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Ask HN: Do we need a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?

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Re: Ask HN: Do we need a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?

#51
post #50
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly false. > It doesn't design architecture. It can do that. Won't say it's amazing, but it can do it. > It doesn't think. It doesn't reason. Can you define these in ways that aren't tautologically limited to humans? I have yet to encounter anyone who has managed this while making such an objection to any form of AI. > All it does is search for and copy-paste code from elsewhere on the internet. They prova…

> Can you define these in ways that aren't tautologically limited to humans? No, because that’s the point. It’s not intelligent because intelligence is a human characteristic. > Both because local models exist, can be run offline It’s not that they search interactively, it’s that the whole internet has been sucked into the training set.

> No, because that’s the point. It’s not intelligent because intelligence is a human characteristic.

A rose by any other name, etc.

Defining the meaning of the word you use to suit your preferences and then gluing to that other people's uses of the same word is not a well-reasoned argument, it's the human equivalent of a failure mode we saw in early AI, where a label saying "taxi" can fool a classifier into thinking a clock is a taxi: https://bliss-e-v.github.io/SCAM-project-page/

Will you choosing a tautologically-limiting definition that equals human, prevent AI from performing well enough to replace you at work? No, it will not: when the AI is good enough to do the work, it will do the work regardless of what you call it.

This has already happened in various other fields that have been automated, even though (a) the consensus is those AI are "not intelligent" and (b) workers before that automation insisted their work required intelligence and could not be automated.

(Plus the same example in the opposite direction: while creationists are busy denying that evolution can work and claiming there has to be an intelligent designer, simulated evolution is a standard approach in machine learning).

> It’s not that they search interactively, it’s that the whole internet has been sucked into the training set.

Training.

As in, it learned. First by reading the internet, then by feedback as it tried to make stuff and was rated by the quality of output.

It would be coherent to argue instead that intelligence is the number of examples one needs before one has learned a thing; by this standard AI is as thick as pond scum (rate: evolution), and even the fact that silicon is faster than synapses by the ratio to which joggers are faster than continental drift only makes up for this where the examples exist.

Unfortunately, this topic is software, and the examples exist.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point still stands, the author is confidently stating something that's clearly just wrong. The alternative is that everyone is creating tech debt 10x as fast (while being completely oblivious to it.) It's pretty obvious that's not what's happening. To pretend otherwise would suggest that every software developer everywhere is completely unaware of what tech debt is AND that they don't care at all. Again: it's obvi…

Can you find one? Can you hire them? It is basically a "snipe-hunt".

Thanks to LLMs being good at writing CVs and cover letters, all job hunting right now is in the snipe-hunt danger-zone.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?

#53
post #12

I'm sure a lot of engineers feel the same way, especially those who love programming and aren't just in it for the money. I have mixed feelings on the topic - on the one hand i'm quite happy not to write boilerplate code again and again, AI is good at that especially with the right instructions/skills so i'm not mad. It means that I think more in systems than in low-level code, and my cognitive load is lighter not ha…

I’m glad you started your long comment the way that you did, because It made it so easy to discount. I find AI-assisted development to be quite enjoyable. I’ve logged many, many years of full-time development prior to LLMs hitting the scene. By every indication i’ve been given, I am very good at my job. I do not do this job for the money. I wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near SV, both physically or spiritually. I a…

Your response does not demonstrate any intellectual superiority, just rudeness.

My point about the money is that I have worked with people who were only in software development for the money - they have done a couple of courses and somehow gotten a job as a software engineer. They don't do it for the "love of the craft" of software development like so many do.

I don't incite anyone to "take sides" i'm merely describing my own internal conflict with AI at this point of my career having been a very successful developer for over 30 years.

I hope you're having a better day today :)

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