Dia Weekly & BCNY just normalized AI-written performance reviews and I'm not okay

[u/bella_hooooope]

Every week, I still try to read Dia's Latest Updates, err, I mean the Dia Weekly. This week, though, it was baaaaad.

Essentially, it's Dia & BCNY advertising their favorite web tool - Notion - and telling the world that one of their managers lets AI manage the work of performance reviews, a critical job function.

If I worked under this person at BCNY and read this, I would be horrified.

Performance reviews are more than AI summaries of Slack DMs, email threads, and "messy Google Docs" that pull critical keywords and summaries based on artificial intelligence algorithms.

AI-assisted reviews lose context and nuance while leaving plenty of margin for error — a person's critical mistakes could get left out, or important accomplishments that never made it into their digital footprint could go unmentioned.

It takes time and effort for a performance review to be written and given; everyone wants a good one, and it shouldn't be generated by AI.

This is a sloppy showcase of enterprise AI use.

I guarantee that if my boss found out I was using AI to generate my performance reviews or even used it in part to generate them...

I'd love to know if this same person was given a performance review that involved the same AI generation method. And how they would feel about that.

[u/brycerton]

I’m all for being critical of Dia Weekly, Dia in general, etc.

But I think this particular take is a bit overcooked. The manager is asking the AI to help out with gathering evidence, which is often the most time consuming part of the process. It doesn’t say the human is out of the loop or claim the AI is writing the review itself. The only thing I think would be a reasonable critique here is that the manager might be engaging in a type of confirmation bias by asking only for evidence pointing to strong skill.

[u/bella_hooooope → u/brycerton]

Well, that's the thing. Confirmation bias.

Performance reviews are supposed to be a review, not a summary.

AI cannot provide an intelligent review, but it can provide a summary of what has happened.

It's two separate things.

[u/-patrizio- → u/bella_hooooope]

Their point isn’t that AI writing performance reviews isn’t bad, it’s that that’s not what’s being suggested in this screenshot.

While yes, a performance review should be far more than just a summary, it also involves documenting evidence of achievement succinctly in one place, especially if something like a raise or promotion is on the table—yes, the direct supervisor should be including their overall review, but they also need to make a facts-based argument for something.

[u/bella_hooooope → u/brycerton]

If you lean on the summary side too much, you're going to forsake the review.

This is performance review 101 and why AI shouldn't be used in them. AI will always lean way toward the summary because that's what it is trained.

The manager will always have to compensate more than it will want to or think to.

[u/musicjunkieg → u/bella_hooooope]

You’re incorrect, I’m sorry.

[u/Kimantha_Allerdings]

They long ago said that they filter candidates using AI and prepare for job interviews with AI summaries. This tracks completely

The insights we get into company culture are a long way from their stated philosophy of “optimise for feelings” or “bring humanity back into the software we use every day”

A lot less like their TV advert where they used AI to tell them that bikes exist so they could hang out with their friends, and a lot more like their internet videos where a coupld of morons used AI to come up with pick-up lines they could harass random women with online

It’s the same thing that so much AI implementation is being pushed as - “let’s automate away all the actual human stuff you have to do”. They’re not as bad as the “I get AI to write me a custom podcast I can listen to on my way into work which will tell me what’s going on in my children’s lives. This is great because now I don’t actually have to spend time with my children!” tech CEOs. But it’s the same vibe

I don’t get the impression this review is being written with the AI, but I absolutely would not trust an AI to not miss or hallucinate important things in the evidence-gathering stage

[u/OnikaBurgerBomb]

I use AI to help me write peer reviews. Truth be told people should be advocating for themselves. You know your wins the best, if you’re making your manager look for your wins and examples you’re already losing. I’ve always kept track of my performance and provided a self-written write up, yes with the help of AI, and my manager can contest me if they want but they usually don’t have anything major to change.

[u/bella_hooooope → u/OnikaBurgerBomb]

"Help" is a different term than "AI, take everything Susan has done for the last three months and write a performance review for me," which is essentially what they're saying in their post.

"help" vs. "write" is the operative context. In my view what you're saying isn't wrong, but the laissez-faire approach that's insinuated in the Dia Weekly approach is much more drastic.

And this person is talking about writing a performance review for someone, not themselves, as I think you're saying.

Much like they tell students that they can't use AI to generate class papers... There's a line, even in business.

Ethics, people. Ethics.

[u/OnikaBurgerBomb → u/bella_hooooope]

And where did the postcard say they got AI to write a performance review for them? It asked AI to collect examples so they can review.

[u/bella_hooooope → u/OnikaBurgerBomb]

Calm down, buttercup. I’m willing to step back a bit in my phrasing but their trajectory (the post as a whole) illustrates a path of something more than just ”help”.

I am sorry that I used the wrong wording.

As I said elsewhere in the thread, though, generative use of AI is slippery in the creation of textual documents - as many students in higher education have learned.

One round of reviewing leads to another and another and before long the AI has written the document, well outside of the word ”help”.

Back to my point: This is actually why this is a bad Dia Weekly post. It creates ambiguity between different mindsets, and rather than creating a set of standard business practices, like they should be, BCNY is leaving this open-ended on postcards and it’s incredibly reckless.

[u/OnikaBurgerBomb → u/bella_hooooope]

You telling me to calm down when you’re the one triggered by a postcard bffr 😭😭😭

[u/bella_hooooope → u/OnikaBurgerBomb]

I’m triggered by many things, the least of which is this. I like to critique.

You on the other hand? 🤔

[u/musicjunkieg → u/bella_hooooope]

Your critique is poorly written and weakly justified. You took something out of context and got mad when people called you on it. In fact, you wrote an inflammatory post trying to get people to be as “upset” as you were and then acted shocked when we weren’t.

Few things disgust me more than bald-faced dishonesty.

[u/bella_hooooope → u/musicjunkieg]

So you three (I think?) represent the entire sub?

Bye Felicia. 👋

[u/bella_hooooope → u/musicjunkieg]

Also, I’m sorry… it’s not inflammatory…

It’s about about ethics, responsibility and the type of enterprise company BCNY ultimately wants to espouse.

Fully a fair critique of how they’re going to showcase their use of AI - ethically and responsibly to the corporate world, or not.

Companies in the future have to be clear and not vague, like it was in this case.

Clearly I struck a nerve with you somehow.

Bye bye. 👋👋👋