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I quit. The clankers won

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Re: I quit. The clankers won

#51

Post by apples_oranges »

Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #17

"Generative AI is art. It’s irredeemably shit art; end of conversation." I think most people cannot destinguish between "genuine" creativity and an artificial almalgamation of training data and human provided context. For one, I do not know what already exsists. Some work created by AI may be an obvious rip off of the style of a particular artist, but I wouldnt know. To me it might look awesome and fresh. I think man…

The question is how subtle AI can be. I feel like art sometimes seems to communicate A, and the artist intended to communicate A and perhaps some B, but clearly, it also hints at another C (and maybe also D, E, ..), which was not intended by the artist or recognised by many viewers, while to some people it's clearly there. Now where did that come from?

And can or will AI create it?

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#52

Post by titzer »

I laugh jollily in the face of AI. I know the coming shit pile, its nature isn't going to be surprising, only the speed and utter surrender of the vast majority of humanity to mediocrity.

What AI represents to me is a teacher! I have so long lacked a music teacher and musical tools. I spent my entire career doing invisible software at the lowest levels and now I can finally build cool tools that help me learn and practice and enjoy playing music! Screw all the haters; if you're curious about a wide range of topics and already have some knowledge, you can galavant across a vast space and learn a lot along the way.

AI is a bit of a bullshitter but don't take its bullshit as truth, like you should never take anything your teacher says as gospel. How do we know what's true? The truth of the universe and the world is that underneath it all, it is self consistent, and we keep making measurement errors. The AI is an enormous pot of magic that it's up to you to organize with...your own skills.

You have to actively resist deskilling by doing things. AI should challenge you and reward you, not make you passive.

Use AI to teach yourself by asking lots of questions and constantly testing the results against reality.

For me right now, that's the fretboard.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#53

Post by nodra »

zzzeek wrote: post #37

rants about AI from people who have already decided up front to never actually attempt to use the tools (which seems to be the case here from the post and the other one it links) are not really providing any value to the discourse. There is nothing new about using machinery to automate boring / repetitive tasks, including the wall of resistance that comes up. But it should be clear that genuinely useful tooling and a…

Trying to understand why it would matter if their hosting provider used ai or not. Genuine question so I can understand your take.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#54

Post by jpfromlondon »

keybored wrote: post #41
bitmasher9 wrote: post #8

Picking out my favorite idea out of many: we do need ways to stay mentally sharp in the age of AI. Writing and publishing is a good one. I also recommend stimulating human conversations and long-form reading. More and more the bar is being lowered. Don’t fall to brain rot. Don’t quite quit. Stay active and engaged, and you’ll begin to stand out among your peers.

Do you want a Stairmaster with that elevator? Life is for living, ostensibly. This Inevitabilism drone choir[1] may be correct that it will take my current job and after that maybe there will nothing fruitful in that department left. But I can’t imagine a life situation where I’m both surviving and using thinking-with-my-brain as some retirement home pastime/ “brainrot”-preventer. > Stay active and engaged, and you’l…

hoped for something useful in your link, found drivel.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#55

Post by simonw »

Waterluvian wrote: post #44

Improving developer skills is not valuable to your company. They don't tell a customer how many person-hours of engineering talent improvement their contract is responsible for. They just want a solved problem. Some companies comprehend how short-sighted this is and invest in professional development in one way or another. They want better engineers so that their operations run better. It's an investment and arguably…

> Improving developer skills is not valuable to your company

Every company I've ever worked at has genuinely believed in and invested in improving developer skills.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#57

Post by rtpg »

Old web stuff is still around. RSS feeds are out there. Some parts of masto are generally chill and filled with people having interesting convos.

You don't have to give up on everything to participate, but it can be a space to go to if you're tired of every social interaction being mediated by (I'm being glib) hustlers

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#58

Post by Waterluvian »

simonw wrote: post #55
Waterluvian wrote: post #44

Improving developer skills is not valuable to your company. They don't tell a customer how many person-hours of engineering talent improvement their contract is responsible for. They just want a solved problem. Some companies comprehend how short-sighted this is and invest in professional development in one way or another. They want better engineers so that their operations run better. It's an investment and arguably…

> Improving developer skills is not valuable to your company Every company I've ever worked at has genuinely believed in and invested in improving developer skills.

That’s been my experience, too. But now I get a sort of, “I dunno. Maybe don’t use AI on Fridays?”

There doesn’t seem to be a plan for maintaining that culture.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#59

Post by titzer »

Waterluvian wrote: post #44

Improving developer skills is not valuable to your company. They don't tell a customer how many person-hours of engineering talent improvement their contract is responsible for. They just want a solved problem. Some companies comprehend how short-sighted this is and invest in professional development in one way or another. They want better engineers so that their operations run better. It's an investment and arguably…

The irony is that the vast deskilling that's happening because of this means that most "software engineers" will become incapable of understanding, let alone fixing or even building new versions of the systems that they are utterly dependent on.

There should be thousands or tens of thousands people worldwide that can build the operating systems, virtual machines, libraries, containers, and applications that AI is built on. But the number will dwindle and we'll ironically be unable to build what our ancestors did, utterly dependent on the AI artifacts to do it for us.

God I hope it doesn't all crash at once.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#60

Post by philipwhiuk »

malwrar wrote: post #47

I do find it hard to tolerate the feeling of being watched online. The second-most trending dataset on huggingface right now is a snapshot of HN updating at a 5 minute interval. It makes me not want to really comment at all, just like how I don’t really publish any software I write anymore. Turns out it sucks to produce original works when you know that, whereas previously a few people at best might see your work, no…

I think the immediate term action is to viciously block all crawlers.

Writing a blog yes, feeding the beast no.

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