What's better: to build a house yourself or to hire a sloppy, but cheap and very productive contractor who is known for connecting wires the wrong way and forgetting to install water pipes in random places? AI slop is a meme for a reason.
Why is AI so slow to spread?
171–180 of 189 posts
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Reviewing the code it writes to fix the inevitable mistakes and making adjustments takes time too, and it will always be a required step due to the nature of LLMs. Yep but this is much less time than writing the code, compiling it, fixing compiler errors, writing tests, fixing the code, fixing the compilation, all that busy-work. LLMs make mistakes but with Gemini 2.5 Pro at least most of these are due to under-spec…
> I'd go so far as to say if you're not seeing any significant increase in your productivity, you're using LLMs wrong. It's always the easy cop out for whoever wants to hype AI. I can preface it with "I'd go so far as to say", but that is just a silly cover for the actual meaning. Properly reviewing code, if you are reviewing it meaningfully instead of just glancing through it, takes time. Writing good prompts that c…
GPs main point is that you (need to) learn to specify (and document) very, very well. That has always been a huge factor for productivity, but due to the fucked up nature of how software engineering is often approached on an organisational level we're collectively very much used to 'winging it': Documentation is an afterthought, specs are half baked and the true store of knowledge on the codebase is in the heads of several senior devs who need to hold the hands of other devs all the time.
If you do software engineering the way you learned you were supposed to do it long, long ago, the process actually works pretty well with LLMs.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Corporate enthusiasm for AI is seen for what it actually is, a chance to cut head count I mean, it is the reason why the usual suspects push it so aggressively. The underclasses much always be pushed down. It's mostly bullshit, on most areas LLMs cannot reliably replace humans. But they embrace it because the chance that it might undermine labor is very seductive.
Instead of taking time to understand how it may be effective, a lot of leadership decided immediately that people could take on double the work they were doing or more right out the gate as long as they use AI. I’ve seen people driven to tears in this environment right now from stress due to overwork. Everyone in my org was either burnt out or soon to be. And that overwork is from managers demanding more and more wit…
> I’ve seen people driven to tears in this environment right now from stress due to overwork. Everyone in my org was either burnt out or soon to be. And that overwork is from managers demanding more and more without any data to back up exactly how much more is reasonable.
This is just bad management. AI might be the buzzword of the day that comes out of their mouths, but the issue is bad management rather than AI.
Said another way, if it wasn’t AI, it would be something else.
Are all of the items in the long list of something elses in the past and in the future the actual villain here? I don’t think so.
> Then you get these types on HN calling people luddites for having strong opinions and anxieties as if it’s only ever about the technology itself and not the effect it has on actual people
Why are you blaming the tech rather than the source of the problem? Point your finger at the people who are creating the problems — hint, it’s the management and not tools.
AI is just a tool. Just like any tool, it can be used for good or for bad. It can be used skillfully or unskillfully.
Right now, we are certainly in a high variance stage of quality of implementation.
That said, I think AI will do a good job of shining a bright light on the pretenders… it will be much tougher for them to hide.
> in a cutthroat capitalist system.
Unchecked capitalism certainly can take some of the blame here. The problem is that the only system that is better than the current system is almost certainly some other form of capitalism (maybe with some humanity checks and balances).
> That’s exactly the sort of thing that brought the term “tech bro” into the limelight.
Thank you for this. I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve been called a “tech bro” — certainly the first time directly. My friends and family will get a kick out of this, since I have routinely outed tech bros who are more style than substance.
I’m fairly certain that I don’t fall into that category.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple weeks ago I was working on a parser that needed to handle a new file format that was a large change from existing formats. I wanted some test inputs, both valid and invalid cases. I had the codebase of a tool chain that I knew could generate valid files, some public documentation about the new file format, and my parser codebase. A good problem to throw at AI, I thought. I handed the tools to a SOTA model an…
Edit: also thanks for actually replying with a great comment cos usually the replies are not even worth entertaining and only proving my point. This is the classic example of “I want it to do everything. But it didn’t do what I wanted. So obviously it’s not helpful.” It doesn’t solve /all/ problems. And some models are better than others at certain tasks. You see people talk about PRDs and they say “I got Claude to c…
The claim was that I don't know how to use AI effectively. This felt like a reasonable thing for it to do. What did I do wrong? Why do you feel the need to denigrate me in your post?
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wouldn’t be so dismissive: “force multiplier” means job loss unless there’s a large amount of work which isn’t currently being done. I think there is a massive amount of work that's currently not being done, industry-wide. Everywhere I've worked has had something like 4-10X more work to do than staff to do it. The feature and bug backlogs just endlessly grow because there is no capacity to keep up. Companies shou…
In software, there is a lot of postponed work. I was thinking of other things like how companies want to replace customer service, claims processing, etc. where efficiency improvements pretty directly translate into job losses unless their business suddenly grows significantly.
> I was thinking of other things like how companies want to replace customer service, claims processing, etc. where efficiency improvements pretty directly translate into job losses
Given that most of my recent experiences with the tier 1 versions of these folks are people in developing countries who can barely read off of a script, I don’t think that I will miss them.
Put any of the good ones (and there are some good ones) into tier 2 positions and give them a raise.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn’t be so dismissive: “force multiplier” means job loss unless there’s a large amount of work which isn’t currently being done. As you live in a society, it really is important to think about what happens if we get the mass layoffs almost all of the executive-class are promising. There are some new jobs around the tech itself, but that doesn’t help those people unless they can land one of the new jobs – and ev…
> I wouldn’t be so dismissive: “force multiplier” means job loss unless there’s a large amount of work which isn’t currently being done. I think there is a massive amount of work that's currently not being done, industry-wide. Everywhere I've worked has had something like 4-10X more work to do than staff to do it. The feature and bug backlogs just endlessly grow because there is no capacity to keep up. Companies shou…
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Thank you!
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
In software, there is a lot of postponed work. I was thinking of other things like how companies want to replace customer service, claims processing, etc. where efficiency improvements pretty directly translate into job losses unless their business suddenly grows significantly.
> I was thinking of other things like how companies want to replace customer service, claims processing, etc. where efficiency improvements pretty directly translate into job losses Given that most of my recent experiences with the tier 1 versions of these folks are people in developing countries who can barely read off of a script, I don’t think that I will miss them. Put any of the good ones (and there are some goo…
I think that’s painting with too broad a brush but even if it’s true, is society ready for that kind of unemployment?
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit: also thanks for actually replying with a great comment cos usually the replies are not even worth entertaining and only proving my point. This is the classic example of “I want it to do everything. But it didn’t do what I wanted. So obviously it’s not helpful.” It doesn’t solve /all/ problems. And some models are better than others at certain tasks. You see people talk about PRDs and they say “I got Claude to c…
The claim was that I don't know how to use AI effectively. This felt like a reasonable thing for it to do. What did I do wrong? Why do you feel the need to denigrate me in your post?
Sigh. I thought you were being genuine. Sorry. Your post perfectly explained that you don’t know how to use AI. You’re at the stage where you hear stories. You try it. Don’t get the expected result on first attempt. Then decide it sucks. You give no information on the models you’re using. Nothing about the prompts or process.
It’s like you’re asking a junior to go build a house. So he goes off and uses bricks to create 4 walls. And you turn around and get angry because he didn’t use wood. So he uses wood and you get angry cos he didn’t add windows, roof, door.
I’m sorry that you picked up a career where you struggle to use new tools and technologies.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
The claim was that I don't know how to use AI effectively. This felt like a reasonable thing for it to do. What did I do wrong? Why do you feel the need to denigrate me in your post?
Sigh. I thought you were being genuine. Sorry. Your post perfectly explained that you don’t know how to use AI. You’re at the stage where you hear stories. You try it. Don’t get the expected result on first attempt. Then decide it sucks. You give no information on the models you’re using. Nothing about the prompts or process. It’s like you’re asking a junior to go build a house. So he goes off and uses bricks to crea…
I am being genuine. Then you decided that I was saying "I want it to do everything. But it didn’t do what I wanted. So obviously it’s not helpful" when that's clearly not correct. Now you are shitting on my for being in software?
Unbelievable.
Re: Why is AI so slow to spread?
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really dying? There's only so much growth possible without having it flooded with low effort stuff. They try to instead grow by introducing more topics, but that's limited as well. I personally didn't use it so much (meaning: Writing content) because it always felt a bit over engineered. From what I remember the only possible entry point is writing questions that get up voted. Not allowed to even write comments…
Maybe it changed, but you could ask and answer questions right after signing up, just commenting, voting, and moderation rights required a certain amount of points. I only answered questions and was among the top 100 contributors at my peak activity but that was at least a decade ago. I stopped contributing when the question quality fell of a cliff. Existing contributors got annoyed by the low effort questions, new u…
That's still how it works: https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges
If you're logged out it's just a list, but if you're logged in it'll grey out and put a checkmark next to the ones you have.