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

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

#351

Post by metalspot »

rakel_rakel wrote: post #152

> I’ll probably make a lot of enemies by saying this, do people realize that code is just a means to an end? You will need a lot more to make yourself my enemy, but this is the divisor between us... not that you like to use Claude and I don't. I think it depends a lot on where your interest in (self) development lies. My main motivator has always been to understand how things work, and myself being able to create as…

> people are driven by different things

This is important to understand. I have been coding since I was 11 when I got my first C64, and it is a genuine passion for me, but I also love working with LLM tooling.

One of the biggest things for me is that after decades of sitting in front of a computer I have chronic back and wrist pain that makes it impossible to do the long deep focus sessions that were normal when I was younger. Using AI tooling to handle all of the procedural tasks (running tests, debugging, managing git, etc) dramatically reduces the physical strain of programming, and allows for a much healthier workflow, with regular short breaks.

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

#352

Post by jhbadger »

kentich wrote: post #140
jhbadger wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The field has been named "Artificial Intelligence" since the 1950s, It has nothing to do with neural nets per se. It just is about systems that do what was previously thought to be only something people could do. Traditionally the big names in the field like Minsky actually despised neural nets -- Minsky even wrote a book called Perceptrons (1969) which trashed the early version of neural nets and discouraged most re…

What field? They brought back up that old sci-fi term AI specifically for neural networks to create a false impression among people that this is a technology that can "think."

It's not SF. Again, artificial intelligence has been a recognized branch of computer science since the 1950s, with journals, conferences, and applications.

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

#354

Post by chrismarlow9 »

I've seen it before and over time it always plays out similarly.

- the cloud was invented and we were told CTOs would be able to just point and click and make infrastructure and apps! What did we actually get? Another layer of abstraction to debug through. Does it have is perks? Yes. Does it have it's own problems? Yes. Is it more expensive than setting up bare metal and having a solid team? Well that depends on what you're doing and the economics of it and the team.

- then document storages came along like and got wildly popular like mongo and people were calling it the end of SQL! And no more complexity or relational nonsense. Everything is JSON and life is great. What actually happened? These companies realized over time their data was getting trashed, adding things and fixing bugs became complex in pure docstore systems. So the initial v1 was easy and looked beautiful but only 4 years in you have a production db with orphan data that's twice as big as it should be. New features take forever to see a clear path in adding it to the model because it's no longer as intuitive to get performance for a feature.

Anyway. I see AI taking both of these roads at the same time. In 5 years I believe the code will be a giant pile of unfixable mess for most vibe coded things. I also don't see it getting rid of programmers but just adding another layer of abstraction to the mix that yes is helpful, but only if you already know what you're doing, much like what came of the clouds.

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

#355

Post by bbg2401 »

Firstly, your question is not genuine and it's clear by how you've constructed your post. There's no need to put on a facade of curiosity to make a statement. It would somehow be less antagonistic without the question and just the statement.

I feel you could be confusing negativity towards the application of AI with negativity towards the technology itself.

I use AI frequently and am neutral to positive regarding the technology. However, we have seen a rise in "I built a tool" submissions on here which advertise AI envisioned, AI named, AI marketed, AI designed and AI programmed projects. The submissions contain AI generated descriptions. The authors reply with AI generated responses. Often, other authors reply with AI generated comments.

I am entirely comfortable expressing negative sentiment towards the people promoting projects made using AI in the most lazy, passive fashion possible. It's not a moral stance, it's just a matter of quality control.

Further, CEO's and thought leaders with strong pro-AI stances have repeatedly expressed sociopathic or misanthropic views. Again, I'm comfortable holding negative sentiments towards them.

Lastly, your framing is entirely from the point of view of a product person who is desperate to ship something. This is not necessarily the priority of all people present on here. I'm very happy to express negative sentiment towards the SaaS bros who create little value for their users, the tools they use or the wide community in which they participate.

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

#356

Post by pluc »

Because it's the crowd that sees reality of the results, not just the marketing.

You can ship a 1.0 10x faster and leave bug hunting to your users and tank your reputation before you have one or you could do like what we've been doing for 30 years and ship quality. There was no problem to fix there that AI fixed.

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

#357

Post by aaron695 »

dang wrote: 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…

[dead]

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

#358

Post by aristofun »

I think HN “crowd” on average is smarter than a random or some hype eating crowd on the internet.

Smarter people tend to be more sceptical and resistive when something gets shoved up their bottoms too much or much more than it seemingly deserves.

Nothing special about AI here, it’s a general tendency.

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

#359

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

foxes wrote: post #120
johnfn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it's "divided", I wouldn't say "simply". Mentioning AI brings out a sharply negative side of HN that I had not seen before 2023. It is the only subject where, when I have shared that I built something with it, I have gotten derogatory comments claiming I am inexperienced, unintelligent, and that the thing I built (a hobby project) is unimpressive or embarrassing. This has never happened in the deca…

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.

100% this. Disrupting and killing the jobs of others is good. Now that we are killing our own jobs, disruption is not so good anymore.

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

#360

Post by 627467 »

What bothers me most on link aggregation sites - where (in theory i suppose) humans are involved in submitting and upvoting - so much of comment threads "yuk it's AI slop" like it can't me judge and discussed based on the actual ideas. What bothers more is when this shows up in non-/new posts because the implication is that whoever upvoted the post just has bad judgements on what could be seen as worth sharing. To me this is no different than brigading and cancelation

Bad submissions have always existed, if you don't like it, move on, don't engage.

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