[zingar]

The work where I've done well in my life (smashing deadlines, rescuing projects) has so often come because I've been willing to push back on - even explicitly stated - requirements. When clients have tried to replace me with a cheaper alternative (and failed) the main difference I notice is that the cheaper person is used to being told exactly what to do.

Maybe this is more anthropomorphising but I think this pushing back is exactly the result that the LLMs are giving; but we're expecting a bit too much of them in terms of follow-up like: "ok I double checked and I really am being paid to do things the hard way".

[Arch485]

I think there's a difference between

"Hey boss, this isn't practical with the requirements you've given. We need to revise them to continue, here are my suggestions"

and

"Task completed! Btw, I ignored all of the constraints because I didn't like them."

Humans do the former quite often. When we do the latter, our employment tends not to last very long. I've only seen AIs choose the latter option.

[nialse]

To be fair, there is likely not much training data on the difficult conversations you need to handle in a senior position, pushback being one of them. The trouble for the agents is that it is post hoc, to explain themselves, rationalising rather than ”help me understand” beforehand.