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Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

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Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#61

Post by babarock »

dom96 wrote: post #2

> As a programmer, I want to write more open source than ever, now. I want to write less, just knowing that LLM models are going to be trained on my code is making me feel more strongly than ever that my open source contributions will simply be stolen. Am I wrong to feel this? Is anyone else concerned about this? We've already seen some pretty strong evidence of this with Tailwind.

I don't know if you're "wrong", but I do feel differently about this.

I've written a ton of open source code and I never cared what people do with it, both "good" or "bad". I only want my code to be "useful". Not just to the people I agree with, but to anyone who needs to use a computer.

Of course, I'd rather people use my code to feed the poor than build weapons, but it's just a preference. My conviction is that my code is _freed_ from me and my individual preferences and shared for everyone to use.

I don't think my code is "stolen", if someone uses it to make themselves rich.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#62

Post by bakugo »

> LLMs are going to help us to write better software

No, I really don't think they will. Software has only been getting worse, and LLMs are accelerating the rate at which incompetent developers can pump out low quality code they don't understand and can't possibly improve.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#63

Post by risyachka »

dom96 wrote: post #2

> As a programmer, I want to write more open source than ever, now. I want to write less, just knowing that LLM models are going to be trained on my code is making me feel more strongly than ever that my open source contributions will simply be stolen. Am I wrong to feel this? Is anyone else concerned about this? We've already seen some pretty strong evidence of this with Tailwind.

Also open source without support has zero value. And you can support only 1-2 projects.

Meaning 99% of everything oss released now is de-facto abandonware.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#64

Post by samwillis »

dom96 wrote: post #2

> As a programmer, I want to write more open source than ever, now. I want to write less, just knowing that LLM models are going to be trained on my code is making me feel more strongly than ever that my open source contributions will simply be stolen. Am I wrong to feel this? Is anyone else concerned about this? We've already seen some pretty strong evidence of this with Tailwind.

I'm convinced that LLMs results in all software needing to be open source (or at the very least source available).

In future everyone will expect to be able to customise an application, if the source is not available they will not chose your application as a base. It's that simple.

The future is highly customisable software, and that is best built on open source. How this looks from a business perspective I think we will have to find out, but it's going to be fun!

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#65

Post by bob1029 »

> Test these new tools, with care, with weeks of work, not in a five minutes test where you can just reinforce your own beliefs. Find a way to multiply yourself, and if it does not work for you, try again every few months.

I've been taking a proper whack at the tree every 6 months or so. This time it seems like it might actually fall over. Every prior attempt I could barely justify spending $10-20 in API credits before it was obvious I was wasting my time. I spent $80 on tokens last night and I'm still not convinced it won't work.

Whether or not AI is morally acceptable is a debate I wish I had the luxury of engaging in. I don't think rejecting it would allow me to serve any good other than in my own mind. It's really easy to have certain views when you can afford to. Most of us don't have the privilege of rejecting the potential that this technology affords. We can complain about it but it won't change what our employers decide to do.

Walk the game theory for 5 minutes. This is a game of musical chairs. We really wish it isn't. But it is. And we need to consider the implications of that. It might be better to join the "bad guys" if you actually want to help those around you. Perhaps even become the worst bad guy and beat the rest of them to a functional Death Star. Being unemployed is not a great position to be in if you wish to assist your allies. Big picture, you could fight AI downstream by capitalizing on it near term. No one is keeping score. You might be in your own head, but you are allowed to change that whenever you want.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#66

Post by edg5000 »

JackSlateur wrote: post #18
zinodaur wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[not an ai booster] I think you are the target of this article. I believe you are misunderstanding the current capacity AI

I think I spend too much time at work fixing the greatness of AI.

Are you hand-fixing the issues or having AI do it? I've found that second pass quality is miles away from an initial implementation. If you're experienced, you'll know exactly where the code smells are. Point this out, and the agents will produce a much better implementation in this second pass. And have those people store the promps in the repo! I put my specifications in ./doc/spec/*.md

Every time I got bad results, looking back I noticed my spec was just vague or relied on assumptions. Of course you can't fix your collegues, if they suck they suck and sombody gotta do the mopping :)

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#67

Post by iLoveOncall »

edg5000 wrote: post #30
systemf_omega wrote: post #8

What I don't understand about this whole "get on board the AI train or get left behind" narrative, what advantage does an early adopter have for AI tools? The way I see it, I can just start using AI once they get good enough for my type of work. Until then I'm continuing to learn instead of letting my brain atrophy.

It took me a few months of working with the agents to get really productive with it. The gains are significant. I write highly detailed specs (equiv multiple A4 pages) in markdown and dicate the agent hierarchy (which agent does what, who reports to who). I've learned a lot of new things this year thanks to AI. It's true that the low levels skills with atrophy. The high level skills will grow though; my learning rate…

[flagged]

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#68

Post by danielbln »

BoredPositron wrote: post #15

We are 5 years in... it's fine to be sceptical. The model advancements are in the single digits now. It's not on us that they promised the world 3 years ago. It's fine and will be just fine for the next few years. A real breakthrough is at least another 5 years away and if it comes everything you do now will be obsolete. Nobody will need or care about the dude that Sloperatored Claude Code on release and that's the r…

5 years ago we had GPT-3, not even instruction-following GPT yet, a mere completion model. ChatGPT release was late 2022 (3 years ago). True agentic systems with reliable tool calling in a loop, that came maybe a year ago, agentic coding harnesses less than a year ago.

Model improvements may have flattened, the quality improvements due to engineering work around those models certainly have not.

If we always wait for technology to calcify and settle before we interact with it, then that would be rather boring for some of us. Acquiring knowledge is not really that much of a heavy burden that it's an issue if it's outdated a year in . But that's maybe just a mindset thing.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#69

Post by CuriouslyC »

phtrivier wrote: post #22

How would we measure the effects of AI coding tool taking over manual coding ? Would we see an increase in the number of GitHub projects ? In the number of stars (given the ai is so good) ? In the number of start up ipos (surely if all your engineers are 1000x engineers thanks to Claude code, we'll have plenty of googles and Amazons to invest in) ? In the price of software (if I can just vibe code everything, than a…

Plot twist: the bottleneck when you have a development force multiplier is __MARKETING__. If you develop at 10X the rate, you still have to grind/growth marketing. Unmarketed products might as well not exist, even if they're fantastic.

Github stars? That's 100% marketing. Shit that clears a low quality bar can rack up stars like crazy just by being well marketed.

Number of startups? That's 100% marketing. Investors put money into products that have traction, or founders that look impressive, and both of those are mostly marketing.

People actually are vibe coding stuff rather than using SaaS though, that one's for real. Your example is hyperbolic, but the Tailwind scenario is just one example of AI putting pressure on products.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#70

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

serf wrote: post #33
dom96 wrote: post #2

> As a programmer, I want to write more open source than ever, now. I want to write less, just knowing that LLM models are going to be trained on my code is making me feel more strongly than ever that my open source contributions will simply be stolen. Am I wrong to feel this? Is anyone else concerned about this? We've already seen some pretty strong evidence of this with Tailwind.

I don't understand the mindset because I began my foray into open source exactly because I wanted to distribute and share my code. in other words, i've never been in the position that I felt my charitable givings anywhere were ever stolen . Some people write code and put it out there without caveats. Some people jump into open source to be license warriors. Not me. I just write code and share it. If youre a person, g…

Me too.

I’ve never been a fan of coercive licensing. I don’t consider that “open.” It’s “strings-attached.”

I make mine MIT-licensed. If someone takes my stuff, and gets rich (highly unlikely), then that’s fine. I just don’t want some asshole suing me, because they used it inappropriately, or a bug caused them problems. I don’t even care about attribution.

I mainly do it, because it forces me to take better care, when I code.

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