https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-hate-ai-linkedin-russell-brand-13oxc
I had been off of LinkedIn and other such platforms for the better part of a year.
When I returned here, I found hundreds of connection invites.
Some small fraction were from people whose presentations I had critiqued at a #startup #pitchevent, otherwise knew me or clearly at least read my linkedin profile.
Perhaps half of the remaining were folks trying to sell me something that I didn’t need. Most ironically, the majority of those were selling introduction services through LinkedIn messaging and were providing perfect examples of why not to use their services.
Most of the remainder seemed to follow this simple (and simply useless) sequence:
- Some presumably AI-ish algorithm had suggested they connect with me
- Either there was no initial message or there was a content-free AI-generated message
- There was nothing in their profile that suggested a common interest or conversation topic
- I replied was a generic “Thank you for reaching out here.”
- They replied with either “My pleasure” or “No problem” which since there were many of each, I presume were AI-generated.
- I archived the conversation.
I think that this AI system is generating negative value for all involved and, of course, contributing to global warming while doing so.
I wish I could have a set of “opt-out boxes” on LinkedIn for AI-generated direct messages and algorithmically suggested connect requests.
I suppose that short of that I should build a system to filter these out.
I probably wouldn’t even need #AI to do it.
As a side note, it saddens me that my first piece of public writing in half a year is useless venting, but at least I didn’t outsource writing it to an #LLM — but perhaps you-all will outsource the reading of it.
Does it count as ironic that I used my old custom GPT image generator to make the picture?
