What line of work are you in, if I may ask? Who are you going to sell to if your users start getting laid off due to AI redundancy?
Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
531–540 of 812 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#532> but do people realize that code is just a means to an end?
yes and an end has to be worth the means. people disagree about whether it is worth it. some people see a benefit using LLMs and agents to such a degree they're willing to look past the noise and water and air pollution produced by the unprecedented data center buildout that we've seen over the past few years, or the unprecedented increase in things like spam and deepfakes, or the way that it is decimating the job market + funnel, or the way that it reinforces existing antisocial incentives in society. some don't/aren't.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#533I actually hold both extremes inside of me simultaneously. The speed at which you can ship when you have a strong vision of the end product and the architecture is extraordinary (the part of me that loves AI-assistance). The journey itself, at least for me, has been absolutely grueling though; I'd say ~30% of the time it's just straight up soul-sucking. Some of that could be because of my own incessant need for disci…
Same boat, although the soul sucking, I find, comes from the fact that AI can iterate on ideas so much faster than I could even begin to pull out a pen and paper that I find myself in an existential crisis when I use it too often. What is the point of my work, especially when I must ship for a paycheck, if I offload all my thinking and understanding to a machine. I can certainly dig deep and understand all the code t…
The code casino is real and I don't have an answer to it, only share the sentiment. It is frustrating and exhausting to go through those boom/bust cycles.
The workflow that works for me is: I do the thinking, the writing, then let the AI review it. I am still doing all of the creative work and thinking. The AI keeps me honest and its code reviews are very helpful. The loop becomes competitive and makes me pay more attention to detail; I try to nail things on the first attempt. This gives me a sense of accomplishment and improvement.
Whether this workflow has its days counted, I don't know. But I also don't care. If/when software development as we know it truly stops being a thing, then I'll sadly just have to move on and work in another field. I am not doing vibe coding or programming in natural language. Fuck that.
But I have also noticed that, as much as the AI can process things faster than I can (I also use it to help me navigate the existing code base, and that is also very helpful), it cannot answer the question of whether we should do something, or whether X is more desirable than Y, etc. Maybe for some people, thinking about those things and letting the AI do the rest is enough. For me, personally, I like to navigate all levels of the development.
"AI told me" -- yes, absolutely insufferable dudes. I just don't even bother stating a reply.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#534Because I enjoy writing code. I enjoy being paid for writing code. And I don't enjoy writing prompts for AI. Code is not just a means to an end. Code is a means to my happiness. Users might not care, but I do care. I love good code. I feel great when I can write good code. I won't say that I don't care about users. I do. But I care about me, first and foremost. And AI threatens to remove my lifestyle and workstyle. T…
Longshoremen are anti-cranes. Same thing.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#535[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I also worry about the debasement of value of human work. Looking at history, say of the weavers, it didn't work out to well for them when the powered loom came along. They eventually moved on to other things, because that was the only option. And the world is better with the power loom. It's scary but we still have to embrace that eventually pretty much all valuable labour will be automated, and by then our societ…
> They eventually moved on to other things, because that was the only option. Yes, but then whole swathes of the English countryside (and then the Indian countryside) was plunged into destitution for generations and it took rebellions, massacres and revolutions to get something like comfortable living.
Yeah there was no system in place then to ensure those who were left without means to survive would be able to survive. Shouldn't be the case with the knowledge of that history and all this time we have to actually change things. We quite literally know that it's a matter of only a few years now before the vast amount of knowledge work (at least) is fully automated away; governments should be making changes to make the economic transition more smooth. It'd be highly irresponsible to not do so, and I dread that most will be irresponsible.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#537> 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.
Software never worked even decently before AI let alone right now that we have AI. I'm a user too like many of us we see every day software built by people who don't care. AI is not a force multiplier if it can let you be lazy you'll be lazy, not being lazy requires a lot of discipline. IMO Agents requires a lot more discipline than hand coding, that's why I use them both, I let AI stress test my code and viceversa, rarely I let my code(usually an interface) let AI write better code, or I ask AI a lot questions about the codebase. That's totally different than some narratives pushed by people you can find here or on X I believe the criticism comes from pushing back doomers and astroturfers. AI is good but not as good as they claim to be, to me very far away from what's claimed and you still need to care about software
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#538I actually hold both extremes inside of me simultaneously. The speed at which you can ship when you have a strong vision of the end product and the architecture is extraordinary (the part of me that loves AI-assistance). The journey itself, at least for me, has been absolutely grueling though; I'd say ~30% of the time it's just straight up soul-sucking. Some of that could be because of my own incessant need for disci…
Same boat, although the soul sucking, I find, comes from the fact that AI can iterate on ideas so much faster than I could even begin to pull out a pen and paper that I find myself in an existential crisis when I use it too often. What is the point of my work, especially when I must ship for a paycheck, if I offload all my thinking and understanding to a machine. I can certainly dig deep and understand all the code t…
IMO we have been conditioned to believe that everything is "all or nothing" which is a mistake. AI-assistance provides undeniable leverage IF, and only if, you know what you want. I think the market, in general, is still finding where things level out here. The problem, which I have been guilty of myself at times, is offloading key decisions. Humans absolutely have to retain those. AI can be used to present options, but the accountability always rests with the human (at least for now).
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#539Earlier 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…
Did You build it? Or did you manage the build of it? Could you have done it without AI? If not, you didn't do it. A drill is just a tool. You can screw a screw without one. AI is just a tool, you can do things without it, too. But AI applied in a manner you could not otherwise complete on your own is not a tool. It's a slave. None of the ideas or creations presented in that instance are your own. You just cheated som…
Your comment is a perfect example of the low-quality reflexivity negativity AI I am talking about. Yes, of course I built it! Why do I have to defend myself? What does it even mean that I "cheated someone out of a paycheck" -- it's my own hobby project!
Re: Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
#540>> Let’s face it: by the time I manually ship version 1.0 of a product, the AI-assisted version could have been deployed 10x faster. By then, enough real-world feedback would have surfaced to identify the major issues, and tools like Claude Code would make it possible to fix and ship version 2.0 at an incredible pace. Really depends on what you are shipping, what your users expect and what your personal preference is…
It's extremely useful for UIs. As a front-end guy, if I owned a project I would have the API AI-assisted and UI AI-driven.
as a back end guy, UI is a savior when it comes to UI, it's not perfect but it's much better than what I can code on my own.