Today we had a fire alarm in the office.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev @mathowie Decades ago, I read a story (I want to say on Slashdot?) about a baffling email sent to thousands of employees at a large corporation, that said, simply, “DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL.” Ultimately, it turned out that one of their buildings at one location had a false fire alarm, and some well-meaning person emailed everybody to inform them of that fact.
In 2026, we have automated DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL, and it's wrong.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev I'm thoroughly convinced that the AI will kill us with bad directions on the maps and things like what you described!
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev Fake mushroom gathering e-books on Amazon quite probably already have.
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@TerryBTwo there's no 'instead of' in my post. Please read carefully.
@tagir_valeev As noted-the implication.of "AI will kill us " is precisely that.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev Just me, but I would not start a thread when my building's fire alarm goes off. I'd go stand in the parking lot.
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@Matt_999 @tagir_valeev it is still probably a good idea to leave your workplace and go to the emergency meeting point, so you get used to the process, and don't forget to take e.g. shoes, jacket, wallet, keys … with you if the alarm turns out to be a real alarm. Or even have to find out first where the next fire extinguisher or the emergency meeting point is…
@daniel_bohrer @Matt_999 @tagir_valeev I mean, it's a free break that you can't be penalised for. Might suck if it's bad weather out, but still, it's a break.
Don't dawdle while leaving or you'll be trampled by the smokers. Extra smoke break!!!
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev München Calling...
Engines stop runnin', but I have no fear
'Cause London is drownin' and I live by the river -
Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev
> Someday, AI will kill us.
Hopefully -
Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
Jebus. The fire alarm goes off and their reaction is to ... start a Slack thread?
Not, "get up from desk and leave expeditiously" like you practice in the fire drills?
Some people have no common sense.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
If it was a test then folks should do what they are supposed to do in a fire alarm to test the complete system.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev A deadly case of the general principle that the situationally useful information lies not in the statistical pattern but in where and how deviations from the pattern occur.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev More galling still, a scheduled test of a fire alarm system typically *still includes evacuation.* Leaving the building *is* the drill. I have never worked in an office where there was any condition under which occupants are told to ignore the alarm.
Ignoring alarms leads to alarm fatigue which then leads to failure. Alarms either exist for a reason or they don't. A device that says otherwise is a broken device. You're right, devices like that will kill.
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@tagir_valeev More galling still, a scheduled test of a fire alarm system typically *still includes evacuation.* Leaving the building *is* the drill. I have never worked in an office where there was any condition under which occupants are told to ignore the alarm.
Ignoring alarms leads to alarm fatigue which then leads to failure. Alarms either exist for a reason or they don't. A device that says otherwise is a broken device. You're right, devices like that will kill.
@majick well, in our case there were definitely cases of 'scheduled alarm maintenance'. In that time, random alarms occurred many times during two or three hours. Evacuating after every single of them would mean nobody is doing the actual work during the good part of the day.
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@majick well, in our case there were definitely cases of 'scheduled alarm maintenance'. In that time, random alarms occurred many times during two or three hours. Evacuating after every single of them would mean nobody is doing the actual work during the good part of the day.
@tagir_valeev Exceptions like that are reasonable, I think, with the caveat that 'being prepared to not die' is the actual work on any good day.
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev As 90% of fire alarms are drills, it makes perfect sense to respond with the most likely scenario.
( /s in case it wasn’t obvious. Rather startling that people are arguing with you.)
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev idk Dude, when theres a fire alarm I leave the building and make sure everyone made it out, and dont write shit in Slack
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Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
@tagir_valeev ... and even if it was a drill, you're supposed to leave. So not only the thing has no criteria, just parrots what it has heard before, it's also parroting the wrong thing.
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@tagir_valeev "Dear Munich emergency services, there's a strong smell of smoke in our open office, and the flames are really messing up the colors of my IDE's dark mode. Is this an actual emergency? Looking forward to hearing from you…"
@mhd @tagir_valeev
„I hope this e-mail finds you well and unscorched …“ -
@tagir_valeev Exceptions like that are reasonable, I think, with the caveat that 'being prepared to not die' is the actual work on any good day.
@majick @tagir_valeev There are two kinds of alarm testing. One is as you described, where they are testing the alarm structure and functionality. You should get advance notice to ignore the alarms, preferably with a reminder to listen to announcements just in case there's a real emergency in the middle of their test. The other kind is testing the human element, so yeah, you have to leave when they tell you to because you never know.
