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Ask HN: Will I get left behind if I don't jump on AI train?

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31–36 of 36 posts

Re: Ask HN: Will I get left behind if I don't jump on AI train?

#31
You should probably spend an evening learning to use eg Aider and llama.cpp. Maybe watch a few videos explaining LLMs and play with a very small one so you can grow a better intuition for how they fail.

There's no reason to think too much about it, there's not that much to learn unless you want to make them yourself and the market for that is tiny.

I will say the agent thing is mostly overrated if you already know how to program. You're much better off building scraping software like that the old fashioned way (or prompting an LLM to do it) than leaving an LLM unattended.

Re: Ask HN: Will I get left behind if I don't jump on AI train?

#33

If you’re not a developer you might as well use AI to become one? Back in my day we used learn x in y minutes to get up to speed on a new language and then a week to get comfortable. Now I can do that for anything in like 15 minutes. Of course, coding is the easy part and anyone can do it. Software engineering (key word: engineering) is the hard part and requires that you understand the computer, design patterns, and…

Why should they want to become a developer? There is no need for everyone to become one.

It was just a suggestion. I personally don't really care what they or anyone else does.

Re: Ask HN: Will I get left behind if I don't jump on AI train?

#34
> Will I get left behind if I don't jump on AI train?

Yes. Plain and simple.

> Do I even need to know what is MCP?

A.I. can teach you how to use MCP. When you have an good understanding of it, then you can decide whether to use it in your work.

> Do I need to have agents to do some tasks on my behalf?

No. Use the right tool for the job.

> Do I need to start creating apps and sites using Vibe coding (I’m not a developer)?

No, but you should start using A.I. wherever possible in your work. You'll be more valuable if you're among the first to implement it.

Re: Ask HN: Will I get left behind if I don't jump on AI train?

#35

I'm an engineer and my general attitude is that when major new developments enter the space, it's worthwhile to understand how they work, why they were created, and what they could potentially be good for, and what they potentially won't be good for, and why. I applied this methodology to mobile, cryptocurrencies, Web3, VR, and AI. I ended up being bearish about cryptocurrencies and Web3 and bullish about mobile, VR…

> As such, I'm betting very strongly that it's going to be part of our future, and that means now is a good time to start understanding how it works and what people are saying about it and what might come next.

Getting a feel for what LLM's can and can't do is also proving to be an interesting and fun exercise for me. I use them daily, but haven't committed a line of code written by one. I suspect that will always be the case, but nonetheless not using them would be a career limiting move.

I suspect that's because an LLM is just a specialised AI that's not good for much beyond understanding the written language and regurgitating what they've seen before. (That almost sounds flippant, given how much in awe I am at both their language abilities and how much they remember.) There are lots of other AI's out there. They play chess and go, do protein folding, predict weather and I'm sure a plethora of other things I don't know about. They are all universally better at their respective tasks than humans (and that includes LLM's ability to process language.) I can't shake the feeling that one day, someone will create one that can do more than spit out code similar to what it's seen before.

Re: Ask HN: Will I get left behind if I don't jump on AI train?

#36

No. Read real books. Talk to real people. Do real things. You can catch up when everyone else actually gets somewhere, and have spent the whole meanwhile on self exploration.

It's the same as web dev. Will you get left behind if you don't keep up with every new js framework that's the flavor of the week? No, learn one when you need to, for fun or for profit, or once the industry has coalesced around something
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