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AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

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Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#201

Post by nerdsniper »

nunez wrote: post #200

So speaking of "mastery": I wanted to know how to clone a single folder in a Git repository. Having done this before, I knew that there was some incantation I needed to make to the git CLI to do it, but I couldn't remember what it was. I'm very anti-AI for a number of reasons, but I've been trying to use it here and there to give it the benefit of the doubt and avoid becoming a _complete_ dinosaur. (I was very anti-v…

ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude all point me to a plethora of sources for most of my questions that I can click through and read. They're also pretty good at both basic and weird git issues for me. Not perfect, but pretty good.

Also part of the workflow of using AI is accepting that your initial prompts might not get the right answer. It's important to scan the answer like you did and use intuition to know 'this isn't right', then try again. Just like we learned how to type in good search queries, we'll also learn how to write good prompts. Sands will shift frequently at first, with prompt strategies that worked well yesterday requiring a different strategy tomorrow, but eventually it will stabilize like search query strategies did.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#202

Post by avbanks »

This is exactly how I've been seeing it. If you're deeply knowledgable in a particular domain like lets say compiler optimization I'm unsure if LLM's will increase your capabilities (your ceiling), however, if you're working in a new domain LLMs are pretty good at helping you get oriented and thus raising the floor.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#203

Post by nunez »

nerdsniper wrote: post #201
nunez wrote: post #200

So speaking of "mastery": I wanted to know how to clone a single folder in a Git repository. Having done this before, I knew that there was some incantation I needed to make to the git CLI to do it, but I couldn't remember what it was. I'm very anti-AI for a number of reasons, but I've been trying to use it here and there to give it the benefit of the doubt and avoid becoming a _complete_ dinosaur. (I was very anti-v…

ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude all point me to a plethora of sources for most of my questions that I can click through and read. They're also pretty good at both basic and weird git issues for me. Not perfect, but pretty good. Also part of the workflow of using AI is accepting that your initial prompts might not get the right answer. It's important to scan the answer like you did and use intuition to know 'this isn't ri…

_I_ know that the answer provided by the prompt isn't quite right because I have enough experience with the Git CLI to know that it wasn't quite right.

Someone who doesn't use the Git CLI at all and is relying on an LLM to do it will not know that. There's also no reason for them to search beyond the LLM or use the LLM to go deeper because the answer is "good enough."

That's the point of what I'm trying to make. You don't know what you don't know.

Trying different paths that might go down dead ends is part of the learning process. LLMs short-circuit that. This is fine if you think that learning isn't valuable in, this case, software development. I think it is.

More specifically, I think that this will, in the long term, create a pyramidal economy where engineers like you and I who learned "the old way" will reap most of the rewards while everyone else coming into the industry will fight for scraps.

I suppose this is fine if you think that this is just the natural order of things. I do not.

Tech is one of, if not the only, career path(s) that could give almost anyone a very high quality of life (at least in the US) without gatekeeping people behind the school they attend (i.e. being born into the right social strata, basically), many years of additional education and even more years of grinding like law, medicine and consulting do.

I'm very saddened to see this going away while us in the old guard cheer its destruction (because our jobs will probably be safe regardless).

I also disagree with the claim that the LLM gives you a "plethora" of sources. The search I used gave me three [^0]. A search on the same topic gave me more than 15. [^1]

Yes, the 15 it gives me are all over the quality map, but I have much information at my disposal to find the answer I'm looking for. It also doesn't proport to be "the answer," like LLMs tend to do.

[^0] https://kagi.com/assistant/839b0239-e240-4fcb-b5da-c5f819a0f...

[^1] https://kagi.com/search?q=git+clone+single+folder

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#204

Post by eikenberry »

stillpointlab wrote: post #29

This mirrors insights from Andrew Ng's recent AI startup talk [1]. I recall he mentions in this video that the new advice they are giving to founders is to throw away prototypes when they pivot instead of building onto a core foundation. This is because of the effects described in the article. He also gives some provisional numbers (see the section "Rapid Prototyping and Engineering" and slides ~10:30) where he sugge…

IMO the problem with this pets vs. livestock analogy is that it focuses on the code when the value is really in the writers head. Their understanding and mental model of the code is what matters. AI tools can help with managing the code, helping the writer build their models and express their thoughts, but it has zero impact on where the true value is located.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#205

Post by Flatterer3544 »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #198
bane wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course AI increases inequality. It's automated ladder pulling technology. To become good at something you have to work through the lower rungs and acquire skill. AI does all those lower level jobs, puts the people who need those jobs for experience on the street, and robs us of future experts. The people who benefit the most are those who are already up on top of the ladder investing billions to make the ladder ra…

AI has been extremely useful at teaching me things. Granted I needed to already know how to learn and work through the math myself, but when I get stuck it is more helpful than any other resource on the internet. > To become good at something you have to work through the lower rungs and acquire skill. AI does all those lower level jobs, puts the people who need those jobs for experience on the street, and robs us of…

Not everyone have the privelege of learning for free or the time, many needs that lower level job that makes it possible to get paid and learn at the same time.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#206

Post by enjo »

musicale wrote: post #174
bane wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course AI increases inequality. It's automated ladder pulling technology. To become good at something you have to work through the lower rungs and acquire skill. AI does all those lower level jobs, puts the people who need those jobs for experience on the street, and robs us of future experts. The people who benefit the most are those who are already up on top of the ladder investing billions to make the ladder ra…

It's the trajectory of automation for the past few decades. Automate many jobs out of existence, and add a much smaller set of higher-skill jobs.

Yep but this time is different because it's going to completely displace what is left of the middle class and this time the people being fucked have six figures of college debt.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#207

Post by falcor84 »

leptons wrote: post #123
falcor84 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against it. I wonder where in the distribution it puts me.

At the "Someone willing to waste their time with slop" end?

Seeing that it gives me code that I then then use, then it's not a waste of my time.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#208

Post by tom_m »

bane wrote: post #147
gruez wrote: post #50

The blog post has a bunch of charts, which gives it a veneer of objectivity and rigor, but in reality it's just all vibes and conjecture. Meanwhile recent empirical studies actually point in the opposite direction, showing that AI use increases inequality, not decrease it. https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20250215_FNC... https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/02/13/h...

Of course AI increases inequality. It's automated ladder pulling technology. To become good at something you have to work through the lower rungs and acquire skill. AI does all those lower level jobs, puts the people who need those jobs for experience on the street, and robs us of future experts. The people who benefit the most are those who are already up on top of the ladder investing billions to make the ladder ra…

Definitely. I think it's worse than that too. I have a feeling it's going to expose some people higher up that ladder who really shouldn't be. So it won't just be junior people who struggle but also "senior" people as well. I think that only deepens the inequality.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#209

Post by leptons »

falcor84 wrote: post #207
leptons wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the "Someone willing to waste their time with slop" end?

Seeing that it gives me code that I then then use, then it's not a waste of my time.

A broken clock is right twice a day. If you're spending more time writing instructions for the AI, and then rewriting those instructions several times before you get usable code, then you're absolutely wasting your time. At least this is my experience with "AI". Even the fancy autocomplete portion of "AI" gets in my way more than it helps. Of course, YMMV, but I seriously doubt you're doing any better with "AI" than anyone else actually is, and a lot of people using it just don't realize all the time it's wasting, if they paid attention and added it all up.

Re: AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

#210

Post by Syzygies »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #169
Syzygies wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. As a retired mathematician who craves the productivity of an obsessed 28 year old, I've been all in on AI in 2025. I'm now on Claude's $200/month Max plan in order to use Claude Code Opus 4 without restraint. I still hit limits, usually when I run parallel sessions to review a 57 file legacy code base. For a time I refused to talk with anybody or read anything about AI, because it was all noise that didn't match…

> Now I spend most of my time coding with AI, and it responds very well to my "fingers farther apart" far reaching analogies for what I'm trying to focus on. If you made analogies based on Warhammer 40k or species of mosquitoes it would have reacted exactly the same.

Maybe for you.
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