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I'm OK being left behind, thanks

shkspr.mobi

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Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#141

Post by xondono »

keiferski wrote: post #56

I actually think the opposite approach might be the most optimal one, at least from a monetary perspective. That is, be on the cutting-edge of something, but be willing to bail out at the moment its future starts seeming questionable. Or even more specifically, maximize your foothold in it while minimizing your downside. Bitcoin is a good example: if you bought it 15 years ago and held it, you're probably quite wealt…

Except that strategy gets you killed through a thousand paper cuts.

What would have you done when the Bitcoin fork happened 50/50? Would you have gone int ICOs? Which ones? Etc…

There’s simply too many “new things”, so by trying to get exposure to them you’ll be massively in the red.

Let’s say you get into 1000 “new things”, and you strike it lucky and hit BTC. You’d had to buy BTC in early 2013, hold it over the whole period and sold at the historical maximum for you to be at break even.

If instead of buying 1000 “new things”, you’ve put your money into the S&P you’d be at +250% by the same time.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#142

Post by Krssst »

surgical_fire wrote: post #76

Okay, this text was pretty good. Refreshing to read something that doesn't seem written by AI too (would be ironic given the contents). The only scenario where I think it pays off to be on top of the hype is of you are chasing money sloshing around the latest hype. You know, the hustle culture thing. If that's not your thing, waiting until things are established (if they ever get there) is harmless. And yeah, AI as i…

> Refreshing to read something that doesn't seem written by AI too (would be ironic given the contents).

As much as I dislike the idea of not writing/checking code I am responsible for, it was a surprise to me seeing a few "anti/limited AI in coding" articles that don't pass an LLM detector. (I know those are not perfect but not much else one can do).

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#146

Post by bombcar »

surgical_fire wrote: post #76

Okay, this text was pretty good. Refreshing to read something that doesn't seem written by AI too (would be ironic given the contents). The only scenario where I think it pays off to be on top of the hype is of you are chasing money sloshing around the latest hype. You know, the hustle culture thing. If that's not your thing, waiting until things are established (if they ever get there) is harmless. And yeah, AI as i…

That's really the big difference - if you're a startup or founder (or apparently even an billionaire CEOwner) you gotta chase the hype because your customers are the VCs/shareholders and if you are NOT chasing hype they're going to have serious doubts about you.

As an employee (perhaps even a highly stock-option compensated one) the equation is very different. Perhaps you're aligned if you're an employee of a startup/AI obsessed company. But for the vast majority they're not.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#147

Post by quantified »

> I wrote my MSc on The Metaverse. Learning to built VR stuff was fun, but a complete waste of time. There was precisely zero utility in having gotten in early.

Wonderful life lesson on hype cycles. I am curious if hype literacy will join media literacy in academia.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#148

Post by jwolfe »

bonoboTP wrote: post #109
samiv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot but agree. It's a massive skill leveling where software development is transforming from high skilled coding to low skilled prompting. For an old dog like myself it feels an unjust rug pull.

I don't think it's a psychologically positive self identification to see yourself merely as a gatekeeper and toll extractor rent seeker who only makes a living by withholding agency and skill from others. I know many jobs are about giving partial access to secrets or insider knowledge etc but I simply can't see myself accepting that this is my value proposition. No, let the pie grow. Let more people be able to do mor…

> I don't think it's a psychologically positive self identification to see yourself merely as a gatekeeper and toll extractor rent seeker who only makes a living by withholding agency and skill from others.

That's an incredibly uncharitable reading of the parent comment. At no point in history prior to maybe this year could you argue that working in software was gatekeeping, toll extracting, or rent seeking. Being a highly skilled craftsperson creating software for those who can't or don't want to is a very psychologically positive self identification. Lamenting that the industry is moving away from highly skilled craftspeople is also perfectly valid, even if you believe that it is somehow good for society, which is yet to become clear.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#149

Post by JumpCrisscross »

keiferski wrote: post #56

I actually think the opposite approach might be the most optimal one, at least from a monetary perspective. That is, be on the cutting-edge of something, but be willing to bail out at the moment its future starts seeming questionable. Or even more specifically, maximize your foothold in it while minimizing your downside. Bitcoin is a good example: if you bought it 15 years ago and held it, you're probably quite wealt…

> be on the cutting-edge of something, but be willing to bail out at the moment its future starts seeming questionable

The problem is this leaves you undifferentiated from every hype chaser in Silicon Valley. Our world is littered with folks who went to coding school, traded Bitcoin, did something in the metaverse and blogged about AI. That jack-of-all-trades knowledge can be useful. But only if you’re making unlikely connections. Having the same cutting-edge familiarity as every tech journalist doesn’t that make.

Better: develop deep knowledge and expertise in something. Anything. Not only does this give you some ability to recognize what expertise looks like from afar, it also lets you dip into new topics and have a chance at seeing something everyone else hasn’t already. That, in turn, gives you the ability to be a meaningful first mover.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#150

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

heytakeiteasy wrote: post #14

Feels like a false equivalency. It's just my experience, but I've completely ignored crypto and the metaverse, and I don't get the sense I'm missing out on much. In contrast, LLMs in their current state have (for me) dramatically reduced the distance between an idea and a working implementation, which has been legitimately transformative in my software dev life. Transformative for the better? Time will tell I suppose…

> In contrast, LLMs in their current state have (for me) dramatically reduced the distance between an idea and a working implementation, which has been legitimately transformative in my software dev life.

Feels like a false dichotomy.

Have I become faster with LLMs? Yes, maybe. Is it 10x or 1000x or 10,000x? Definitely not. I think actually in the past I would have leaned more on senior developers, books, stack overflow etc. but now I can be much more independent and proactive.

LLM-based tools are a wide spectrum, and to argue that the whole spectrum is worth exploring because one sliver of it has definite utility is a bit wonky. Kind of like saying $SHITCOIN is worth investing in because $BITCOIN mooned as a speculative asset:

  - I’m bullish on LLMs chat interfaces replacing StackOverflow and O’Reilly
  - I could not be more bearish on Agents automating software engineering
Feel like we’re back at Adobe Dreameaver release and everyone is claiming that web development jobs are dead.
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