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With AI you need to think bigger

rodyne.com

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Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#81

Post by bluefirebrand »

thierrydamiba wrote: post #72
woleium wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tool itself would be of a lot of use in school science and design labs where a bunch of older kit lands from universities and such. I used to put a lot of floppy to usb converters on things like old ir spectrometers that were good enough still for school use.

Yep! I’m teaching kids in Bayview how to code using AI tools. I’m trying to figure out the best way to do it without losing anything in between. With my pilot students I’ve found the ones I gave cursor are outperforming the ones who aren’t using AI. Not just with deliverables, but with fundamental knowledge(what is a function?). Small sample size so I don’t want to make proclamations… but I think a generation learnin…

> Not just with deliverables, but with fundamental knowledge(what is a function?)

Are you testing this knowledge in a situation where they don't have access to AI tools?

If not, then I seriously wonder if this claim means anything

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#82

Post by thierrydamiba »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #81
thierrydamiba wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! I’m teaching kids in Bayview how to code using AI tools. I’m trying to figure out the best way to do it without losing anything in between. With my pilot students I’ve found the ones I gave cursor are outperforming the ones who aren’t using AI. Not just with deliverables, but with fundamental knowledge(what is a function?). Small sample size so I don’t want to make proclamations… but I think a generation learnin…

> Not just with deliverables, but with fundamental knowledge(what is a function?) Are you testing this knowledge in a situation where they don't have access to AI tools? If not, then I seriously wonder if this claim means anything

Yeah, to clarify-testing is closed book for everyone.

Control group might be using AI tools(I tell them not to but who knows) but the experiment group has received instructions and are encouraged to use the tools.

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#83

Post by simonw »

fallinditch wrote: post #55
simonw wrote: post #14

I wrote something similar about this effect almost two years ago: https://simonwillison.net/2023/Mar/27/ai-enhanced-developmen... "AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects" With an extra 23 months of experience under my belt since then I'm comfortable to say that the effect has stayed steady for me over time, and even increased a bit.

Around that time you highlighted the threat of prompt injection attacks on AI assistants. Have you also been able to make progress in this area?

Frustratingly I feel we've made very little progress towards a fix for that problem in nearly 2.5 years!

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#84

Post by TZubiri »

bloomingkales wrote: post #19
TZubiri wrote: post #6

Probably right at the end of your career is where this tool would be the most useful An undergrad using the hottest tech right of the bat? Cooked. It's like giving the world 128gb of ram and 64bits in 1970, we would have just maxed it out by 1972.

An undergrad using the hottest tech right of the bat? Cooked. What if I tell you there is an undergrad that just flunked a class and is depressed and cries about it? Considers changing their major? This is pre-AI. We have a chance that undergrads will never feel that way again. Not intimidated by anything.

There's a misconception that passing is worth 1 and flunking is worth 0.

There's shitty ways to pass and good ways to pass

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#85

Post by JackMorgan »

8373746439 wrote: post #48
lordnacho wrote: post #33

This is much like other advances in computing. Being able to write code that compiled into assembly, instead of directly writing assembly, meant you could do more. Which soon meant you had to do more, because now everyone was expecting it. The internet meant you could take advantage of open source to build more complex software. Now, you have to. Cloud meant you could orchestrate complicated apps. Now you can't not k…

> LLMs will be the same. At the moment people are still mostly playing with it, but pretty soon it will be "hey why are you writing our REST API consumer by hand? LLM can do that for you!" Not everyone wants to be a "prompt engineer", or let their skills rust and be replaced with a dependency on a proprietary service. Not to mention the potentially detrimental cognitive effects of relegating all your thinking to LLMs…

I recall hearing a lot of assembly engineers not wanting to let their skills rust either. They didn't want to be a "4th gen engineer" and have their skills replaced by proprietary compilers.

Same with folks who were used to ftp directly into prod and used folders instead of source control.

Look, I get it, it's frustrating to be really good at current tech and feel like the rug is getting pulled. I've been through a few cycles of all new shiny tools. It's always been better for me to embrace the new with a cheerful attitude. Being grumpy just makes people sour and leave the industry in a few years.

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#86

Post by tux3 »

haswell wrote: post #24

I recently discovered that some of the Raspberry Pi models support the Linux Kernel's "Gadget Mode". This allows you to configure the Pi to appear as some type of device when plugged into a USB port, i.e. a Mass Storage/USB stick, Network Card, etc. Very nifty for turning a Pi Zero into various kinds of utilities. When I realized this was possible, I wanted to set up a project that would allow me to use the Pi as a b…

Fun fact: Gadget mode also works on Android phones, if you want a programmable USB device that you can easily program and carry around

I made a PoC of a 2FA authenticator (think Yubikey) that automatically signs you in. I use it for testing scenarios when I have to log out and back in many times, it flies through what would otherwise be a manual 2FA screen with pin entry, or navigating 2FA popups to select passkey and touching your fingerprint reader.

Obviously not very secure, but very useful!

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#87

Post by tomjuggler »

I have been using AI coding tools since the first GitHub co-pilot. One thing has not changed: garbage in = garbage out.

If you know what you are doing the tools can improve output a lot - but while you might get on for a little bit without that experience guiding you, eventually AI will code you into a corner if it's not guided right.

I saw mention of kids learning to code with AI and I have to say, that's great, but only if they are just doing it for fun.

Anyone who is thinking of a career in generating code for a living should first and foremost focus on understanding the principles. The best way to do that is still writing your own programs by hand.

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#88

Post by hombre_fatal »

shmoogy wrote: post #22
simonw wrote: post #14

I wrote something similar about this effect almost two years ago: https://simonwillison.net/2023/Mar/27/ai-enhanced-developmen... "AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects" With an extra 23 months of experience under my belt since then I'm comfortable to say that the effect has stayed steady for me over time, and even increased a bit.

100% agree with this, sometimes I feel I'm becoming too reliant on it - but I step back and see how much more ambitious of projects I take on, and finish quickly still, due to it.

Claude 3.7 basically one-shot a multiplayer game's server-authority rollback netcode with client-side prediction and interpolation.

I spent months of my life in my 20s trying to build a non-janky implementation of that and failed which was really demoralizing.

Over the last couple weekends I got farther than I was able to get in weeks or months. And when I get stumped, I have the confidence of being able to rubber-duck my way through it with an LLM if it can't outright fix it itself.

Though I also often wonder how much time I have left professionally in software. I try not to think about that. :D

Re: With AI you need to think bigger

#89

Post by nottorp »

> I have noticed that I am no longer scared that a project will be too big or too complex for me,

That's still a valid worry. At best, you can do larger projects on your own than before.

> or that a project will use a technology or programming language I don’t know.

Was that ever a worry? I've always considered it an opportunity for self improvement.

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