losing the company money? Well, that's a-firin'.
I don't have the luxury of wealthy parents to fall back on. I don't have the protection of my position - where I could blame a minion for my fast moving fuckup.
This mantra is for the privileged, not the plebs. When the business goes down the tubes because the CEO insisted we moved fast (because he was feared of competitors getting an AI edge) and stuff broke and the business went down the toilet, at least I can scoff at him from the employment scrapheap.