Ethics of of an AI based contract? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by lyrial@lemmy.sdf.org to c/machinist@sh.itjust.works

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I've gotten several job listings from Indeed that require CAM programming and access to a CNC. I have both. They're offering ~$135 per hour. The catch is that you use your usual work flow, make a part that your normally would and then remotely upload the results to this company so that they can train their AI to program CNC machines. I'm very against generative AI, but wow is that a lot of money for a 1 year contract. It took me 16 years to get good. Another 4 to make my own shop. But around 300k a year? It makes it hard. I'd love to know what other machinists think about this kind of thing.

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[-] cabbage@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Any way you could sabotage? Train it well, but with some systematic shortcoming that is hard to spot but would become bad at a scale? Ideally something that could be written off as a honest mistake on your end.

Obviously never talk about it or admit to it, as it's probably poorly received. But I think it's the most ethical option if you can think of a good way of doing it. You'd get the money, and if you do it well you could fight the system from within.

Obviously I don't know enough about this specific case to know if it's feasible at all.

[-] lyrial@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago

If I poison this, it could quite literally take down the manufacturing ability of two continents.

[-] cabbage@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

Only if they fire humans to employ AI tools instead, in which case they shoot themselves in the foot in the long run in either case. Human skilled labour remains essential if we are to have any innovation or progress. Such reliance would also make manufacturers the slaves of whoever owns the models once humans are no longer skilled for the job, and the laws of enshittification means that everything would end up both worse and more expensive over time. Making AI perform as poorly is the ethical choice.

The challenge is to find a way where it cannot in any way be traced back to intentional sabotage on your part.

@simple_sabotage@mastodon.social is an account over at Mastodon with useful lessons from history. :)

this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2026

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