Three meetings at once. It’s so funny that, when I saw people making fun of it, I assumed it was a meme or an Onion parody. Nope: Microsoft really did run this as an ad on Instagram. This is what they think we want from their supposedly world-changing technology: the ability to attend more meetings.
Now, Copilot’s ability to transcribe a meeting and highlight the key points is cool, and in theory it could make meetings more efficient. It’s easy to imagine, in a healthy work culture, where that gain in time allows people to spend more time doing the actually productive parts of their job.
Instead this ad assumes the opposite will happen. It imagines a future where we use our efficiency gains to attend more meetings. Economists sometimes talk about how the current crop of technology hasn’t lead to commensurate productivity gains—it’s a bit of a mystery in some circles. I would hold up this ad as the explanation: we are all, as a society, using the efficiency gains to attend more pointless meetings.
Remember, you’ve already got the generation of folks who watched the transition to computers that were supposed to make their lives “easier” become instead “you are expected to do far more with your workday because we made it easier for you.”
Right now it looks like “wow it will lighten my workload” but what it will look like in the end is “now we can expect more productivity per the same unit time from our workers.”
I keep getting roped into 30-60 minute long meetings, where what was discussed could have been summarised into a few points
Which is what people would want, just get an email summary of the meeting if you don’t actually need to be there. The ad is saying you’d still need to go anyway and now because you’re not expected to pay so much attention you can be booked into two more at the same time.
and in theory it could make meetings more efficient.
How about making an agenda for the meeting, sticking to the agenda, and sending out a copy of the proceedings to every attendant and other who need it?
If you have a meeting without these things it’s not a meeting. Its a gathering of people talking about vaguely similar interests.
Fixing the meeting culture is easier than inventing technology to decoy bad leadership.
It’s easier to understand this through the lens of the bosses who actually buy this technology. They’re only in meetings. They kind of assume that’s what their workers do, too. They want their workers in more meetings; if that’s all you’re doing, it sounds like being productive.
The workers aren’t buying copilot, and the people who are buying it find this somewhat convincing.
Matches my experience in bigger companies.
People who have a “mostly meetings and PowerPoint” job think that sitting in meetings is real productive work.
They assume anyone who sits in front of a computer but not in a meeting is probably not busy enough and their job could be outsourced to India.
What you see is a dystopian view of the direction we’re headed with AI due to capitalism. What I see is another way to keep 3 bullshit jobs without being able to wfh
No, it’s going to make assumptions about what was important in that meeting and try to bullet point it. And that won’t actually work well enough to count on, and if it misses something, you won’t know.
I also can’t imagine many managers will be happy about this, because the whole point of calling a meeting is that they want your attention. After a manager ends up lecturing a meeting full of bots a couple times, and someone misses something that was brought up in a meeting they ostensibly attended, they’ll complain, and IT will be instructed to block it.
And I can’t exactly blame them, honestly. I’m not fan of unnecessary meetings but if I’m managing a team of people, I’d want to know I’m engaging with them, not Copilot.
And as an employee, I’m not about to let an AI be caught doing any part of my job, because that’s just giving management “ideas”
What this will mean is middle management will fire all the line managers. Your only contact with management will be through one of their AI’s.
[Robot Voice]
Work harder!
Your vacation is denied.
Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!
There’s no way your solution will work. Drive this bus off the cliff or find another job!
Write a 15-page self-assessment of your accomplishments this quarter. Your performance review is 0 out of 5. Your pay is cut 10%. No, I did not read your self-assessment. I didn’t have time. Our company has failed. I’m giving myself a $2M severance. You are fired.
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I dunno, I kinda like this one.
I keep getting roped into 30-60 minute long meetings, where what was discussed could have been summarised into a few points.
What I don’t like, is that the content is stored/processed outside of a corporate network.
Remember, you’ve already got the generation of folks who watched the transition to computers that were supposed to make their lives “easier” become instead “you are expected to do far more with your workday because we made it easier for you.”
Right now it looks like “wow it will lighten my workload” but what it will look like in the end is “now we can expect more productivity per the same unit time from our workers.”
I’d love to be wrong, but 1% gonna 1%.
Which is what people would want, just get an email summary of the meeting if you don’t actually need to be there. The ad is saying you’d still need to go anyway and now because you’re not expected to pay so much attention you can be booked into two more at the same time.
Rather than just getting 3 email summaries.
How about making an agenda for the meeting, sticking to the agenda, and sending out a copy of the proceedings to every attendant and other who need it?
If you have a meeting without these things it’s not a meeting. Its a gathering of people talking about vaguely similar interests.
Fixing the meeting culture is easier than inventing technology to decoy bad leadership.
Oh boy, three fistfights at once!
She’s a goddamn fucking gem, I love her. She has a bunch of great TikToks and is a super smart lawyer. She don’t miss
*doesn’t
I believe they were being colloquial.
It makes sense if you assume it’s actually targeted at managers who want their employees to be in three meetings at once.
She looks thrilled
It’s easier to understand this through the lens of the bosses who actually buy this technology. They’re only in meetings. They kind of assume that’s what their workers do, too. They want their workers in more meetings; if that’s all you’re doing, it sounds like being productive.
The workers aren’t buying copilot, and the people who are buying it find this somewhat convincing.
Matches my experience in bigger companies. People who have a “mostly meetings and PowerPoint” job think that sitting in meetings is real productive work. They assume anyone who sits in front of a computer but not in a meeting is probably not busy enough and their job could be outsourced to India.
What you see is a dystopian view of the direction we’re headed with AI due to capitalism. What I see is another way to keep 3 bullshit jobs without being able to wfh
Don’t forget to copyright yourself.
I predict that they will track everything everyone does and make a borg ai out of their employees.
Some asshole on LinkedIn is creaming his khakis over this
Sup dawg
Can I have three jobs at once?
Sure but they will pay 1/4 of your current salary each while expecting a full 40+ hours of availability
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Remember when AI was going to free us up to do better things? LOL just kidding, 3 meetings at once.
AI, allowing corporate bureaucracy and inefficiency to continue to grow unscathed.
So Copilot is going to make me a transcript of a meeting that could have just been an email to begin with? Brilliant.
It’s going to be a bunch of AIs sitting around spewing bullshit since all the humans sent their AIs to the meeting.
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No, it’s going to make assumptions about what was important in that meeting and try to bullet point it. And that won’t actually work well enough to count on, and if it misses something, you won’t know.
I also can’t imagine many managers will be happy about this, because the whole point of calling a meeting is that they want your attention. After a manager ends up lecturing a meeting full of bots a couple times, and someone misses something that was brought up in a meeting they ostensibly attended, they’ll complain, and IT will be instructed to block it.
And I can’t exactly blame them, honestly. I’m not fan of unnecessary meetings but if I’m managing a team of people, I’d want to know I’m engaging with them, not Copilot.
And as an employee, I’m not about to let an AI be caught doing any part of my job, because that’s just giving management “ideas”
What this will mean is middle management will fire all the line managers. Your only contact with management will be through one of their AI’s.
[Robot Voice] Work harder! Your vacation is denied. Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions! There’s no way your solution will work. Drive this bus off the cliff or find another job! Write a 15-page self-assessment of your accomplishments this quarter. Your performance review is 0 out of 5. Your pay is cut 10%. No, I did not read your self-assessment. I didn’t have time. Our company has failed. I’m giving myself a $2M severance. You are fired.
AI will be used to conduct three meetings at the same time. Employees will still be expected to personally attend all of them.