But What If It’s Not Worth Doing?

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

OK this isn’t another post on AI exactly. I get it, there’s a lot of talk of AI – hell, I talk about it a lot, usually whenever Ed Zitron goes on a tear or my friends in tech (IE all my friends) discuss it. If I was friends with Ed Zitron, who knows what I’d write.

The funny thing about AI is that it’s about automation. Yes it’s complex. Yes it’s controversial. Yes, it lets you generate pictures of Jesus as a Canadian Mountie (Dudley Do-Unto-Others?). But it’s automation at the end of the day. It’s no different than a clock or a pneumatic delivery system.

And, referencing a conversation I had with friends, when you automate something on the job or at home, let’s ask a question – should you have been doing it anyway?

First, if you get something you have to automate, should it be assigned to you? If something really isn’t part of your portfolio of work, maybe someone else should do it. Yes, this includes things like home tasks and that includes the shelves you have not and almost certainly will not put up.

A painful reality I’ve come to realize is that many people take on tasks someone else can do, and often do better. However due to whatever reason it drifts up to them and of course they stick with it. Worse, the really good people often would be better at it, and maybe even have more time and hurt themselves less.

A need to automate something often says “I don’t need to do it and I may be bad at it” and the task should move up or down or somewhere else. I’m not saying automate, it, I’m saying reassign it – to someone that may automate it anyway, but still.

Secondly, and more importantly, if you have a task that can be automated it’s time to ask if anyone should be doing it period.

Anything really important needs a person, a moral authority to make a decision. You have both the decision making skills and the ethical ability to make the right decision. Automation certainly doesn’t have the ethical element, and if it doesn’t need your decision making skills . . . why are you or anyone doing it.

The task might be unnecessary. It could – and trust me I see this a lot – be the result of other automatic generation or other bad choices. It may be a signoff no one needs to sign off on, an automatic update you don’t need to be updated on, or who knows what else. I honestly think a lot of work is generated by other automatic processes and choices that could just bypass people anyway.

But there’s also the chance the task is unneeded, shouldn’t exist, or really a bad idea. Look if the task is assigned to you, a competent individual with good morals, and you want to automate it maybe it just should never have existed. Much as good Agile methods are about making sure you don’t do unneeded work, process is the same.

Whenever something has to be automated, it’s a good time to ask “why did it come to me anyway?” Because the answer may save you time automating, instead letting you hand it off, change how things work, or just ignore it.

And that’s not just AI. That’s anything.

Steven Savage

Evil Agile

We wonder how people can get away with so much horrible stuff.  I’d like to talk Evil and Agile productivity, and yes, I am completely sober as far as you know.

For those of you who are in no way familiar with me, I’m a Project Manager, a professional help-stuff-get-done-guy.  While I’m being paid to be the most anal-retentive person in the room, I prefer to use Agile Methodologies, which are all about rapid, adaptable, approaches to getting things done.  It doesn’t sound Evil, but stick with whatever journey I’m soberly on because I think Evil people are actually pretty good at a kind of Agile.

Many Evil people have A Goal.  It may be (more) money and power, it may be dealing with their childhood traumas, and usually, it’s a dangerously pathetic combination of things like that.  Agile is all about Goals because when you set them, they direct your actions more than any single plan.  You gotta know where you want to go to get there.

Then, simply, Evil people set out to achieve their Goal by whatever means they can.  They don’t care if they lie, cheat, steal, burn books, burn people, and so on – the Goal is what matters.  Agile is also about making sure that your actions direct you toward your Goal so you’re focused and efficient – it just doesn’t involve Evil.

But what if Evil people hurt others, get caught, etc.?  Simple, they lie or do something else because they don’t care – they adapt.  Agile emphasizes constant adaptability and analysis as well, just with an emphasis on truth and honesty.  Evil people are pretty adaptable, even if that adaptability is staying the course and lying about it until others give up.

Agile emphasizes goals, directing yourself towards them, and adaptability.  Evil people do the exact same thing.  The only difference is that Agile emphasizes helping people and being honest, and Evil people are just Evil.

And this is why we’re so often confused by Evil people.

We expect elaborate plans from Evil people – and there may be some – but they’re focused on their Goals and how to get there.  We expect Evil people to be derailed by getting caught in lies or hurting people, but as we’ve seen they don’t care.  They want something and they’ll adapt no matter the price played by other people.

It’s the banality of Evil all over again.  Evil isn’t even interesting in how it gets things done.

Steven Savage

Steve’s Update 5/30/2022

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Brutal few weeks with all the bad stuff in the news, but there’s progress being made!

The Way With Worlds series: Not doing anything on this until Q3 for the final book in the “Disaster series.” The cover conversion went on hold a bit for a rough few weeks, still plan to have the covers (if not the books) ready this year.

“Think Agile, Write Better”: I have the outline back from people, and I’ve re-edited it! It’s really improved and I will start writing this week or next! Thanks to everyone who helped!

The Seventh Sanctum rewrite: I’m now doing test launches – which is a bit of a pain because I’m dealing with some directory and access juggling. I need that so I can switch over and have fallback. On the other hand check out the beta at www.PageOfGenerators.com.

Social Media Realignment: With the future of Twitter still unpredictable, this is going in fits and starts. I’ve got a big list of things I want to do, which probably means “sit down for a week as my major focus and do them.”

The Compendium of Writing Advice: Going to set this aside until the Sanctum is launched I think. Just too much on my mind.

Steven Savage