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Ask HN: Is anyone experiencing "AI brain rot?"

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Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experiencing "AI brain rot?"

#11

Post by Cerium »

sejje wrote: post #6
thorin wrote: post #4

Not just satnav, but as a kid I could remember at least 20 phone number of close friends and family. My spelling used to be quite good, but now I struggle with words my 9 year old can spell. I think this is the way with any new technology, we just move to the next level of abstraction and hopefully get to build bigger/better things...maybe.

I've never heard of spelling regressing. I think my spelling ability is mostly correlated to how much I have read. I know how to spell many words I've never used myself.

One thing I notice is that I can't spell out loud anymore. I have to type or write to get the right spelling.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experiencing "AI brain rot?"

#13

Post by solardev »

Of course. In the same way that Stackoverflow has for years, or asking a coworker, or a teacher. Programming is much easier now because of all these resources, but that only means the job gets busier and ever more productivity is expected by fewer people doing the work.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experiencing "AI brain rot?"

#14

Post by solardev »

zenNeko wrote: post #9
admissionsguy wrote: post #3

how is it possible? what size and complexity projects are you working with? I have integrated llms into my dev workflow as much as possible and they are just not capable of doing all that much.

One time trying to fix a redux problem gemini started rewriting redux itself.

Sounds like it's learning The Javascript Way just fine, then.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experiencing "AI brain rot?"

#16

Post by cableshaft »

Not too much. I turn to it a bit faster when I get stuck at work, as speed is important at my job (I work in consulting), but if I'm not stuck I don't use it, and I'm probably faster than if I tried using it when I'm not stuck.

If not for it I'd be spending even longer scouring StackOverflow and documentation for ideas and example code, so other than a potential timesaver it's not really that different than what I was doing before.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experiencing "AI brain rot?"

#17

Post by sterlind »

Yes. It makes me lazy, and I take longer because I keep prompting the machine to fix its mistakes rather than understanding how its code works and why it's stuck.

So I use it for brainstorming, and as a temporary crutch for working with unfamiliar languages/frameworks/tools, and wean myself off it as quickly as I can.

For my work, which is very research and CS theory-heavy, I'm faster without it.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experiencing "AI brain rot?"

#20

Post by runjake »

Not that I've noticed, but I've made a concerted effort from the beginning to mentally work through any AI-generated code I use. Yes, it does require a lot of discipline.

I believe it's equally important to ask it to explain why it generated the code when the output is unexpected. More often that not, it's acting more like "fancy autocomplete", though.

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