I very much value and appreciate the first four paragraphs! [3] This is my favorite kind of communication in a social setting like this: it reads more like anthropology and less like judgment or overgeneralization.
The last two paragraphs, however, show what happens when people start trying to use inductive reasoning -- and that part is really hard: ...
> Therefore I need more time and effort with Gen AI than I needed before because I need to read a lot of code, understand it and ensure it adheres to what mental model I have.
I don't disagree that the above is reasonable to say. But it isn't all -- not even enough -- about what needs to be said. The rate of change is high, the amount of adaptation required is hard. This in a nutshell is why asking humans to adapt to AI is going to feel harder and harder. I'm not criticizing people for feeling this. But I am criticizing the one-sided-logic people often reach for.
We have a range of options in front of us:
A. sharing our experience with others
B. adapting
C. voting with your feet (cancelling a subscription)
D. building alternatives to compete
E. organizing at various levels to push back
(A) might start by sounding like venting. Done well it progresses into clearer understanding and hopefully even community building towards action plans: [1]
> Hence Gen AI at this price point which Anthropic offers is a net negative for me because I am not vibe coding, I'm building real software that real humans depend upon and my users deserve better attention and focus from me hence I'll be cancelling my subscription shortly.
The above quote is only valid unless some pretty strict (implausible) assumptions: (1) "GenAI" is a valid generalization for what is happening here; (2) Person cannot learn and adapt; (2) The technology won't get better.
[1]: I'm at heart more of a "let's improve the world" kind of person than "I want to build cool stuff" kind of person. This probably causes some disconnect in some interactions here. I think some people primarily have other motives.
Some people cancel their subscriptions and kind of assume "the market and public pushback will solve this". The market's reaction might be too slow or too slight to actually help much. Some people put blind faith into markets helping people on some particular time scales. This level of blind faith reminds me of Parable of the Drowning Man. In particular, markets often send pretty good signals that mean, more or less, "you need to save yourself, I'm just doing my thing." Markets are useful coordinating mechanisms in the aggregate when functioning well. One of the best ways to use them is to say "I don't have enough of a cushion or enough skills to survive what the market is coordinating" so I need a Plan B!
Some people go further and claim markets are moral by virtue of their principles; this becomes moral philosophy, and I think that kind of moral philosophy is usually moral confusion. Broadly speaking, in practice, morality is a complex human aspiration. We probably should not not abdicate our moral responsibilities and delegate them to markets any more than we would say "Don't worry, people who need significant vision correction (or other barrier to modern life)... evolution will 'take care' of you."
One subscription cancellation is a start (if you actually have better alternative and that alternative being better off for the world ... which is debatable given the current set of alternatives!)
Talking about it, i.e. here on HN might one place to start. But HN is also kind of a "where frustration turns into entertainment, not action" kind of place, unfortunately. Voting is cheap. Karma sometimes feels like a measure of conformance than quality thinking. I often feel like I am doing better when I write thoughtfully and still get downvotes -- maybe it means I got some people out of their comfort zone.
Here's what I try to do (but fail often): Do the root cause analysis, vent if you need to, and then think about what is needed to really fix it.
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_drowning_man
[3]: The first four are:
I write detailed specs. Multifile with example code. In markdown.
Then hand over to Claude Sonnet.
With hard requirements listed, I found out that the generated code missed requirements, had duplicate code or even unnecessary code wrangling data (mapping objects into new objects of narrower types when won't be needed) along with tests that fake and work around to pass.
So turns out that I'm not writing code but I'm reading lots of code.