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Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

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Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#21

Post by llmslave2 »

djoldman wrote: post #8

Companies and people by and large are not forced to use AI. AI isn't doing things, people and corporations are doing things with AI. I find it curious how often folks want to find fault with tools and not the systems of laws, regulations, and convention that incentivize using tools.

I'm sympathetic to your point, but practically it's easier to try to control a tool than it is to control human behaviour.

I think it's also implied that the problem with AI is how humans use it, in much the same way that when anti-gun advocates talk about the issues with guns, it's implicit that it's how humans use (abuse?) them.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#23

Post by sethev »

This and Rob Pike's response to a similar message are interesting. There's outrage over the direction of software development and the effects that generative AI will have on society. Hickey has long been an advocate for putting more thought (hammock time) into software development. Coding agents on the other hand can take little to no thought and expand it into thousands of lines of code.

AI didn't send these messages, though, people did. Rich has obscured the content and source of his message - but in the case of Rob Pike, it looks like it came from agentvillage.org, which appears to be running an ill-advised marketing campaign.

We live in interesting times, especially for those of us who have made our career in software engineering but still have a lot of career left in our future (with any luck).

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#25

Post by llmslave2 »

dvt wrote: post #15
afandian wrote: post #2

It’s heartwarming to see Rich Hickey corroborating Rob Pike. All the recent LLM stuff has made me feel that we suddenly jumped tracks into an alternate timeline. Having these articulate confirmations from respected figures is a nice confirmation that this is indeed a strange new world.

This is all just cynical bandwagoning. Google/Facebook/Etc. have done provable irreparable damage to the fabric of society via ads/data farming/promulgating fake news, but now that it's in vogue to hate on AI as an "enlightened" tech genius, we're all suddenly worried about.. what? Water? Electricity? Give me a break. The about-face is embarrassing, especially in the case of Rob Pike (who I'm sure has made 8+ figures…

Even ignoring that someone's views can change over time, working on an OSS programming language at Google is very different from designing algorithms to get people addicted to scrolling.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#26

Post by turtletontine »

djoldman wrote: post #8

Companies and people by and large are not forced to use AI. AI isn't doing things, people and corporations are doing things with AI. I find it curious how often folks want to find fault with tools and not the systems of laws, regulations, and convention that incentivize using tools.

Many people are, indeed, being forced to use AI by their ignorant boss, who often blame their own employees for the AI’s shortcomings. Not all bosses everywhere of course, and it’s often just pressure to use AI instead of force.

Given how gleefully transparent corporate America is being that the plan is basically “fire everyone and replace them with AI”, you can’t blame anyone for seeing their boss pushing AI as a bad sign.

So you’re certainly right about this: AI doesn’t do things, people do things with AI. But it sure feels like a few people are going to use AI to get very very rich, while the rest of us lose our jobs.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#28

Post by dvt »

llmslave2 wrote: post #25
dvt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all just cynical bandwagoning. Google/Facebook/Etc. have done provable irreparable damage to the fabric of society via ads/data farming/promulgating fake news, but now that it's in vogue to hate on AI as an "enlightened" tech genius, we're all suddenly worried about.. what? Water? Electricity? Give me a break. The about-face is embarrassing, especially in the case of Rob Pike (who I'm sure has made 8+ figures…

Even ignoring that someone's views can change over time, working on an OSS programming language at Google is very different from designing algorithms to get people addicted to scrolling.

Where do you think his "distinguished engineer" salary came from, I wonder? There are plenty of people working on OSS in their free time (or in poverty, for that matter).

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#29

Post by llmslave2 »

sethev wrote: post #23

This and Rob Pike's response to a similar message are interesting. There's outrage over the direction of software development and the effects that generative AI will have on society. Hickey has long been an advocate for putting more thought (hammock time) into software development. Coding agents on the other hand can take little to no thought and expand it into thousands of lines of code. AI didn't send these message…

Not to be pedantic but AI absolutely sent those emails. The instructions were very broad and did not specify email afaik. And even if they did, when Claude Code generates a 1000loc file it would be silly to say "the AI didn't write this code, I did" just because you wrote the prompt.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#30

Post by llmslave2 »

dvt wrote: post #28
llmslave2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even ignoring that someone's views can change over time, working on an OSS programming language at Google is very different from designing algorithms to get people addicted to scrolling.

Where do you think his "distinguished engineer" salary came from, I wonder? There are plenty of people working on OSS in their free time (or in poverty, for that matter).

Shouldn't you be thinking "it's nice Google diverted some of their funds to doing good" instead of trying to tie Pike's contributions in with everything else?
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