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Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

antirez.com

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

#161

Post by sreekanth850 »

People here generalise vibcoders into single category. I don’t write code line-by-line the traditional way, but I do understand architecture deeply. Recently I started using AI to write code. not by dumping random prompts and copy-pasting blindly, but inside VS Code, reviewing what it generates, understanding why it works, and knowing exactly where each feature lives and how it fits. I also work with a frontend developer (As i do backend only and not interested in building UI and css) to integrate things properly, and together we fix bugs and security issues. Every feature built with AI works flawlessly because it’s still being reviewed, tested, and owned by humans. If I have a good Idea, and use AI to code, without depending on a developer friction due to limited budget, why people think its Sin? Is the implication that if you don’t have VC money to hire a team of developers, you’re supposed to just lose? I saw the exact same sentiment when tools like Elementor started getting popular among business owners. Same arguments, same gatekeeping. The market didn’t care. It feels more like insecurity about losing an edge. And if the edge was I type code myself, that edge was always fragile. Edit: The biggest advantage is that you don’t lose anything in translation. There’s no gap between the idea in your head and what gets built.

You don’t spend weeks explaining intent, edge cases, or what I really meant to a developer. You iterate 1:1 with the system and adjust immediately when something feels off.

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

#162

Post by kiriakosv »

AI tools in their current form or another will definitely change software engineering, I personally think for the best

However I can’t help but notice some things that look weird/amusing:

- The exact time that many programmers were enlightened about the AI capabilities and the frequency of their posts.

- The uniform language they use in these posts. Grandiose adjectives, standard phrases like ‘it seems to me’

- And more importantly the sense of urgency and FOMO they emit. This is particularly weird for two reasons. First is that if the past has shown something regarding technology is that open source always catches up. But this is not the case yet. Second, if the premise is that we re just the in beginning all these ceremonial flows will be obsolete.

Do not get me wrong, as of today these are all valid ways to work with AI and in many domains they increase the productivity. But I really don’t get the sense of urgency.

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

#163

Post by smokel »

dist-epoch wrote: post #130
embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

It's just a reiteration of the age-old conflict in arts: - making art as you thing it should be, but at the risk of it being non-commercial - getting paid for doing commercial/trendy art choose one

I've given this quite some thought and came to the conclusion that there is actually no choice, and all parties fall into the first category. It's just that some people intrinsically like working on commercial themes, or happen to be trendy.

Of course there are some artists who sit comfortably in the grey area between the two oppositions, and for these a little nudging towards either might influence things. But for most artists, their ideas or techniques are simply not relevant to a larger audience.

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

#164

Post by arter45 »

bromuro wrote: post #11
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 do open source exactly because i’m fine my work can be “stolen”.

GPL requires attribution. Some people are fine with their code being used by others for free while still expecting their work to be acknowledged. Code posted on Stackoverflow is apparently CC-BY-SA licensed, which means attribution is still required.

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

#165

Post by CuriouslyC »

Ekaros wrote: post #147
CuriouslyC wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Someone should really take AI to these task. Let the agents run wild. Let them astroturf every possible platform in existence. Especially like this one here HN. Insert marketing messages to every post and every thread. There is not bad publicity. More you spam more you will be noticed. Human attention is limited. So grab as much as you can. And also this helps your product name to get into training data and thus late…

HN has been astroturfed for a while. Ever notice low quality linkedin blogspam that hits the front page before people would even have had time to finish reading it?

It's hard to disambiguate this from people who have a "fanbase." People will upvote stuff from people like simonw sight unseen without reading. I'd like to do a study on HN where you hide the author, to see how upvote patterns change, in order to demonstrate the "halo" benefit.

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

#166

Post by zahlman »

embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

Indeed. My response was: actually, no, if I think about it I really don't think it was "building" at all. I would have started fewer things, and seen them through more consistently, if it were about "building". I think it has far more to do with personal expression.

("Solving a problem for others" also resonates, but I think I implement that more by tutoring and mentoring.)

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

#167

Post by dom96 »

wmwragg wrote: post #32
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel similarly for a different reason. I put my code out there, licensed under the GPL. It is now, through a layer of indirection, being used to construct products that are not under the GPL. That's not what I signed up for. I know the GPL didn't have a specific clause for AI, and the jury is still out on this specific case (how similar is it to a human doing the same thing?), but I like to imagine, had it been mad…

Yep, this is my take as well. It's not that open source is being stolen as such, as if you abide by an open source license you aren't stealing anything, it's that the licenses are being completely ignored for the profit of a few massive corporations.

Yeah, that's what I meant by "stolen", I should have been clearer. But indeed, this is the crux of the problem, I have no faith that licenses are being abided by.

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

#169

Post by krapp »

FergusArgyll wrote: post #159
dist-epoch wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a reiteration of the age-old conflict in arts: - making art as you thing it should be, but at the risk of it being non-commercial - getting paid for doing commercial/trendy art choose one

It's not. It's: - Making art because you enjoy working with paint - Making art because you enjoy looking at the painting afterward

[flagged]

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

#170

Post by simonw »

Ekaros wrote: post #23
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.

By their promises it should get so good that basically you do not need to learn it. So it is reasonable to wait until that point.

If you listen to promises like that you're going get burned.

One of the key skills needed in working with LLMs is learning to ignore the hype and marketing and figure out what these things are actually capable of, as opposed to LinkedIn bluster and claims from CEOs who's net worth are tied to investor sentiment in their companies.

If someone spends more time talking about "AGI" then what they're actually building, filter that person out.

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