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Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

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201–210 of 812 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

#201

The more close you are to the fire the more you understand how dangerous it is. HN always have had a sizable anti-tech crowd (I don't want to say luddite because it's borderline pejorative). If you see the technology from close and you understand the human impacts of it then there is a reason some would rather stay clear from it. I know some FAANG engineers who doesn’t allow their kids to have smartphones or use soci…

> HN always have had a sizable anti-tech crowd (I don't want to say luddite because it's borderline pejorative).

It's frequently said that technology is ethically neutral, and whether it's used for good or bad ends depends on how it is applied.

What you call the anti-tech crowd is simply the crowd that takes their ethical responsibilities seriously.

There are other potential points of view that could be adopted instead of tech neutrality. Some tech could be seen as inherently good, in which case there very little concern about how much of it is used. Some tech could be seen as inherently bad, meaning it should be avoided at all costs.

Anyone being honest about AI can see that although it has some positive uses, the potential for misuse is enormous. Therefore, if you're going to use it at all, you should think carefully about how to apply it. To people that have fully bought into the hype this caution appears like negativity instead of rationality.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

#202

I call these AI tools "proprietary non-determenistic database of the free internet". They belong to american companies which can cut off your access if american government doesn't like your country's government. They fed from the free internet that many of us grew up in, store it in humans unreadable form and sell you access to it. If some day claude starts to spit out compiled binaries instead of code nobody will no…

Respectfully, this looks like coping with the fact that a fundamentally new technology is discovered but people can’t cope with the immensity of it so they end up throwing in shallow and spread out criticisms spanning sovereignty, USA bad, replacing people bad etc. It’s my personal opinion and it looks extremely incurious analysis of what’s going on. Even if a person doesn’t like AI, I would expect a curious person t…

Pure tech dimensions of AI are out of scope. The internet is full of tech critiques and praises, what's the point of yet another opinion on it. Can't open linkedin without seeing only AI-generated posts about AI replacing people next to AI dumb. But the political dimension seems completly abscent from the public discussion

Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

#204
Because for many people writing code is exactly their job, it isn't a means to an end.

It is like replacing people at the supermarket with self checkouts and expext they still feel fulfilled on their job, replenishing products from the warehouse.

Additionally only optimistics cannot see their job is in jeopardy.

If you deploy 10x faster, than me as business owner need less of you for the same amount of work.

No, the need for work doesn't grow exponentially every year, there is a physical limit to distribute among all people offering delivery capabilities.

Finally its environment impact destroys all the progress that was made in the last years, and brings computers prices back to the 1980's.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

#206
post #204

Because for many people writing code is exactly their job, it isn't a means to an end. It is like replacing people at the supermarket with self checkouts and expext they still feel fulfilled on their job, replenishing products from the warehouse. Additionally only optimistics cannot see their job is in jeopardy. If you deploy 10x faster, than me as business owner need less of you for the same amount of work. No, the…

But less people to build something means more companies will he able to build something, this math will be interesting in the future. Also there will be a exponentially more stuff to maintain.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

#207
From my perspective it comes down to two factors.

First is the corporate push for AI. We are constantly getting told to "use AI for X" and not "explore if it makes sense to use AI for X". It's pretty obvious that quality doesn't matter, only cutting staff costs does, and I dread to think how software and service will look in 5 years.

The second part is how people use it to do their work without shame. You can't get a bug report without someone saying "here's what Claude thinks". Great, is it right? I can ask Claude myself, at least verify. Outage reports will be summarised and pushed by AI without anyone verifying. I have to argue with a bot to get my PRs through, and nobody reads anything anymore.

It's not that AI can't be useful it's that it seems like nobody cares how good the quality is, only that it does the work.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

#208
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its divided because its the first time the previously more class unaware techbros have been critically challenged by the consequences of their actions - oh shit we might lose our jobs. 10 years ago "Disrupting X" was seen as a good thing. Now its come for them its a different story.

I suspect there is a lot of selection bias going on as well. Forums like this, reddit, X, readers of news sites etc tend to be filled with people that don’t have much going on in their lives, have a lot of free time to comment, are less likely to exploit the benefits of AI, and more likely to have simpler skills sets that are replaceable with AI. Talking to people in real world, I would say the overwhelming majority…

Probably not the best way to reduce complicated feelings.

Do those people not deserve to be able to live and survive or are they all just replaceable?

Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?

#210
post #27
post #14

It's simply divided. With every such division A vs. B, the A team thinks HN is anti-A and the B team thinks it's anti-B. This is an invariant. You can see from the following megathread, currently on the front page, that HN is by no means anti-AI: Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406174 . Sometimes it just takes the right initial condition (e.g. title) to brin…

As an aside, the variety of examples in that other thread is impressive. Here are some that I noticed: Fixing my furnace: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48417845 New software for a retro keyboard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48418158 Customizing my camper van: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48417379 Porting my astronomy app from an old Nokia phone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48419242 Fi…

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