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Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

blog.jakesaunders.dev

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Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#241

Post by sigbottle »

_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

The "AI Vampire", huh. Unironically, I've been feeling that way.

Well, there was also a lot of unrelated things that happened as well around last November for me, but yes, getting into vibecoding for real was one of them, and man I feel physically drained coming back from work and going to use more AI.

Not sure what it is. I'm using AI personally to learn and bootstrap a lot of domain knowledge I never would have learned otherwise (even got into philosophy!, but man is it exhausting keeping up with AI. I would burn through a week's worth of credits in a day, and now I haven't vibe coded a week.

I think, I will chill. One day at a time.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#242

Post by switchbak »

amelius wrote: post #173
_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

This is really not true. There are stories of people who had no background in software engineering who now write entire applications using AI. And I have personally seen this happen.

What is not true, that "so many software engineers are having an identity crisis"?

I don't believe they said that folks new to AI can't make impressive use of it. They did however say that senior folks with lots of scrappy and holistic knowledge can do amazing things with it. Both can be true.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#243

Post by _doctor_love »

jakelsaunders94 wrote: post #216
_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

Hey, I don't think this sounded like snark at all. Super grounded take. > I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. This I agree with completely. You can see it in the difference between a prompt where you know exactly what you want and when things are a little woolley. A tool in the hands of…

Thanks friend! Appreciate it.

Agree, the diversity of the discourse is not great. There's a lot of "omg I just got started waaauw" articles out there along with "we're all gonna die!" stuff. And then a few seams of very excellent insight.

Deep research at least helps with dowsing for the knowledge...

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#244

Post by palata »

xvector wrote: post #204
delbronski wrote: post #172

AI is starting to look like a net negative for humanity. I remember the early days of OpenAI. I was super excited about it. There was a new space to uncover and learn about. I was hopeful. Now I have this love/hate relationship with it. Claude Code is amazing. I use it everyday because it makes me so much more efficient at my job. But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day. A…

> But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day. I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior engineer... it unlocks so many possibilities. You can do so much more now. We are more limited by our ideas at this point than anything else. Why is the reaction of so many people, once their menial work gets automated, "oh no, my menial work is automated." Why…

> There is a reason that we aren't dying of dysentery at the ripe age of 45 on some peasant field after a hard winter day's worth of hard labor.

Tell that to the people who will die before 45 because of global instability and global warming, I guess?

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#245

Post by computerdork »

mostertoaster wrote: post #195
lpcvoid wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is one of the causes that climate change is accelerating, which is another in a long list of reasons to hate it.

The EPA repealed its 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the Earth and endanger human health and well-being. So this is not a good reason to oppose AI. Now the sheer energy it requires does mean we might want to go nuclear though. Natural gas is nice though because it does pollute the air far less than coal. You might argue the EPA only repealed that because of political agendas, but the same argument could be…

Hmm, it seems pretty clear that climate is getting hotter, so it seems natural for some people to be worried about what will happen to the planet in a few decades (me for one).

And, you may be right, it may not be that big a deal and that we're being alarmists, but it seems like we currently have the tools to slow it down greatly. Why not be on the safe side and use them?

... but to be honest, guessing my opinion won't sway you in any way, still thought I'd try. thanks!

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#246

Post by xvector »

delbronski wrote: post #235
xvector wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day. I don't see how this is the case if you're anything more than a junior engineer... it unlocks so many possibilities. You can do so much more now. We are more limited by our ideas at this point than anything else. Why is the reaction of so many people, once their menial work gets automated, "oh no, my menial work is automated." Why…

And I’m shocked that anyone into tech can be so blind to the adverse effects the current tech industry is having on our world and our society. We owe it to the world, as the experts, to be critical. The march of automation and technology has made the world a better place in some ways. I sure love modern medicine, but those drones flying over Ukraine and Russia sure don’t seem like they are making the world a better p…

[flagged]

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#247

Post by _doctor_love »

sigbottle wrote: post #241
_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

The "AI Vampire", huh. Unironically, I've been feeling that way. Well, there was also a lot of unrelated things that happened as well around last November for me, but yes, getting into vibecoding for real was one of them, and man I feel physically drained coming back from work and going to use more AI. Not sure what it is. I'm using AI personally to learn and bootstrap a lot of domain knowledge I never would have lea…

AI Vampire is from Steve Yegge, credit where it's due.

My take is that it's similar to what Amber Case described in Calm Technology - with AI you are not steering one car, you're really steering three cars at the same time. The human mind isn't really designed for that.

I am finding that really structuring my time helps in terms of fighting back. And adopting an hours restriction, even if I could rage for 4 more hours, I don't. Instead I stop and go outside.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#248

Post by SyneRyder »

overgard wrote: post #89

I'm like 99% convinced that most of the AI conversation upvotes at this point is astroturfing. I just don't see the correlation with the sentiment I get from talking to people in the real world (mostly negative AI sentiment) vs what I see here

Honestly, I think there's a big divide, and those of us who are using AI intensively might just be increasingly "going dark" & distancing ourselves from those "real world" people. It's becoming detrimental being around people who are so actively negative about AI. It feels like being around people who still insist the sun orbits the earth. Those people are actually happier believing what they believe, so why spend any more time trying to convince them they're wrong?

I spent 2024 on Mastodon and I absorbed their groupthink that AI was useless... I wish I could get that year of my life back. I wish I had that extra year headstart on AI compared to where I am now. So much of my coding frustrations that year that might have been solved from using AI. I am reluctantly back on X - I hate what has been done to Twitter, but that's where so much of the useful information on using AI is being shared.

Well, back to it. Claude has been building another local MCP server tool for me in the background.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#249

Post by heavyset_go »

surgical_fire wrote: post #134
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI is fine. The hype is annoying. I'm finding the detractors worse than the hype, because it seems like a certain subset of detractors [0] formed their opinion on AI in late 2022/early 2023 when ChatGPT came out (REALLY!? Over 3 years ago!?) and then never updated their opinions since then. They'll say things like "why would I want to consume X amount of energy and Y amount of water just to get a wrong answer?" In…

The detractors are a lot less numerous and certainly a lot less preachy than the ones on the hype train. AI is alright. It's moderately useful, in certain contexts it speeds me up a lot, in other contexts not so much. I also think that the economics of it make no sense and that it is, generally, a destructive technology. But it's not up to me to fix anything, I just try to keep on top of best practices while I need t…

> The economics bit is not my problem though. If all AI companies go bust and AI services disappear I can 100% manage without it.

We're in "too big to fail" territory, if we handled the recession we were heading towards/in years ago, instead of letting AI hype distract and redirect massive amounts of investment, attention and labor from elsewhere, we might have been in a better position.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#250

Post by palata »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #240
miltonlost wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep marching that automation and tehcnology to an acidified ocean. But hey, at least now we can code faster than we can review!

AI won't be what acidifies our ocean, but AGI might save us from it. Strangely enough, I don't see you calling to end the consumption of meat which would have a far larger environmental impact while not slowing global progress at all.

> AI won't be what acidifies our ocean

Tech is what got us where we are. AI allows us to use more energy to produce more of what is currently measurably killing us.

> but AGI might save us from it.

This is just faith. Some believe that prayers may save us.

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