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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

#361

Post by qcnguy »

nielsole wrote: post #36
cmiles8 wrote: post #6

The “anti-AU hype” phrase oversimplifies what’s playing out at the moment. On the tech side, while things are a bit rough around the edges still the tech is very useful and isn’t going away. I honestly don’t see much disagreement there. The concern mostly comes from the business side… that for all the usefulness on the tech there is no clearly viable path that financially supports everything that’s going on. It’s a n…

In the late 2000s i remember that "nobody is willing to pay for things on the Internet" was a common trope. I think it'll culturally take a while before businesses and people understand what they are willing to pay for. For example if you are a large business and you pay xxxxx-xxxxxx per year per developer, but are only willing to pay xxx per year in AI tooling, something's out of proportion.

Late 1990s maybe. Not late 2000s.

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

#362

Post by qcnguy »

dist-epoch wrote: post #83
cmiles8 wrote: post #6

The “anti-AU hype” phrase oversimplifies what’s playing out at the moment. On the tech side, while things are a bit rough around the edges still the tech is very useful and isn’t going away. I honestly don’t see much disagreement there. The concern mostly comes from the business side… that for all the usefulness on the tech there is no clearly viable path that financially supports everything that’s going on. It’s a n…

People said the exact same thing about (numbers from memory, might be off): - when Google paid $1 bil for YouTube - when Facebook paid $1 bil for Instagram - when Facebook paid $1 bil for WhatsApp The same thing - these 3 companies make no money, and have no path to making money, and that the price paid was crazy and decoupled from any economics. Yet now, in hindsight, they look like brilliant business decisions.

We don't really know how much money Google sunk into YouTube before it became (presumably) profitable. It might have actually not been strongly coupled to economics.

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

#363

Post by Wowfunhappy »

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…

> I think there is a section of programmer who actually do like the actual typing of letters, numbers and special characters into a computer, and for them, I understand LLMs remove the fun part.

I've "vibe coded" a ton of stuff and so I'm pretty bullish on LLMs, but I don't see a world where "coding by hand" isn't still required for at least some subset of software. I don't know what that subset will be, but I'm convinced it will exist, and so there will be ample opportunities for programmers who like that sort of thing.

---

Why am I convinced hand-coding won't go away? Well, technically I lied, I have no idea what the future holds. However, it seems to me that an AI which could code literally anything under the sun would almost by definition be that mythical AGI. It would need to have an almost perfect understanding of human language and the larger world.

An AI like that wouldn't just be great at coding, it would be great at everything! It would be the end of the economy, and scarcity. In which case, you could still program by hand all you wanted because you wouldn't need to work for a living, so do whatever brings you joy.

So even without making predictions about what the limitations of AI will ultimately be, it seems to me you'll be able to keep programming by hand regardless.

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

#364

Post by jcheng »

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…

> For others, LLMs remove the core part of what makes programming fun for them.

Anecdotally, I’ve had a few coworkers go from putting themselves firmly in this category to saying “this is the most fun I’ve ever had in my career” in the last two months. The recent improvement in models and coding agents (Claude Code with Opus 4.5 in our case) is changing a lot of minds.

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

#365

Post by hxugufjfjf »

FergusArgyll wrote: post #179
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…

I get annoyed that no one mentions software for just the user. Part of the joy of programming is making stuff you want not just to sell or to get famous. I vibe coded so many chrome extensions I lost count. Most apply just to one site, they save me one click or something. It's fun!

Wouldn't it be easier and/or faster to create a userscript? I've "vibe coded" tens myself, but never really saw the use case for making a full extension out of any of them. Genuinly curious what you made.

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

#366

Post by irthomasthomas »

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…

In my feed 'AI hype' outnumbers 'anti-AI hype' 5-1. And anti-hype moderates like antirez and simonw are rare. To be a radical in ai is to believe that ai tools offer a modest but growing net positive utility to a modest but growing subset of hackers and professionals

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

#367

Post by hackable_sand »

Avshalom wrote: post #110
bsaul wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ecosystem is being built around AI : Best prompting practices, mcps, skills, IDE integration, how to build a feedback loop so that LLM can test its output alone, plug to the outside world with browser extensions, etc... For now i think people can still catch up quickly, but at the end of 2026 it's probably going to be a different story.

Okay, end of 2026 then what? No one ever learns how to use the tools after that? No one gets a job until the pre-2026 generation dies?

For now i think people can still catch up quickly, but at the end of 2027 it's probably going to be a different story.

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

#368

Post by card_zero »

embedding-shape wrote: post #352
BananaaRepublik wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there is a section of programmer who actually do like the actual typing of letters, numbers and special characters into a computer... This sounds like an alien trying and failing to describe why people like creating things. No, the typing of characters in a keyboard has no special meaning, neither does dragging a brush across a canvas or pulling thread through fabric. It's the primitive desire to create som…

My entire point is that people are different. For some people (read through the other comments), it's quite literally about typing of characters, or dragging a brush across the canvas. Sure, that might not be the point for you, but my entire point of my comment is that just because it's "obviously because of X" for you, that doesn't mean it's like that for others. Sometimes I like to make music because I have an idea…

I bet you also sometimes like to make music because the final result emerges from your intimate involvement with striking keys, no? That's the suggestion.

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

#369

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

dist-epoch wrote: post #83
cmiles8 wrote: post #6

The “anti-AU hype” phrase oversimplifies what’s playing out at the moment. On the tech side, while things are a bit rough around the edges still the tech is very useful and isn’t going away. I honestly don’t see much disagreement there. The concern mostly comes from the business side… that for all the usefulness on the tech there is no clearly viable path that financially supports everything that’s going on. It’s a n…

People said the exact same thing about (numbers from memory, might be off): - when Google paid $1 bil for YouTube - when Facebook paid $1 bil for Instagram - when Facebook paid $1 bil for WhatsApp The same thing - these 3 companies make no money, and have no path to making money, and that the price paid was crazy and decoupled from any economics. Yet now, in hindsight, they look like brilliant business decisions.

You listed only acquisitions that paid off and not the many, many more that didn't though.

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

#370

Post by [deleted] »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #37

> Whatever you believe about what the Right Thing should be, you can't control it by refusing what is happening right now. Skipping AI is not going to help you or your career. Think about it. Test these new tools, with care, with weeks of work, not in a five minutes test where you can just reinforce your own beliefs. This is the advice I've been giving my friends and coworkers as well for a while now. Forget the hype…

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