Post by @stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe

@stefano MOUAHAHAHAHAHAHA :D

@stefano lmao

@stefano "it didn't even make backups!" skill issue lmao

@wizbean @stefano Telling the clanker to just fuck my shit up zero hesitation without even considering a manual backup first.

@stefano
Shocking ignorance, is it not? Some people keep amazing me.

I bet they have fired someone too soon on the assumptions of promised intelligence.

@stefano well, stupid is as stupid does.... ( To be absolutely clear: them, not you!)

@stefano 🤯 it's amazing (by which I mean worrying) how many people seem to think they can absolve themselves of any responsibility by using AI.

I don't understand why anyone would just let AI loose on a production system like that, and even blame AI for not taking backups. Although why was it not being backed up anyway?

I wonder how much more money they will waste in tokens rather than pay a professional to fix the mess.

@teapot_ben we saw this coming when people would follow instructions from any Web site or forum without knowing what they mean, now it's been skinned with a golden sheen.

@stefano

@teapot_ben @stefano Capabilities based security models (CBSMs) won't fix this. Nothing can, except a return to healthier attitudes -- valuing humans, not the flavour of the month. I think of CBSMs as more like a set of software bulkheads for CWEs to not turn into CVEs in cybersecurity terms. That they could be applied to constrain the state space for "rogue" "AI" "agents to wreck the place is but a side benefit, but I guess I need to phrase it that way when "selling" the work. CBSMs can be applied to oppress as much as liberate, though, without heed to means of understanding such as Zooko's Triangle.

@stefano
One day, you should write a book with all these stories ;)

@82mhz Maybe I should 😉

@stefano Looks like it won’t take any of our jobs anytime soon. Theirs on the other hand…

@stefano they could at least have block-level imaged it before they sent an AI onto it. I forget that people who have servers don't know how to use them; sometimes.

@stefano wait, what’s the FreeBSD equivalent of “apt update && apt upgrade” ?!

@stefano never mind, I’ll go ask AI

@slothrop @stefano With the old freebsd-update method, it's:
freebsd-update fetch && freebsd-update install

With the new pkgbase method (FreeBSD 16 will remove freebsd-update), it is:
pkg update && pkg upgrade

@stefano@bsd.cafe Some people do not deserve the privilege of being your customer.

@himysyed @stefano Exactly, you shouldn't want customers this stupid. They will be more trouble than they are worth. You want these people to go to your competition.

@stefano paying 500€ to a corporation ✅

paying 500€ plus hours to a person who actually get your calls 😡😡😡

@stefano If an LLM takes €500 to screw it then you should ask €1000 to fix it.

@stefano Let them boil in the soup of their own creation. The ability to *not* rely on LLMs is an invaluable asset. Clients which don't understand this already will understand eventually.

@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksSPZTZES0

@stefano how the heck to you even spend that much?! For context I do use these tools fairly regularly and my spend is like $20/month 😂 And all they were trying to do was some basic server admin?!

@ianthetechie if I understood correct, they used then api and let an agent run for…days?

@stefano@bsd.cafe probably good you didn't touch it - they would definitely blame you for the dataloss AI caused.

@stefano Well played, sir. Well, played. <tips hat> :-)

@stefano Remember it's €5,000 when they call back in a week 😜

@stefano I almost think this story is unbelievable, except I know you well enough to be certain the tale, sadly, is true.
Sorry for their loss.
As the Monty Python troupe would say/yell: "run away!"

@stefano @jspath55 I definitely believe it. You'd be surprised how many company directors think you can cut corners on IT staff, yet will throw 5 figure sums on "services" to solve a problem. I had a boss like that once. I think he just liked shouting at companies, and got in the way of people trying to doing their job.
Some bosses are massive toddlers.

@stefano I recently had someone ask me to set up WordPress for them. I agreed and they asked if I would be using AI to do the work. I assured them no, it is a simple (for me) task which takes just a few minutes.

They then clarified they were asking me to use AI to do the install. They thought using AI would somehow make the vanilla WordPress setup better. They were fine with it taking longer, even, if I somehow involved AI in the process they had already offloaded to me.

@distrowatch totally crazy!

@distrowatch @stefano "oh, if you want me to use AI I need $3000 extra for buying all the tokens"

@distrowatch @stefano I use AI* all the time in my work.

* That is, my actual intelligence and not the fake kind.

@distrowatch @stefano We live in hell.

@distrowatch @stefano

It is truly wild that this idea that things are more trustworthy if they're said by a computer somehow took hold among so many people.

@stefano He could have just read the FreeBSD upgrade instructions. 🤣

@stefano non ho parole…. A questo punto scusami il francesismo ma che si fottano pure con tutti i loro dati e servizi 😂😂😂

Certa gente si merita proprio questo 💪

@stefano @OdyX I'm at a loss for words… thanks for sharing and more importantly, sorry this happened.

@stefano Unbelievable how many crazy IT stories you’ve got. At this point you could probably write a couple of volumes. I imagine they’d sell good too

@stefano
I love the complete unawareness of "AI has completely failed to do your job" coupled with "AI is going to replace your job"

@stefano I guess *this* LLM won't take your job.

@stefano AI did take your job away.

Thankfully there's a new one that's promising to be much more lucrative, if entirely more stressful. Either that or societal collapse when people refuse to admit they were wrong to give spicy auto-complete admin access to things.

@stefano Sounds to me like AI is creating work for you rather than taking over your job!

@stefano I thought €500 was remarkably low place to start but it sounds like it was an effective deterrent.

@stefano weird how companies will throw good money after bad with American software companies but doing it internally costs and right costs too much.

@stefano "We've blown a grand on cocaine and none of it helped!!"

@stefano and that's why you need an AI voice receptionist to handle these calls 🙊

@stefano the app ecosystem and social networks have created a

@stefano@bsd.cafe just desserts for that IT guy, I won’t say IT professional, because he’s a clown in a clown suit.

@stefano apps and social networks have spawned a generation of people who think they shouldn’t have to pay for anything. Only they should make money not you.

@Ox1de @stefano : well, they are perfectly fine paying a lot of money to big corporations (Microsoft or Google, Apple for the laptops, OpenAI, Anthropic…)

They just don’t want to pay an human.

Probably because they are uncomfortable with the fact that this human will know more about the subject than they are.

(I mean, 500€ is cheap ! They already wasted as much without batting an eye )

But very good call: 500€ to undo the shit done by LLMs!

@stefano I bet the LMM agent upgraded and rebooted FreeBSD without updating the boot code, something which is documented in both the FreeBSD upgrading instructions and in the FreeBSD handbook.

@subnetspider that's what I'm suspecting, too. They said "it doesn't boot anymore". Or the agent used dd to write the boot code but mistakenly overwrote something more than the boot code.

@stefano I honestly have to wonder if they will learn from this -- any more than, say, Tr💩mp voters have learned from their experiences over the last decade...

@stefano Good thing they didn't hire you to get blamed for the whole thing.

We've had a similar thing (alas without AI, just lack of maintenance because they didn't pay their only admin) to a medium sized hosting company in Poland in 2016 (Adweb/2be.pl).

An IT company offered to help in incident response mode, after everything got fixed the hosting company said they won't pay the high fees for the response, IT company restored old snapshots, then got blamed for all kinds of made up issues.

@stefano There`s some of a wisdom called "Скупой платит дважды". Well, in their case they will most likely pay three times :)

@stefano Reminds me of this

@bladecoder totally!

@stefano A friend of mine said "500 plus time seems low" and I suggested that perhaps the goal is that when they come crawling back €2k in the hole you then say "Right, so two thousand plus time..."

@spacehobo @stefano Yeah, €500 plus time is a very reasonable price for a data recovery job.

@stefano people are generally insane now. I'm sorry this asshole found you.

@stefano When karma meets AI and human stupidity 😜

@stefano Meh, just meh, this reminds me of all the thanks I didn't get when I saved the City of London prop trading desk I was contracting for by doing a live ext4 Linux filesystem recovery on an HP MSA based SAN.

@stefano Almost my entire income is unfucking bad AI nonsense, much of it starts like this story.

And it almost always comes with a phase in the negotiations where they beg me to reduce my rates because they have already spent so much money on AI.

But that isn't my fault, nor my problem.

Never been told off like this though.

@nuintari @stefano

This AI crap is almost enough to make me consider going back into consulting.

The power in any negotiation goes to the person most willing to walk away. Companies trashed by AI cannot walk away.

@stefano Apparently it's not really important to them.
And it sounds like a customer noone wants to have.

@stefano Sigh, I hope someone there gets fired for their decision. You are paying the expert for their knowledge and experience.

I work full time in IT and it is rare that I get asked to do after hours work on the side. Rates depends on what they ask, but it starts at $50 an hour Canadian and a minimum of four hours.

@stefano Remind of this now classic cartoon

@stefano And you didn't charge too much for the task—it was more suited for a miracle-working saint on steroids.

@stefano I think folks really have a lack of value for our profession because it's "computer skills".

It's the same attitude as "oh it's just plumbing" and before you know it you're knee deep in dirty water.

No matter how desperate we are for money, we must value our time. And like just get a plumber in.

We don't have to be good at everything. It's a chance to get to know folks and you never know the plumber might know a business that need your professional help.

@onepict True. Years ago, "it's an easy task! The 12 years old son of my friend could do it".
My reply was: "Let him do that, but don't call me when everything will be gone".

At times, it happened. Sometimes, they just went out of business.

@stefano
Memo to self : check out recent @bofh columns. He's probably got a digital lime pit full of aspirant AI BOfHs.
(The one he really doesnt like, he sets the PFY on. Savage.)

@stefano somewhere, the BOFH is smiling

I agree with the group here,@stefano. They did you a massive favor. You do not want this client. That nastiness at the end of the call is just their own unforeseen (by them ) consequences coming home to roost.

@stefano

@stefano
Maybe triple the quote next time.

@stefano I think this story then tells how good is FreeBSD documentation.

@stefano
So they're happy to burn €500 and get the wrong answer, but they bulk at paying that much to get (an almost certainly) correct answer and fix?

"Whatdaya mean it'll cost €3000 to fix my car? The €1600 sledgehammer the AI told me to use was much cheaper and it took the engine out in seconds, now you want to replace it and charge me more?! Why are you ripping me off? I just want my car to work!"

I just can't with people.

@stefano

Same scenario when people hire unskilled folks to do a kitchen remodel, based on their low quote. After it is finished and they are unhappy with products and teh sink leaks they call in a skilled tradesperson and cry when they are quoited another 50-60% to FIX the crappy work and installations!

"You can pay me now or you can pay me double later. "

@stefano
😂😅😭😱🙄😂

@stefano @rolle And just think, Carrot Caligula wants to rename it “Super Intelligence” 🙄

@stefano 😂

@stefano you’re charging the same amount to rescue my truck that I spent getting it stuck? Outrageous!

@stefano the audacity 🤨

@stefano The call tomorrow: "Hi, I've already spent €1500 on tokens and it's still down and I need your help. Are you still available for €500?" "No, I'm sorry, now it'll cost €1500."

@stefano I say this all the time “you don’t know what you don’t know”. No LLM will proactively warn you about issues you don’t know about and no LLM will fill in the gaps of your knowledge for you.

It does what you ask it to do, so its context is your knowledge, not the other way around.

@stefano
I don't get this attitude for anything broken. Once I realize something will be a complicated fix, I immediately think that paying a professional is the cheapest solution. My computer, the plumbing, the roof, my taxes. If I know I could dig myself a deeper hole on my own, I give it to someone who won't.

Some people were never taught "penny wise, pound foolish" when growing up.

@stefano What a dick

@stefano

Agreed.

@stefano
No backup? No pity.

@stefano the only way this could have been made better is if you were coincidentally eating a bowl of popcorn

@stefano F-yeah. Nice response. The amount of resentment toward people with IT skill is palpable. “You want to charge me for help with a free web page builder?”. “You’re charging me more than the device cost!”.

Shits going to burn down.

@stefano I don't know, feels like the +500 is punishment for reaching to AI instead of a person, and you chose that instead as a teaching moment of "don't trust AIs ever again".

I know lots of non computering people who use AI for one reason or another, and I don't scold them, but I take every opportunity to try to teach them. Last Sunday I explained some issues about AI data centers, and the people honestly didn't know. The one that asked most questions said themselves were "a total ignorant".

@stefano

HOURLY RATES
Minimum: €100
If you tried to fix it: €250
If you tried to fix it using AI: €500
If you come crawling back after insulting me: call for quote

@stefano there’s the “I enjoy doing it”-rate, the regular rate, the “I dont enjoy doing it” rate and the “I really don’t want to do it” rate.

Troubleshooting an unknown mess created by a clueless person falls in one of the latter categories for me.