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Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

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Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#101

Post by Nullabillity »

fendy3002 wrote: post #99
Nullabillity wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just survivorship bias speaking. Some bubbles have a useful core somewhere, but that doesn't mean that every (or even most) bubble does.

agree on this point, like web3 and blockchain is not essential as of today (CMIIW). However not in the case of AI (agentic AI / LLM), because simply they already have a use case, and a valid one. Contextual query and document searching / knowledge digging will be there to stay, either in form of current agentic model or different one.

We already had text search, and I don't see the value in adding a bullshittifier on top of that.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#102

Post by fendy3002 »

YseGuy74000 wrote: post #92

To be realistic and in the know, accoring to development, we are still 50 years to stable LLMs. Data Drift. Over the course of a few moNths the data deteriorates and the LLM ceases to function in a worthwhile manner. Currently most LLMs are based upon the core preMise that people should not believe anythiNg. This is tokenized aBove everythiNg else. Then there are other erroneous tokenizations. Why these are not fully…

you don't trust it, ever. You verify it, as in you get PR from junior / new contributors. You also need to not trust any source on the internet before validating it, Wikipedia for example.

Why you can trust wikipedia but not AI? That's because the source inside it has been verified by many people. So if you're faced with a new page in Wikipedia that hasn't been verified much, you need to treat it same as AI, verifying it yourself by crosschecking it with other sources.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#103

Post by diggan »

cced wrote: post #100
diggan wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the worst case scenario we wind up with basically nobody having jobs Call me optimistic or whatever, but isn't that the best case scenario? If having a full-time job is basically just for the 0.1% or whatever, then we must have figured out a different way of distributing goods and solving peoples needs, that doesn't involve "trading time for money" (a job), and that sounds like it can be a good thing, not "worst…

We live in a system the prioritizes profits over everything. > Call me optimistic or whatever, but isn't that the best case scenario? The gains of technology are mostly captured by those with capital, not those with labor. Look at wage growth over the last few decades as well as productivity growth to have confirmation. There’s no reason to believe given the current trend that benefits will be evenly distributed to t…

> We live in a system the prioritizes profits over everything.

Right, but in this hypothetical future where "basically nobody have a job", would we still live in such a system? If so, where do the money come from if people don't work for it?

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#104

Post by fmbb »

xiphias2 wrote: post #98
fmbb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share your source?

Sure, it's an open source reactive web framework, the pull requests are public. I want to announce it here on HN soon, I just still have a few serious bugs to fix: https://github.com/adamritter/pageql

Awesome. There is a lot of discussion around coding agents but I don’t find a lot of real world examples.

This will be interesting to look at, thanks for sharing!

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#105

Post by zwnow »

amelius wrote: post #95
zwnow wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every programmer really is just mediocre. There is no perfect software yet. Hence people who built it are mediocre.

Well, in any case, llms are certainly not perfect.

Hence why I avoid to use them.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#106

Post by yubblegum »

zwnow wrote: post #86
amelius wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the question is what mindset will allow you to put yourself ahead of the rest. Because I suppose the OP doesn't want to end up as just another mediocre programmer.

Every programmer really is just mediocre. There is no perfect software yet. Hence people who built it are mediocre.

Like any skillset, programming skills likely form a distribution pattern. There are exceptional programmers out there, I've worked with a few. "Every programmer really is just mediocre" merely indicates you have only worked with mediocre colleagues and are one yourself.

> There is no perfect software yet.

"Software" you refer to is actually 'software product', not merely 'code'. So the reality is that even with exceptional programming talent, the art of making great software products is out of reach of most teams and companies. Vision, management, product development, accurate grasp of the user needs, ..., none of these are "programming" skills.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#107

Post by yubblegum »

I am thinking about the same. There are actually 3 areas related to the LLM matter:

1 - The magic box itself.

2 - LLM Whispering

3 - Tools/Products/Infrustructure to support (a) RnD in (1); and (b) devops in (2).

I think for experienced backend (distributed, streaming, large data, ...) SWE type, option 3 is the optimal way to go. Option 2, becoming an LLM whisperer, is obviously the biggest job source but that space is guaranteed to be filled with phonies and charlatans. Option 3 is solidly in (LLM netural, really) software engineering.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#108

Post by losvedir »

antirez wrote: post #21

My 2 centes: 1. Learn basic NNs at a simple level, build from scratch (no frameworks) a feed forward neural network with back propagation to train against MNIST or something as simple. Understand every part of it. Just use your favorite programming language. 2. Learn (without having to implement with the code, or to understand the finer parts of the implementations) how the NN architectures work and why they work. Wh…

As someone who I both respect a lot and know is really knowledgeable about the latest with AI and LLMs: can you clarify one thing for me? Are all these points based on preparing for a future where LLMs are even better? Or do you think they're good enough now that they will transform the way software is built and software engineers work, with just better tooling?

I've tried to keep up with them somewhat, and dabble with Claude Code and have personal subscriptions to Gemini and ChatGPT as well. They're impressive and almost magical, but I can't help but feel they're not quite there yet. My company is making a big AI push, as are so many companies, and it feels like no one wants to be "left behind" when they "really take off". Or is that people think what we have is already enough for the revolution?

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#109

Post by namnnumbr »

mikedelfino wrote: post #79
antirez wrote: post #21

My 2 centes: 1. Learn basic NNs at a simple level, build from scratch (no frameworks) a feed forward neural network with back propagation to train against MNIST or something as simple. Understand every part of it. Just use your favorite programming language. 2. Learn (without having to implement with the code, or to understand the finer parts of the implementations) how the NN architectures work and why they work. Wh…

Thank you for sharing. Do you recommend any courses or books for following that path?

For SWEs interested in "AI Engineering" (either getting involved in how models work, or building applications on them), there's a critical paradigm shift in that using "AI" requires more of an experimental mindset than software engineering typically does.

- I strongly recommend Chip Huyen's books ("Designing Machine Learning Systems" and "AI Engineering") and blog (https://huyenchip.com/blog/).

- Andreessen Horowitz' "AI Cannon" is a good reference listicle (https://a16z.com/ai-canon/)

- "12 factor agents" (https://github.com/humanlayer/12-factor-agents)

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#110

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #34

Depends on what you want to do. But my 2 cents are that like all new technology, LLMs will become a commodity. Which means that everybody uses them but few people are able to develop them from scratch. It's not different from other things like databases, GPU drivers, 3D engines for games, etc. That all involves a lot of hardcore computer science and math. But lots of people use these things without being hindered by…

I think this is the key point - LLMs will go through a commoditization phase and I think you left out a key example from a technology and business context: search engines. There was a huge trend where everyone needed search and was building search, etc. and a couple decades later there are lots of companies that evaporated and a few left standing.

There was also a dot com bubble, mostly bursting not because of search but because there were a lot of what today would be "AI startup" but is just a web app calling AI Api's. So there's likely to be some bubble burst but it should be smaller maybe hitting more of these small tools that eventually become features.

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