Voice of the DBA

Tag: AI

Are You Worried About AI?

The AI revolution is happening. I don’t know how successful it will be, but regardless, people are trying to get AI into everything. That might be good or bad in various situations, but it has people worried about AI. This piece looks at a survey from the American Staffing Association that says 47% of people somewhat or strongly agree that their job is replaceable by automation with an AI. There is more data to dig into, but that’s a lot of people who worry about their jobs.

Most people do think that tech is generally a good thing. I do find that many of us in tech, and some other industries, are buried in work. There’s never a shortage and we could easily work 60, 70, or more hours a week and not complete everything. The flip side of that is a lot of work doesn’t necessarily need to be done now and could be delayed, so I think it’s hard to decide whether we need more help or more patience.

The various places I’ve seen AI used are often helping people get started or unblock their creativity struggles. Recently someone posted this link on some prompts a person had used to get moving. I found a few of these possibly helpful. Not writing, but maybe having an AI proof something, or even get me started in some new area. I worry about book summaries, or even text summaries, as I’m not always confident the AI understands which pieces I might find important. However, that’s also a danger with humans. I’ve seen no shortage of people asked to summarize something for others. When I understand the subject well, I sometimes disagree with another’s summary (or think it’s just plain wrong).

I don’t think AIs are a big danger to many people’s employment. I do think that as people learn to use AIs are assistants we might find that we grow or enhance staff less. We might also find that the 10x engineer knows how to engage 10 AIs to help them get things done, especially simple, busy work. The low performers will likely be those working in the same way in the future as they do today. That might not threaten your job, but it might mean lower bonuses and less opportunities in the future if you can’t adapt your skills to this new world.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

September 25, 2023
Finding Analogies with AI

I saw this article on using AI to help that included a few prompts. I decided to try one.

This is part of a series of experiments with the ChatGPT and other AI systems. Lots of Copilot lately.

The Prompt

Here’s what I wrote, since I was reading piece on cloud migration and writing an editorial:

I am currently learning about cloud migration. Convert the key lessons from this topic into engaging stories and metaphors to aid my memorization

The Response

1. The Cloud Island Adventure:

Imagine your business as a group of settlers on a remote island. They’ve been working with outdated tools and limited resources, making progress slow and inefficient. One day, they hear about a magical cloud island that’s full of modern technology, abundant resources, and a vibrant community.

The settlers decide to embark on a journey to this cloud island, symbolizing your migration to the cloud. As they arrive, they realize they can instantly access powerful tools, scalable resources, and connect with experts from various fields. Just like in cloud migration, your business gains flexibility and efficiency, leaving behind the struggles of managing on-premises infrastructure.

Key Lesson: Cloud migration is like moving to a new land of opportunity, where you can harness advanced tools and resources to grow your business.

2. The Cloud Highway Construction:

Think of your business as a growing city with a bustling population. However, the existing roads and bridges are becoming congested and outdated, hindering growth and causing delays. To expand and flourish, the city planners decide to build a futuristic cloud highway.

This cloud highway represents your migration to the cloud. Construction crews work tirelessly to build this highway, which is scalable, adaptable, and has lanes for various services. As businesses start using the highway, traffic flows smoothly, and they can easily scale up or down as needed. The old congested roads symbolize the limitations of on-premises systems, while the cloud highway signifies the ease of scalability and innovation in the cloud.

Key Lesson: Cloud migration is like building a high-speed highway that allows your business to easily adapt, grow, and efficiently navigate the digital landscape.

3. The Cloud Carnival:

Envision your business as a traditional carnival that’s been running for years. The carnival’s attractions are fixed in place, and changing or upgrading them is difficult and time-consuming. Visitors are getting bored, and the carnival is losing its charm.

Deciding to modernize, the carnival organizers pack up and move to a new location, which represents migrating to the cloud. In this new location, they can easily set up and tear down attractions, experiment with new games, and respond quickly to changing trends. The cloud becomes their dynamic playground, allowing them to create delightful experiences for visitors.

Key Lesson: Cloud migration is like relocating a carnival to a space where you can easily innovate and provide fresh, exciting experiences to your customers.

4. The Cloud Puzzle Factory:

Imagine your business as a puzzle factory, creating intricate puzzles with limited resources and machinery. You’re tasked with making bigger and more complex puzzles, but the factory’s machinery is old and cannot keep up with the demand.

To overcome this challenge, you decide to move the factory to a cloud-powered puzzle factory. Here, you have access to state-of-the-art machines that can quickly produce even the most complex puzzles. You can rent additional machines when needed and return them when the demand decreases. The cloud puzzle factory allows you to efficiently meet demand without being limited by physical constraints.

Key Lesson: Cloud migration is like upgrading your puzzle factory to a cloud-powered version, where you can easily scale resources to meet demand and improve production efficiency.

By associating these engaging stories and metaphors with the key lessons of cloud migration, you’ll find it easier to remember and apply these concepts in your learning journey.

Thoughts

I liked these analogies. They got me thinking about how to explain things to customers, though they are all positive and don’t represent the downsides. However, when I asked to alter this to show how this hinders progress, I got the result below.

Very interesting. Not sure if I think this is that helpful, but it was thought provoking.

1. The Stagnant Island Settlement:

Picture a group of settlers who refuse to leave their old, resource-scarce island. They struggle with outdated tools and limited resources, but they’re unwilling to explore the nearby cloud island that offers modern technology and abundant resources.

As time goes on, the settlers fall behind in their development. They can’t innovate or expand due to their lack of access to advanced tools and resources. The once-promising settlement becomes stagnant and isolated, symbolizing the limitations of staying on-premises instead of migrating to the cloud.

Key Lesson: Choosing not to migrate to the cloud can lead to stagnation and missed opportunities, as your business remains bound by outdated tools and restricted growth.

2. The Congested Road City:

Imagine a bustling city that stubbornly refuses to build a modern cloud highway. The existing roads and bridges are constantly congested, causing delays, frustration, and hampering the city’s growth.

As more businesses and people move in, the traffic situation worsens. Without the scalability and adaptability of a cloud highway, the city’s infrastructure can’t handle the increased demand. This congestion and lack of flexibility mirror the challenges of sticking with traditional on-premises systems.

Key Lesson: Failing to migrate to the cloud can result in congestion and inefficiency, preventing your business from scaling and responding effectively to changing demands.

3. The Stagnant Carnival Grounds:

Consider a carnival that’s stuck in its old location, unable to adapt to changing times. The attractions become outdated, and visitors start losing interest. Despite the need for innovation, the organizers resist moving to a cloud-enabled carnival.

As a result, the carnival fails to attract new visitors and struggles to create exciting experiences. The reluctance to embrace the cloud leads to a decline in customer satisfaction and revenue, as the competition adopts modern approaches.

Key Lesson: Not migrating to the cloud can result in a decline in customer engagement and revenue, as your business fails to adapt to changing market demands and deliver innovative experiences.

4. The Inefficient Puzzle Factory:

Visualize a puzzle factory that clings to its old machines and refuses to transition to a cloud-powered system. The factory can’t keep up with the demand for larger and more complex puzzles, leading to delays and frustrated customers.

Without the ability to scale resources on demand, the factory struggles to meet production goals. The reluctance to modernize impedes efficiency and profitability, as competitors who utilize cloud resources outpace them.

Key Lesson: Neglecting cloud migration can lead to production inefficiencies and missed business opportunities, as your organization struggles to scale and respond to market needs.

By exploring these scenarios that depict the hindrances of not moving to the cloud, you can gain a better understanding of the potential pitfalls and disadvantages of staying with traditional, on-premises systems.

August 31, 2023
The IT Jobs AI Can’t Do

This was a provocative title: 6 ITOps Skills That Will Never Be Automated. In a time when AI use is growing quickly and many people fear for their jobs, it’s nice to see someone writing about areas that AI will struggle to handle.

Ironically, lots of these articles are written by writers without much technical expertise and who are more likely than others to struggle in the age of AI. If a computer can mimic styles, less writers will be employed. That might be fitting with so many journalists hyping technologies without really understanding them, doing so in a way that creates stress among actual IT professionals.

The article lists 6 jobs: policy config, incident response, complex scaling, app feedback, ITOps tool deployments, and end-user support. Of these, I’m not sure that app feedback and end-user support are good-paying jobs that many people want, but I know there certainly are people working in these areas who depend on those jobs.

The others are often jobs that few people do. I do think that these are complex jobs where a computer can’t really take in enough information to do a great job here, but I do think that one smart worker could learn to guide an AI that does a lot of the busy work. Someone could specify a policy from an AI and then ask the AI to tweak it as holes or gaps are identified. I think over time a lot of quick incident response items could be handled by an AI, albeit with a human guiding it. Again, that reduces the need for humans in these roles.

To me, that’s where the AI revolution becomes scary. AI is a lever to get a lot done. Fewer humans can be used to accomplish tasks with the aid of AIs, which reduces a lot of the labor needed. After all, we know that in any area, there are lots of beginners and advanced beginners doing work. If we can use an AI assistant to help one or two humans, we might remove the need for a dozen others.

Maybe that’s what a future 10x engineer looks like. Someone that’s way more productive than many others because they’ve leveraged the computer (in the form of an AI) to get a tremendous amount of work done.

I do think there are likely jobs that AIs can’t easily do, but I also think that a lot of the work in these areas might get copy/pasted between organizations. Policies, scaling choices, and more are things that one human might learn from others and mimic those efforts. With better judgment than an AI, but not as much as if a true expert were coming up with the best solution for a particular situation.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t come up with optimal solutions, and our organizations run fine with sub-optimal code/policies/decisions/whatever. Will companies get by with very few highly paid people or a few more low ones and accept mediocre software?

That already happens far too often already. I suspect like most trends, we’ll see quite a few organizations move in this direction. However, I think the human ingenuity will win out and as a few companies realize that the creativity of humans can better target their goals than an AI that merely summarizes other work, the pendulum will swing back.

Unfortunately, a lot of people will get caught in bad situations as this happens. Work on your skills, technical and soft, and be sure that you are in the best position you can be in as the world embraces and evolves with AI technology.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

August 30, 2023
ADS Copilot Experiments with XML

I sent some code to a customer recently to help them decrypt some stored procedures. I sent a quick and dirty set of code, noting at the bottom that the results were in XML and needed to be extracted.

The customer wrote back that my code produced XML and the procedure code had to be copied and pasted into SSMS to create a decrypted procedure.

Before I spent time on this, I decided that I should play with Copilot here. This is the perfect place and it’s what I’d hope at some point if I sent that code, the other person would use some sort of AI to help them fix things.

Maybe not, but here’s what happened.

This is part of a series of experiments with the ChatGPT and other AI systems. Lots of Copilot lately.

Asking for Help

I could look up the syntax for working with XML, but what about Copilot? Let’s see what happened.

An interesting suggestion. One problem: when I run this, the result isn’t great.

If I cast this as XML, or declare it, things work. At least, they don’t produce errors. But they don’t do what I wanted.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I opened the completions panel for Copilot and saw other suggestions.

Let’s try these.

Suggestion 1 looks good. If I change my declaration to be XML, this works (or cast things).

Some points for Copilot here, and I’d hope a junior would get to change the declaration or ask how to convert the variable to XML.

Suggestion two doesn’t work.

Suggestion three looks like a copy paste from a forum somewhere. However, the code works. I don’t know how this gets into the suggestions, but I am interested to know what’s happening here.

Four and fix aren’t great. They look like repeats. However, six accounts for my declaration.

Does the code work? It does.

I accepted solution 6 to see what happens. The code was added to the query window.

A Repeat

I’ve given feedback, so let’s try again. I went back to the prompt and got the same suggestion again, however when I opened the panel, I saw different items.

One doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t work. Two and three are nonsense. Four is really interesting, but not useful.

I don’t think Copilot learned anything, and I’m not even sure it is all that well trained. I don’t know if it doesn’t recognize it’s in a database editor or what. The type of language for the ADS file is SQL, so I don’t know what X# and Java are added.

I’m out of patience today. I know how to do this, so I’ll just write the code.

August 23, 2023