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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?

#361

Post by maccard »

helloplanets wrote: post #347
maccard wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, at the end Photoshop is lines of code and it could be output as is, end to end And yet it’s not. > LLMs also take a relatively long time to output acceptable code, often taking tens of minutes before giving you a small diff. The larger the codebase, the longer it usually takes to start producing code, even over an hour. The problem is that they don’t generate acceptable code, they generate code that need…

> And yet it’s not. That was my point as well. That it hasn't been output, even though it could be done by a talented solo developer given enough time, and that current LLMs definitely aren't able to do so. > The problem is that they don’t generate acceptable code, they generate code that needs to be edited to be acceptable. You've never had an LLM output a one line bugfix that is correct to the point where you don't…

> You've never had an LLM output a one line bugfix that is correct to the point where you don't have to edit it?

I have. I’ve also had IDEs and static analysers do the same thing. I can also take my car out of gear and have it roll down a hill but that doesn’t mean it can run without fuel. Only a sith deals in absolutes, and in the general cases LLMs don’t generate acceptable code.

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

#362

Post by metalspot »

pjmlp wrote: 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…

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

An important consideration here is that velocity is not zero sum. If you are delivering in weeks what used to take months you are creating an entirely new realm of what is possible to do with software within a corporation.

In the real world, I have never worked for a company that doesn't have a huge backlog (either tracked or in engineers heads) of work that would never be done because it wasn't economic under the old model. This tends to apply to the internal work of engineers (developer tooling, infrastructure, tech debt, etc) more than anything else. 10X faster doesn't necessarily mean shipping 10X product code. You can use that productivity boost to accelerate prototyping, ship betas faster, move the iteration loop faster, all while shipping higher quality code with less tech debt and having the time to continuously improve the engineering side of things that the business never sees.

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

#363

Post by Havoc »

habinero wrote: post #305
Havoc wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not at the make me a photoshop stage but I don't think that angle explains adequately explains the tone of the anti-AI hn discussions taking place at all. If it was just a toy with no shot at making something real people would go "oh cool have fun with that" and move on with their life. Instead we see pretty emotionally charged posts.

If people just wanted to make their own stuff and have fun, that's fine. Knock yourself out. However, it's launched this enormous tidal wave of mediocrity that emboldens the dumbest people to do the dumbest shit and make it my problem. I just had to yell at one of the IT guys for trying to hook up our Duo to Claude, and I'm still mad about it lol.

Stupid people are always going to do stupid shit. I don't think that makes the enabling technology the problem & the anger towards it is misdirected.

>trying to hook up our Duo to Claude

ngl that is hilarious

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

#364

Post by specproc »

specproc wrote: post #216
thin_carapace wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the grandparent commentor described potential future paths of unfettered ai usage. it's not clear why arises the expectation that a discussion of future possibilities must adhere to a contemporary argumentative format (mainly because concrete evidence of future events does not exist). it's your right to interpret this discussion as 'USA bad', personally I think it's very likely that the USA will continue to exercise…

The USA is terrifying from a non-US perspective now, and it's never been great. We're furious at the states and sick of being dependent on its enshittified technology. Anti-AI sentiment absolutely and correctly has a "USA bad" steak.

*streak

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

#365

Post by squidbeak »

azangru wrote: post #353

> Users don’t care whether the code was written by AI or by hand Users don't. Question is, do developers, who are tasked to read, modify, and maintain the code?

That's the point though isn't it? Those readers / maintainers / modifiers won't be developers.

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

#367

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #54
happytoexplain wrote: post #19

HN is not anti-AI. HN reflects a reasonable ratio of pro-AI and anti-AI sentiments (sometimes held by the same person! because AI covers a lot of ground).

I have many diverse friend groups. And HN is lot lot more anti AI then even the worst of the non technical groups I am in. e.g. [1] is so detached from reality and got to front page for multiple days recently. Or [2]. I have never seen a positive story(I am not talking about things like current model, just how positive AI could be like the Sam Altman post) in front page for a long time. Feel free to disprove me. [1]:…

> I have many diverse friend groups. And HN is lot lot more anti AI then even the worst of the non technical groups I am in.

"I listen to both kinds of music, country and western."

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

#368

Post by cmoski »

knivets wrote: post #221

> Over the past six months, there hasn’t been a single day where I’ve checked the HN Best RSS feed without seeing a post about how AI “writes bad code,” “introduces bugs,” “creates technical debt,” or something along those lines. because it's true > Users don’t care whether the code was written by AI or by hand, or which framework you used. They care that the product works. How can you guarantee that it works though?…

Boggles the mind that people can't see this. You gotta keep the guardrails pretty tight to succeed with LLMs and code in my experience.

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

#369

Post by metalspot »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #232

I feel like the negativity is mainly due to lack of understanding on how LLMs work under the hood. The more you learn about it, the more you realize that it’s just a glorified autocomplete machine and the reason why it looks so capable is the engineering behind prompt and harness. Unless there is another breakthrough in model training, I don’t see AI taking over anytime soon. However I do agree that’s it has become a…

> glorified autocomplete machine

It is a next token prediction function and it is important to understand the technology accurately based on what it actually is.

What is unique about a next token prediction function though is that every computer program is just a string of instructions. At the theoretical limit a next token prediction function can generate the entire instruction stream (boot loader, OS, application) so a next token prediction function can theoretically generate any computer program, which means that it is a universal predictor for anything that a computer can simulate. Still not AGI/ASI in the woo-woo non-technical interpretations of those terms, but incredibly powerful.

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

#370

Post by demorro »

I am anti-gun despite guns being extremely effective at propelling metal at high velocity. I am not anti high-velocity metal, nor do I believe guns should never be used under any circumstance.

This post is absurd, childish binary thinking.

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