Jānis Erts

Please explain it to me like I’m 5 years old

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees. $30 per seat per month. $1.4 million annually. I called it "digital transformation." The board loved that phrase. They approved it in eleven minutes. No one asked what it would actually do. Including me. I told everyone it would "10x productivity." That's not a real number. But it sounds like one. HR asked how we'd measure the 10x. I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards." They stopped asking. Three months later I checked the usage reports. 47 people had opened it. 12 had used it more than once. One of them was me. I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds. It took 45 seconds. Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations. But I called it a "pilot success." Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail. The CFO asked about ROI. I showed him a graph. The graph went up and to the right. It measured "AI enablement." I made that metric up. He nodded approvingly. We're "AI-enabled" now. I don't know what that means. But it's in our investor deck. A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT. I said we needed "enterprise-grade security." He asked what that meant. I said "compliance." He asked which compliance. I said "all of them." He looked skeptical. I scheduled him for a "career development conversation." He stopped asking questions. Microsoft sent a case study team. They wanted to feature us as a success story. I told them we "saved 40,000 hours." I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up. They didn't verify it. They never do. Now we're on Microsoft's website. "Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot." The CEO shared it on LinkedIn. He got 3,000 likes. He's never used Copilot. None of the executives have. We have an exemption. "Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction." I wrote that policy. The licenses renew next month. I'm requesting an expansion. 5,000 more seats. We haven't used the first 4,000. But this time we'll "drive adoption." Adoption means mandatory training. Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches. But completion will be tracked. Completion is a metric. Metrics go in dashboards. Dashboards go in board presentations. Board presentations get me promoted. I'll be SVP by Q3. I still don't know what Copilot does. But I know what it's for. It's for showing we're "investing in AI." Investment means spending. Spending means commitment. Commitment means we're serious about the future. The future is whatever I say it is. As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

Vēlreiz par Konvenciju uz dzimumiem. Konvencija nav par 101 dzimumu, nav par dzimumu mainīšanu, nav par fluiditāti vai dzimumu kā sociālo konstruktu. Konvencija ļoti viennozīmīgi pasaka, ka bioloģiskie dzimumi ir divi. Ja vien kāds mācētu lasīt! Konvencijas kontekstā "sociālais dzimums" (gender) nav cilvēka īpašība, un cilvēks to nemaina un neiespaido. Sociālais dzimums ir stereotips. Tik vienkārši. Tulkotāji dīvaini, es būtu citādi tulkojis, taču lasot to nevar nesaprast! Jēdzienu "sociālais dzimums" lieto, lai pateiktu, ka sieviešu diskriminācija sakņojas stereotipos, nevis dzimumorgānos. Ka DISKRIMINĀCIJAI nav bioloģiskas realitātes. Diskriminācijai nevis dzimumam.

Pēc pašvaldību vēlēšanu rezultātu skaitīšanā piedzīvotā fiasko pavisam reāla kļuvusi versija, ka nākamruden Saeimas vēlēšanu rezultāti būs jāskaita "pa vecam", proti, manuāli. Jaunu IT risinājumu izstrādei vairs nav laika, lēš demisionējusī VARAM ministre.

Topošie izmeklētāji no Iekšējās drošības akadēmijas gatavojas uzdot jautājumus “aizdomās turamajiem”. Seminārā pētām, kā darbojas tā sauktais melu detektors.

Why men shouldn’t pee standing up

Does astrology work? We tested the ability of 152 astrologers to see if they could demonstrate genuine astrological skill. Here is how the study was designed and what we found (including a result that really surprised me): 🧵