2025-09-14 –, Ballroom 3
With the arrival of large language models and the generative tools built on them we have seen a huge increase in pressure to use these tools in our work.
This worries me, but it's hard to easily explain why.
Am I being paranoid? Or just overly opposed to a change that's inevitable? Is it just... a skill issue?
I invite you to listen to me dig through the history of the relationship between automation, technology, and work to try to unpack my feelings on where our industry is headed.
I'm often the one advocating for change in a given environment so it's always a bit of an interesting moment for me when I realise I'm dead against some kind of new hotness. This often triggers a lot of introspection and trying to work out what about it has got my back up.
Generative tools built on large language models are fascinating things but the ways in which we're being encouraged to use them, both by employers and by peers, give me the heebies. This presentation is an encapsulation of the thinking I did as to why they do that.
We'll be covering all kinds of stuff from the Luddites, to the globalisation of manufacturing, to the nature of creative work in general. I can't promise a conclusion that will be meaningful for everyone, but I can at least promise an explanation of how I came to mine.
Benno is widely known as someone with opinions and a (possibly over-)willingness to share them. He has been working with computers professionally for over 30 years (unprofessionally for longer) and takes particular joy in examining how computers, the Internet, and all that surrounds all of these intersects with the humanity that it is meant to help.