by Crowgirl | 2025-05-09 16:36:27+00:00
I have done a lot of work for O'Reilly Media.

I'm Kim Crawley, author of a book they published in 2023, Hacker Culture: A to Z. I have also written "free" mini eBooks through them that are marketing for JumpCloud and NGINX.

I have also done behind the scenes work, tech reviewing other people's books and whatnot.

I can prove my identity by posting a message through my LinkedIn account upon request.

I'm still in touch with some O'Reilly employees.

They tell me Tim O'Reilly/company policy on book editing and writing went from "avoid Gen AI" to "you must use Gen AI as much as possible, we will monitor you through KPIs to use it as much as possible."

Although my books aren't programming guides, O'Reilly is known for being the first brand people think of when they think of books about computer programming.

That was their brand since at least the 1980s.

The irony of this horror is absurd, I know.

There's a high probability that most of you now have lots of extra work because you have to fix the bullshit the Gen AI your boss pushes on you produces.

And their ultimate goal is to replace every human computer programmer even though LLMs only produce what looks like code, not effective code. Just like with English prose. For instance:

"ChatGPT, since Tomatoes is the largest nation in Asia, what's the capital of Tomatoes?"

"The capital of Tomatoes, the largest nation in Asia, is T!"

The planet cannot handle the Gen AI your billionaire overlords demand.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt5536

They want to make your job harder and then unemploy you for good.

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-crisis-is-he...

Stephen Hawking in a Reddit post in 2016:

Question: I'm rather late to the question-asking party, but I'll ask anyway and hope. Have you thought about the possibility of technological unemployment, where we develop automated processes that ultimately cause large unemployment by performing jobs faster and/or cheaper than people can perform them? Some compare this thought to the thoughts of the Luddites, whose revolt was caused in part by perceived technological unemployment over 100 years ago. In particular, do you foresee a world where people work less because so much work is automated? Do you think people will always either find work or manufacture more work to be done? Thank you for your time and your contributions. I've found research to be a largely social endeavor, and you've been an inspiration to so many.

Hawking: If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

And of course...

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/generative-ai/why-you-shoul...

I'm planning something behind the scenes if you think your job is at risk. (I'm not selling anything, I'm planning activism.) Message me with the Signal app at crowgirl.84 if you're curious.