Because it's stupid.
Why is AI so slow to spread?
31–40 of 189 posts
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#32There was an article on HN a few days back on how it’s very hard to convey all the context in your head about a codebase to solve a problem, and that’s partly why it’s actually hard to use AI for non-trivial implementations. That’s not just limited to code. I don’t use AI for most of my product work because it doesn’t know any of the nuances of our product, and just like doing code review for AI is boring and tedious…
It’s likely that the models don’t need to get much smarter, but rather the ux for providing needed context needs to improve drastically. This is a problem that we’ve worked on for decades with humans, but only single digit years for AI. It will get better and that tediousness will lessen (but isn’t “alignment” always tedious?)
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#33Among non-technical friends, after the initial wow factor, even limited expectations were not met. Then it was tainted by the fact that everyone is promoting it as a human replacement technology which is then a tangible threat to their existence. That leads to not just lack of adoption but active sabotage.
And then there’s the large body of people who just haven’t noticed it at all because they don’t give a shit. Stuff just gets done how it always has.
On top of that, it's worth considering that growth is a function of user count and retention. The AI companies only promote count which suggests that the retention numbers are not good or they’d be promoting it. YMMV but people probably aren’t adopting it and keeping it.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#34Maybe I'm naive, but .. aren't businesses slow to adopt anything new, unless possibly when it's giving their competition a large, obvious advantage, or when it's some sort of plug-and-play, black box improvement where you just trade dollars for efficiency ? "AI" tools may be very promising for lots of things but they require people to do things differently, which people are slow to do. (Even as someone who works in the tech industry, it's not like my workflow has changed all that much with these new tools, and my employer has to be much faster than average)
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#35One reason is that humans have a strong tendency to optimize for the short term. I witness it with my developer friends. Most of them try for 5 minutes to get AI to code something that takes them an hour. Then they are annoyed that the result is not good. They might try another 5 minutes, but then they write the code themselves. My thinking is: Even if it takes me 2 hours to get AI to do something that would take me…
Is that backed by any evidence? Taking 2 hours to perform a 1 hour task makes you half as productive. You are exchanging that for the uncertain prospect that it will be worth it in the long run. I think it's more likely that if you take 30 minutes to do the task in one year from now it's because AI got better, not because you made the code more AI friendly. In that case, those people taking 1 hour to perform the task now will also take 30 minutes to perform them in the future.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#36That's a whole lot of twisting to avoid admitting "it usually doesn't work, and even when it does work, it's usually not cost-effective even at the heavily-subsidized prices." Or maybe it's more about refusing to admit that executives are out of touch with concrete reality and are just blindly chasing trends instead.
It really depends on the use-case. I currently work in the video streaming industry, and my team has been building production-quality code for 2 years now. Here are some things that are going really well: * Determine what is happening in a scene/video * Translating subtitles to very specific local slang * Summarizing scripts * Estimating how well a new show will do with a given audience * Filling gaps in the metadata…
Based on what you listed I would seriously consider the broader societal value of your work.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#37Considering that the main value of ai today is coding bots, I think that traditional companies struggle to get value from it as they are in the hands of consultancies and cannot assess “developer efficiency” or change ways of working for developers. The consultancies aren’t interested at selling fewer man-hours.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#38One reason is that humans have a strong tendency to optimize for the short term. I witness it with my developer friends. Most of them try for 5 minutes to get AI to code something that takes them an hour. Then they are annoyed that the result is not good. They might try another 5 minutes, but then they write the code themselves. My thinking is: Even if it takes me 2 hours to get AI to do something that would take me…
>This process will probably lead to a situation where in a year, it will take me 30 minutes with AI to do a task that would have taken me an hour otherwise
How do you figure?
>Because during those 2 hours I will make my code base more understandable to help the AI cope with it.
Are you working in a team?
If yes - I can't really imagine how does this work.
Does this mean that your teammates occasionally wake up to a 50+ changes PR\MR that was born as a result of your desire to "possibly" load off some of the work to a text generator?
I'm curious here.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#39One reason is that humans have a strong tendency to optimize for the short term. I witness it with my developer friends. Most of them try for 5 minutes to get AI to code something that takes them an hour. Then they are annoyed that the result is not good. They might try another 5 minutes, but then they write the code themselves. My thinking is: Even if it takes me 2 hours to get AI to do something that would take me…
In my experience, only entry-level programmers are inefficient enough that using AI would double their productivity.
At the senior level or above, AI is at best a wash in terms of productivity, because at higher levels you spend more of your time engineering (i.e., thinking up the proper way to code something robust/efficient) than coding.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#40One reason is that humans have a strong tendency to optimize for the short term. I witness it with my developer friends. Most of them try for 5 minutes to get AI to code something that takes them an hour. Then they are annoyed that the result is not good. They might try another 5 minutes, but then they write the code themselves. My thinking is: Even if it takes me 2 hours to get AI to do something that would take me…
How long have you been doing this and how much has your time spent doing with AI what you could've done alone in an hour reduced as a result?