Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

blog.miguelgrinberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 221 posts

Re: I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

#51

Post by jrm4 »

dude250711 wrote: post #7
ctoth wrote: post #3

The thing is I totally, 100% get this. The other thing I can't help but see though is how excited my non-programmer friends are to finally be able to make software. The sense of pride and accomplishment from non-coders who are finally able to make something work the way they wanted to. We almost need like ... noncanonical software? Not so much forks, but like ... Maybe software as like a cluster? an ecosystem? On-dem…

When they shoot a little artistic clip with their nice modern iPhone camera, it does not mean they get to insert it into a Hollywood movie.

This is so good, I wonder if op did it on purpose.

Orders of magnitude more people can now make an absolutely "Hollywood quality" movie, precisely due to their nice modern iPhone cameras.

The only question now is, how do we make it so more people can see the good ones?

Re: I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

#52

Post by keiferski »

oytis wrote: post #39
ctoth wrote: post #3

The thing is I totally, 100% get this. The other thing I can't help but see though is how excited my non-programmer friends are to finally be able to make software. The sense of pride and accomplishment from non-coders who are finally able to make something work the way they wanted to. We almost need like ... noncanonical software? Not so much forks, but like ... Maybe software as like a cluster? an ecosystem? On-dem…

Who gets a sense of accoplishment from prompting an LLM? Do you get a sense of accomplishment when AI draws a picture or writes a poem for you? I guess there are some minds I'll never be able to comprehend

Don’t think of it as creating art, but as solving a frustrating computer problem. For people that aren’t technical, computers are often irritatingly obtuse and unclear if you’re trying to get something to work in a particular way.

Re: I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

#53

Post by mostlysimilar »

john_strinlai wrote: post #37
mostlysimilar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does matter. Drawing a stick figure and having a machine print over it with a realistic image doesn't make you an artist, and no, you shouldn't be proud of it.

is there a list somewhere that i can check what i am allowed to be proud of and what i am not allowed to be proud of? edit: if anyone wants to enlighten me, why do you care if someone is proud of something? does it hurt you somehow?

No, but come on. If you insert a computer into your brain and wake up tomorrow speaking German, would you be proud you could speak German? Wouldn't you rather work diligently to learn the language and be proud of that effort?

Re: I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

#54

Post by seanlinehan »

oytis wrote: post #39
ctoth wrote: post #3

The thing is I totally, 100% get this. The other thing I can't help but see though is how excited my non-programmer friends are to finally be able to make software. The sense of pride and accomplishment from non-coders who are finally able to make something work the way they wanted to. We almost need like ... noncanonical software? Not so much forks, but like ... Maybe software as like a cluster? an ecosystem? On-dem…

Who gets a sense of accoplishment from prompting an LLM? Do you get a sense of accomplishment when AI draws a picture or writes a poem for you? I guess there are some minds I'll never be able to comprehend

One can reason by analogy here.

In a pre-LLM world, a classic software team would have PMs, designers, and engineers.

Of those three, the PM wouldn't have any real role in writing code. And they would rarely contribute a ton to the design. What they would be contributing is ideas, market insights, coordination, prioritization, etc.

When the product ships, one would expect the PM to feel a real sense of accomplishment. They helped this idea become a _real thing_! All of that pride, despite not writing a single line of code nor polishing any pixels themselves. And I don't think anybody would reasonably look down on them for that feeling.

Same thing with using LLMs. Sure, you didn't write the code. But you caused the thing to exist! That's exciting!

Re: I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

#55

Post by layer8 »

> My perception is that there is less interest in open source, and in coding in general. The main reason I love coding is that it is a challenge, and I think this is actually the same reason why a lot of people prefer to give money to an AI lab and get a machine to spit out code for them, even with the risk of the code being subpar.

I maintain the hope that those technically minded who are really interested in coding and care about doing things properly using their own reasoning on all levels of detail will find each other and maybe become less diluted as a community by the coding-just-for-money crowd than in the past decade or two.

Re: I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

#57

Post by john_strinlai »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #53
john_strinlai wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there a list somewhere that i can check what i am allowed to be proud of and what i am not allowed to be proud of? edit: if anyone wants to enlighten me, why do you care if someone is proud of something? does it hurt you somehow?

No, but come on. If you insert a computer into your brain and wake up tomorrow speaking German, would you be proud you could speak German? Wouldn't you rather work diligently to learn the language and be proud of that effort?

would i? no.

would i care if someone else is proud in that scenario? also no.

Re: I Am Not a Reverse Centaur

#60

Post by aidenn0 »

I first encountered the following concept in one of Oxide's publications; good chance it didn't originate there though:

There is an implicit social contract with writing that the writer has put more effort into writing than the reader will need to read something. Sure you get crackpots still, but there are only so many Gene Rays in this world, so the volume is limited.

I think the same applies to PRs. Pre-AI , it was usually obvious when a PR was either completely terrible or very half-baked, and the required effort to create even a shitty PR was usually more than that required to reject it.

AI makes it trivial to make a completely terrible PR, and much easier to make a not-immediately-obviously-bad PR.

Post reply on HN