I remember the days when Upwork Plus membership was $15. Now, I had to pay $23.99, so I can play. I got something like 100 connects plus 40. Having in mind that, on average, you have to spend a dozen connects to submit a single proposal, that’s money well spent. Nah, I’m just being ironic while I’m after something iconic.
A small price to pay to try out something big. I’m talking about Upwork AI - Uma. I couldn’t wait to see what this heavily promoted new feature is all about.
I was thinking. What should I do first? I’ve come a long remote-work-way since 2012. The first contact with the thinking machines. Wow!
Then, I realized something. I didn’t have to think. Uma should do it for me.
The time has come to ask my first question. So, Uma, how can you help me?
The answer was, how should I put it, a bit - artificial. My bad. I should’ve been more specific. Let’s fix it.
“Can you help me identify opportunities to place my bids?” That sounded about right. Uma and I, we are a team now.
The answer was lengthy and not helpful at all. It felt like Uma was copy/pasting some Upwork support article. I thought about that startup that used remote workers to imitate AI chatbots.
So, when the time came to provide my feedback, because Uma is still in the Beta testing phase, I expressed my dissatisfaction in the most respectful way.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Uma’s response. One line in particular, when she/it says there’s no access to the Upwork real-time platform. What’s that supposed to mean?
It seems that there’s more that Uma can’t do than can do. How disappointing, but then, at the same time, what was I expecting, for real? Let me drop the mother of all remote work questions:
“Do you know that clients don’t like AI-generated proposals?”
You’ve probably seen those project descriptions yourself. They go along the lines of “don’t use AI” or “AI-generated proposals will be automatically rejected.”
Uma wrote me a novel on how to write a proposal - like a human. Seriously?!
I left another negative feedback and decided to say bye to Uma. You know, incorporating AI for the sake of “AI frenzy” is pointless. On the other hand, maybe I didn’t ask the right questions. Feel free to suggest the right ones in your comments. I paid for it. I want to make the most of it, as long as my Upwork Plus membership lasts.
I’m not going to renew it for another month, no matter what Uma says or does.
Upwork Uma - my AI trauma.