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I'm OK being left behind, thanks

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Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#231

Post by gradus_ad »

we_have_options wrote: post #212
gradus_ad wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's so easy to try something like Claude Code. It's not like you need to get up to speed. There is no learning curve*, that's the nature of AI. Just start using it and you'll see why it has attracted so much hype. *I should qualify that "using" CC in the strict sense has no learning curve, but really getting the most out of it may take some time as you see its limitations. But it's not learning tech in the tradi…

I've been playing with it on weekends for the last few months. 9 out of 10 projects, it's failed. Projects as simple as "set up a tmux/vim binding so I can write prompts in one pane and run claude in the other". Fails. I've been coding for over 20 years. If there is no learning curve, why doesn't it work for me? You can't say I'm not using it right, because if that was true, then all I need to do is climb the learnin…

Did it not work after the first try and you gave up? Did it not produce any usable code that you could hand tweak or build off of? I want to understand your definition of "failed" here.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#232

Post by randusername »

sd9 wrote: post #112

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. In contrast to the current top comment [1], I don't think this is a wise assessment. I'm already seeing companies in my network stall hiring, and in fact start firing. I think if you're not trying to take advantage of this technology today then there may not be a place for you tomor…

> I find it hard to empathise with people who can't get value out of AI

> But that extra value doesn't accrue to individuals, it accrues to business owners.

What is value?

Is a 2X faster lumberjack 2X as valuable? Sure

Is a 2X faster programmer 2X as valuable? At what, fixing bugs? Adding features? That's not how the "ownership class" would define value.

Productivity is a measure of efficiency, not growth. Slashing labor costs while maintaining the status quo is still a big productivity gain.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#234

Post by kjkjadksj »

layer8 wrote: post #190
augusto-moura wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I get a bit annoyed is companies forcing AI tools, getting usage metrics and actively hunting the engineers that don't use the tool "enough", I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool. Even in the past, aside from technical limitaions, you were not required to use enough of a tool. It just sounds like a giant scheme to burn through tokens and give money to the AI corps, and tech directors…

> I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool. It has often been the case for technologies though, like “now we’re doing everything in $language and $technology”. If you see LLM coding as a technology in that vein, it’s not a completely new phenomenon, although it does affect developers differently.

Well the tech or the language had some feature to it that lead you to using it. By definition LLM coding doesn’t. It is like the job requirement turned into “ask jeff to write all your code and if you don’t we won’t hire you.”

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#235

Post by imtringued »

stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

I think this is particularly evident with AI.

The early adopters started years ago and they've seen improvements over time that they started attributing them to their own skill. They tell you that if you didn't spend years prompting the AI, it will be difficult to catch up.

However, the exact opposite is happening. As the models get better, the need for the perfect prompt starts waning. Prompt engineering is a skill that is obsoleting faster than handwriting code.

I personally started using codex in march and honestly, the hardest part was finding and setting up the sandbox. (I use limactl with qemu and kvm). Meanwhile the agentic coding part just works.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#236

Post by aleph_minus_one »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #177
wolframhempel wrote: post #50

There's value in being early - in the right thing. - If you'd invested in Bitcoin in 2016, you'd have made a 200x return - If you'd specialized in neural networks before the transformer paper, you'd be one of the most sought-after specialists right now - If you'd started making mobile games when the iPhone was released, you could have built the first Candy Crush Of course, you could just as well have - become an Acti…

Almost everyone chasing those returns would be better off investing in index funds.

Index funds give you something like the expected value over a huge class of possible investments.

What you aim for if you want to invest early is rather a probability distribution of

- get rich with a small (but nevertheless realistic) probability p

- get something between little, nothing, and loosing a little bit with probability 1-p

This is a very different offering than the profit probability distribution that index funds give you.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#237

Post by remus »

lopis wrote: post #162
eqmvii wrote: post #34

A lot of people feel this way. But IMO the most fruitful thing for an engineering org to do RIGHT NOW is learn the tools well enough to see where they can be best applied. Claude Code and its ilk can turn "maybe one day" internal projects into live features after a single hour of work. You really, honestly, and truly are missing out if you're not looking for valuable things like that!

You're only missing out if that's what you want to do. Not every software developer is interested in creating new software projects from scratch in an hour, or at all. It's totally find to do software development as a job, and then close your laptop and not see it until Monday. Learn the tools that suit when when you need them.

> You're only missing out if that's what you want to do.

Who writes software and doesn't have a list of "I'll fix this one day" issues as long as their arm?

This is honestly one of the things I enjoy most at the moment. There's whole classes of issues where I know the fix is probably pretty simple but I wouldn't have had time to sort it previously. Now I can just point claude at it and have a PR 5mins later. It's really nice when you can tell users "just deployed a fix for your thing" rather than "I've made a ticket for your request" your issue is on the never-ending backlog pile and might get fixed in 5 years time if you're lucky.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#238

Post by zephen »

bdcravens wrote: post #96
nemomarx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also seems like skills with particular tech (prompt engineering, harnesses, mixture of experts set ups) doesn't always necessarily pay off when there's a sea change. Hard to predict what you'll want in a few years anyway, right?

In my experience (and this may be confirmation bias on my part), casting a wide net and trying out new tech, while you maintain depth in the area relevant at the time, makes you ready for what's coming, even when you don't know what that may be.

Curiosity is good and helps with your personal development, for sure.

OTOH, tfa specifically said:

> I feel the same way about the current crop of AI tools. I've tried a bunch of them. Some are good. Most are a bit shit. Few are useful to me as they are now. I'm utterly content to wait until their hype has been realised.

So, it's not like he's being deliberate ignorant, rather simply deliberately slow-walking his journey.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#239

Post by bogzz »

bonoboTP wrote: post #205
slfnflctd wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of tires that need to be repaired or replaced (and the processes to do so) haven't changed much if at all, though. And there are entire franchises that pretty much only do tires. Same with many other manual labor tasks. These are predictable jobs with very few variables that there is still no sign of automation replacing any time soon. They often don't suck as bad as people think. One of the most en…

Hm, why don't you just go do it then? Seems strange to spread this knowledge and create competition for yourself. Theres a reason most people want a white collar job and send their kids to college instead of to such manual jobs.

Money.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#240

Post by StingyJelly »

Tade0 wrote: post #186

To me the main question is the long term pricing. It is said that major providers more than break even on what they're charging. But at the same time that's not the point of capitalism, is it? The point is to charge close to the value you're providing. My lunch money is approximately $10 and I often blow through as much in Claude tokens generously provided by the company which hired me. But I'm not getting $10 value…

Luckily the models were built on copyrighted materials so hopefully the big players won't have strong legal standing to kill off model destilling. Then, with models like current deepseek or kimi k2.5, you are perhapy 1/2 years behind in their capabilities at the fraction of the cost. For real inference costs, look at prices on openrouter. For hobby, I wasn't able to burn trough more than $5 in a month.
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