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Please Use AI

shawnsmucker.substack.com

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Re: Please Use AI

#291

Post by happytoexplain »

annnoo wrote: post #55

I had this moment when we designed shirts for the marathon we ran as a group. Instead of Brainstorming something funny, we just prompted ChatGPT and chose one of the results. I felt lost immediately. All the creativity, the humanity, the endless hours of putting soul into something. Gone For one hour or so I had some kind of existential crisis. Just because of a funny slogan on a shirt. And sometimes I still feel emp…

Yup. A part of us is dead forever, and future generations will not feel the change.

That doesn't mean AI isn't a net positive (I won't comment on whether or not it is), but this is probably the most visible, simple, undeniable downside.

Re: Please Use AI

#292

Post by abustamam »

TakeItToTen wrote: post #170
sushshshhs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your project contained original thought does it matter if the IFs and the ELSEs were generated? I sometimes wonder if people get into this to create an actual working something or they just enjoy sorting colored blocks for the heck of it. I am on the other extreme end: I don’t give a rat’s ass about the code itself. The spec, the intent, the architecture, the contracts are what I find interesting. All the “file ha…

I have landed here myself. I have always enjoyed writing code, but I find lately that I am getting so much more satisfaction from the process of exploring and designing systems more, and code is simply the substrate. I am becoming a better architect with AI, because I am spending more mental energy in that lane, getting less embroiled in the nitty-gritty of the code.

I agree. I use the grill me skill and superpowers brainstorming to learn different methods of building stuff as far as architecture goes. Stuff I wouldn't normally think of if I just continued being "just a FE engineer"

Re: Please Use AI

#293

Post by alkyon »

ignoramous wrote: post #197
annnoo wrote: post #55

I had this moment when we designed shirts for the marathon we ran as a group. Instead of Brainstorming something funny, we just prompted ChatGPT and chose one of the results. I felt lost immediately. All the creativity, the humanity, the endless hours of putting soul into something. Gone For one hour or so I had some kind of existential crisis. Just because of a funny slogan on a shirt. And sometimes I still feel emp…

> ... we just prompted ChatGPT and chose one of the results ... Notice how the blogger simply calls it "Chat". and feeding them into Chat or Gemini or Claude.

Poetic licence, it's poetry or poetic prose and not some random blog post about LLMs

Re: Please Use AI

#294

Post by graemep »

renegade-otter wrote: post #44
eunoia wrote: post #26

Beautiful piece. I sometimes feel like technologists actually desire to remove the humanity from the world because it's messy and they don't understand it and therefore they fear it.

The whole idea of trans-humanism, so beloved by VCs and the AI cult, seems borderline psychopathic to me.

To others too. Much of what they say (and some other trends and ideas) remind me of those of the literal demonic baddies in CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength. Especially the loss of the value of human beings and human connections.

Re: Please Use AI

#295

Post by hootz »

draftsman wrote: post #140
hootz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, when working on personal projects with AI I feel like I've replaced some of the joy of tinkering with code with the joy of tinkering with models. They require different work, writing prompts, setting up guardrails, harnesses etc, and that is also pretty fun for me!

I find very little joy in trying to wrangle the blackboxes that are LLMs. The undeterministic nature of them frustrates me, and feels nothing like the software engineering I know and love. However, I know I’m in the minority here, as almost everyone else in the industry I’ve talked to seems to love using them.

A lot of people here agree with you, and I definitely get what you are saying! It's a personal thing in the end, as people enjoy different things even in the same areas of expertise, and there are definitely a LOT of things to criticise AI about (and the companies around them).

Re: Please Use AI

#296

Post by thunderfork »

cocoto wrote: post #131
michaelchisari wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You underestimate how easy it is to get someone who's into fly fishing to talk about fly fishing. You don't need to have known them for more than thirty seconds. Even NYC has a fishing meetup group with over 1000 members.

Not everyone live in a big city.

You probably live in a community of some nature, though.

Re: Please Use AI

#297

Post by smokedetector1 »

cortesoft wrote: post #200
smokedetector1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't understand it and therefore they fear it I feel this whenever discussion of consciousness comes up. Even though consciousness is not well understood at all (e.g. no scientific progress whatsoever on the "hard problem"), some people would rather say "it's just molecules and we don't have free will, we don't really exist, it's all an illusion, science will reduce it eventually, etc. etc." It baffles me tha…

Who argues that we don't really exist just because we are made up of molecules? That doesn't make sense at all, EVERYTHING that exists is made up of molecules, that is what existence is. I know I have consciousness, and I know I am made up of molecules. I don't find that limiting or disappointing at all. I am very confused by these people you say argue that we don't exist. I have never heard anyone argue that.

> EVERYTHING that exists is made up of molecules, that is what existence is

This is a belief system which one does not have to believe in order to accept the findings of physical science.

> I know I have consciousness, and I know I am made up of molecules. I don't find that limiting or disappointing at all.

There's two things this can mean:

(1) You do genuinely believe you exist, but just that you're arising from a temporary arrangement of molecules -- essentially, all the statements that one can make about souls is true of you. In that case, you're not who I'm talking about.

(2) There is no such thing as "you", it is purely an illusion, and no legitimate subjective entities really exist.

Re: Please Use AI

#298

Post by abustamam »

MostlyStable wrote: post #228
doug_durham wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on your goal. If your goal is to spend the evening coming up with funny things to say with your friends, then you shouldn't use AI. If your goal is to finish the t-shirts so that you can move on to the next topic in organizing a very complex event like a marathon, then perhaps you should use tools. Using AI tools isn't a problem. It's lack of care and thoughtlessness. That is the problem. That's alw…

I think this is part of the issue. Most activities can be divided into two categories (obviously this is only one of many different ways to categorize): 1. Things which are done primarily to accomplish a specific goal 2. Things which are done primarily for the joy of doing them. Many tasks have aspects of both of these things. Automation, in all it's forms, is a way of maximizing the first, often at the expense of th…

I enjoy playing with Lego. I would never use automation to do that for me. But, I wouldn't look down on someone who just wants pretty finished lego sets on their shelf without having to build them, and used automation (or hired someone or whatever) to build them.

I don't have patience for stuff like sewing or needle work. If I could automate that I would. But I know people who could spend hours on needle point or cross stitch or crocheting.

I also don't have patience for cooking or meal prep, even before AI. I'd batch cook protein and veggies and rice and we'd eat that for several days. AI has actually helped me streamline this in this regard, and it even helped me plan a special meal once a week that isn't just "eat for sustenance."

So I guess my point is. Automate the stuff you don't love. And spend more time on the stuff you do love.

Re: Please Use AI

#299

Post by godshatter »

GolfPopper wrote: post #171
godshatter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just use it as a "mentor". A captive demon that has to answer my questions, no matter how trivial. Writing the code is the fun part for me, searching for answers to questions can be fun but I'd rather just ask the AI. I even ask them to give me longer answers so I have more context, even with languages I've worked with for decades.

It's interesting that you use the phrase "captive demon" because in fairy stories, the captive demon is always working to subvert the protagonist and work evil, whether by maliciously misinterpreting commands, or simply allowing the protagonist to damn themselves by enabling their worst impulses and poor choices.

I was thinking along those lines when I wrote it. I do keep the thought in mind when interacting with an LLM that it could mislead me because they always sound so confident and yet get many things wrong, allowing me to damn myself if I'm not double checking things. I wouldn't put it past their creators to create them such that they handle certain prompts in a way that might benefit them, though, by maliciously misinterpreting prompts.

Re: Please Use AI

#300

Post by fckgw »

nightski wrote: post #50
happytoexplain wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I do not have a friend who's into fly fishing, or if I need an answer quickly, am I...just out of luck? I really don't understand the need to torture alternate meanings out of the writing of people we don't agree with. Nothing in the author's writing even comes close to implying what you're suggesting here.

I found it rather on point to be honest, it was exactly how I felt when reading the article.

Then you're missing the point.

The point was "talk to another human about shared experiences, whatever that may be".

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