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Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

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Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#531

Post by valval »

risyachka wrote: post #462
kbaker wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Copilot is meh. Aider-chat for things with GPT-4 earlier this year was a huge step up. But recently using Claude Sonnet + Haiku through OpenRouter also with aider, and it is like a new dimension of programming. Working on new projects in Rust and a separate SPA frontend, it just ... implements whatever you ask like magic. Gets it about 90-95% right at the first prompt. Since I am pretty new to Rust, there are a…

Thats the point. The less experienced you are the more gains you see, and vice versa. The issue in the first case is that you have no idea if it tells you good stuff or garbage. Also in simple projects it shines, when the project is more complex - it becomes mostly useless.

I think everything you said was wrong. Cursor is amazing now with the large context windows it’s capable of handling with Claude, especiallly at the hands of an expert programmer.

A junior writing simple code is the exact recipe for disaster when it comes to these tools.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#532

Post by CatWChainsaw »

godelski wrote: post #496
CatWChainsaw wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgive your mid sarcasm as I actually find most of your commentary on HN good. My point remains, so I'll explain it to you to help you out. All those "problems" you listed are symptoms of greater problems, as a sibling suggested, although "late stage capitalism" is now seen as a lazy phrase. The greater problem is that increases in complexity require greater increases in energy to maintain, and as a result, corner…

I appreciate this reply much more and so I'll refrain from further sarcasm. But to explain the point of frustration, I found the comment indistinguishable from a public intellectual masterbation. I chastised pojzon for this because I believe my op demonstrates that I'm quite aware of the issue and I think a reasonably intelligent person can infer that my understanding is deeper than what can be conveyed in a simple H…

No, we're still going to talk past each other. The root of all your UI problems was an increase in complexity, but your experience was degraded, and now you're up a creek. Progress, growth, and complexity do not need to be intertwined, you just believe so the same way "capitalism realism" makes it hard to imagine a future without capitalism.

Before your laundry app, your AC app, and your TV being smart, it may not have been "seamless" to do those chores or work with those appliances, but you can't say your experience is seamless now, based on your anecdotes. A hammer is not made better by putting a computer chip in it. Simpler. Is. Better.

I wouldn't even say it's bureaucrats who think everything can be understood from spreadsheets. It's Pichai, it's Nadella, it's Altman, saying software will eat the world and data will lead us to a singularity but they're the same crowd trying to tell us Juicero is the future.

Your problem is a systems problem. The only way you will solve this systems problem is by changing the purpose of the system when you don't have any control over the inputs, interactions, or motivations of the system, because the tech brahmins that license the software and demand more money for minimal effort hold all the levers, and the AI craze is their final gambit to accrue all the power, irreversibly, forever. That's why it's a predicament.

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