posted in Technology
AI might be making women sound bad at work
cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1415456/ai-might-be-making-women-sound-bad-at-work
hub.jhu.edu/2026/09/21/ai-might-be-making-women-sound-bad-at-work/posted in Technology
AI might be making women sound bad at work
cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1415456/ai-might-be-making-women-sound-bad-at-work
hub.jhu.edu/2026/09/21/ai-might-be-making-women-sound-bad-at-work/Replying to @beep@piefed.world
How about writing your own emails instead of sending slop.
Replying to @solrize@lemmy.ml
The company are the ones that mandate that they use the dam thing. They are actually threatening to right people up if they don’t use it enough but then not specifying what enough means. So now it’s getting used for everything.
Enjoy your overly verbose email, perhaps you should get AI to summarize it. That way, we both get to use it, yay.
Replying to @echodot@feddit.uk
Just don’t use it, and say that you’re doing your job just fine without it. Get your coworkers involved. We have weekends because people fought and died for them and now we can’t even say “no” to vague commands to use Ai? C’mon, there’s gotta be a spine in there somewhere, right?
Replying to @Soup@lemmy.world
Because it’s not a hill worth dying on. They just want us to use a piece of software, they’re not asking me to kill a basket full of kittens.
Replying to @echodot@feddit.uk
It really is, though. Ai is not just “a piece of software”, and it’s not even helpful. People can’t stand up against fucking anything these days.
Replying to @Soup@lemmy.world
I see and you are charging the Bastille?
You do understand whining on the internet doesn’t count as resistance right.
Replying to @echodot@feddit.uk
I said the bar was very low. When it comes to Ai use I am very clear with everyone where I stand. I’m not out here throwing molotov cocktails at data centres but I’m also not expecting it of anyone else, either. Saying “no” to forced Ai use is not “charging the bastille” and if you’re equating it to that then you can maybe see what I’m talking about.
Replying to @Soup@lemmy.world
I’m guessing you don’t actually work in a corporation because you don’t get to say no to things. Management come up with their often dumb ideas, and you have to go along with them.
Replying to @echodot@feddit.uk
I got fired from my last job because I didn’t tell the seniors they were special boys. I very politely told an engineer he had to update his building code and when I eventually had to tell him that I couldn’t work on his project if he wasn’t going to follow the current legal standards it was me who got spoken to about “insubordination”.
The only reason you “can’t” say no is because everyone together believes they can’t and actively, or even simply passively, discourages others from doing it. The only true power that these people have is what is given to them, they aren’t wizards.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
If you write either of these 4 emails I hate you.
“I was just so surprised by how different the responses were,” Van Koevering said. "Some responses were so bad I couldn’t believe the model would suggest it. And sometimes I just thought, “Wow I should be more careful in my emails.'”
Why aren’t you writing your own correspondence, I do not understand.
Replying to @panda_abyss@lemmy.ca
Different prompts result in different responses…*shocked pikachu face*
Replying to @panda_abyss@lemmy.ca
Especially when responding to someone writing you to express gratitude, using an LLM is super disrespectful IMO. You shouldn’t need an LLM to write, “You’re welcome, thank you for helping with ____.”
Be concise in your emails, that respects a person’s time and still gets the message across.
Replying to @stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
write a reply email to this reply email expressing thanks for expressing thanks, for our earlier email expressing thanks to their thanks
Replying to @panda_abyss@lemmy.ca
if you have to be that verbose when prompting ‘ai’ to write an email, just dictate the damn message using speech-to-text.
Replying to @panda_abyss@lemmy.ca
Because many of the people we’re forced to interact with in our capitalist society don’t deserve the energy.
Even the ones that should, become unworthy because they’re restrained by systems designed to maximize profit and minimize liability instead of offering a good service by a human who would normally care.
At least that’s the excuse I use to burn a small piece of the planet to ask my boss for vacation in a way that reduces the likelihood he says no.
Replying to @Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
The answer is to half-ass the email, not use some planet destroying technology to half-ass it for you
Replying to @jpreston2005@lemmy.world
Sure I’ll half ass the email, get the request denied because I didn’t ask Neotropical enough, and now I can’t join my family on vacation.
The other alternative is to spend way too long on routine emails with people who don’t deserve my care and attention because they’re fundamentally the oppressors.
Nah. I’ll save my care and attention for friends and family. Half ass shit like feeding the machine with data, and LLM my way into making the people in power behave like decent individuals.
Replying to @Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
How about don’t half ass the important email to your boss that your family vacation is riding on??
Replying to @jpreston2005@lemmy.world
My boss can eat my whole ass… If I had to full ass every worthless bureaucratic transaction I’m mandated to have with him that’s all I’d ever do. Miss me with that, I’m not here for that, I have actual work to do.
Besides you’re the one who suggested half assing the email. I said I’d let the LLM write it because odds are he’s using an LLM to do his job for him anyways. He’s not worth the time to half ass or full ass… He gets no ass and I get all my leave requests approved.
Some tasks we’re forced to do only deserve slop.
Replying to @Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
let me put it in simpler terms: stop using AI.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
I would like to see how relevant this “language associated with women” is when looking at actual AI prompts. Seems like it could have easily just described the style of prompt. Good for anyone to be aware of I guess? Maybe just learn to write a good email instead of a good prompt though.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
Many find AI-drafted emails insulting to their time regardless of what they say, and those that don’t have the AI summarize the emails for them anyway, so I think this may be a tempest in a teacup.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
Fuck that. Emailing coworkers shouldn’t be a formal thing. Just wastes everyone’s time.
I wrote my last email today and it was literally just 3 sentences.
I could have had the company-mandated AI make it “professional” and unnecessarily long but nah, I’d rather be human.
Replying to @python@lemmy.world
I love that you’re giving everyone champagne at lunchtime. The rest of the day is going to have negative productivity.
Depends on how much Champagne will be served. They might just hit the Ballmer peak.
My emails are usually “I ordered an amount of these things in case anybody noticed we were out” and “finished this leg of this project, moving on to the next”. Occasionally there’s “Thank you for clearing that up <leader person>, I’ll touch base with <person who actually does shit> for the details and get out of your way.”
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
I hate when people use AI for emails. I’d rather just read the prompt they gave to AI so I can read the actual meat of it rather than having to sift through the slop for it.
Replying to @magnue@lemmy.world
That’s because people just let AI write an email and then just send it. Usually require some massaging to turn it into something that looks moderately human.
Replying to @echodot@feddit.uk
Or save editing time and write it your self. No need to massage robot vomit.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
in my opinion , you sound bad using the ai to write the email anyways
AI makes everyone sound bad. Everywhere.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
Tldr authors assume women use AI poorly
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
When prompts to draft work emails and job applications contain language commonly used by women, artificial intelligence chatbots including ChatGPT offer less sophisticated responses compared to office correspondence requested with language associated with men
Ok, we know that LLMs work basically as text completion and will adapt the language used in the response to the one used in the prompt. Their findings basically tell us that “language commonly used by women” is found in text content that is “less complex, at a lower grade level, and less formal”. It’s just statistics. To fix this “bias” they would have to artificially create loads of complex and formal text that uses “language commonly used by women” and use it to train LLMs. Not sure what the point of that would be though. If you want complex and formal response just write a complex and formal prompt.
Replying to @ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
Maybe it just means that women get treated with condescending answers more often especially in the Internet. That is my personal experience and not based on studies but there is a reason people want to defund gender studies and I do not like it.
Replying to @Akrenion@slrpnk.net
Could be but the article is not talking about “more condescending” language but specifically about language that’s less formal and at a lower grade level. I’m not sure if condescending answers are automatically also “dumbed down”. I also think the way training text is gathered and fed into LLMs would separate different authors and context or we would see similar issues with all types of prompts. I can’t definitely say it’s not the reason but I think “language commonly used by women is more common in less formal texts” is a simpler and more convincing answer.
Replying to @ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
We do see these issues in a lot of ways because llms train on bias. More polite answers get more verbose and angry answers get less verbose. There are a lot of these “hacks” that exploit this.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
big surprise, llms pick up on human biases. It also tells abused men to eat shit.
Replying to @beep@piefed.world
From the headline I expected there to be some minor tells in otherwise similar prompts which the AI picked up to generate different output. But from the example, the prompts are vastly different and the tone of the input is reflected in the tone of the output.