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Not everyone is using AI for everything

gabrielweinberg.com

231–240 of 565 posts

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just write it yourself?

If you already know what the inputs/outputs are, why should you spend days or weeks of your life typing it out rather than giving it in a well-specified and tested form to an LLM to get it done a hundred times faster?

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Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#232
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think AI has any real value for software development, personally. The quality just isn't there, unless you invest so much effort that you may as well have written it yourself. But the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, and even though I think the industry will get over the idiocy of having LLMs write software, there's no telling how long that will take. So it's a scary time to work i…

I envy you. For me, AI is faster than the code I write myself in many, many cases. It might replace the average developer, but a talented developer like you probably won't be replaced

I was not hired to write code, but to solve problems (where often the end result is code, but it’s not the whole process). But the message from management is that our bottleneck was coding, and by using AI to code, we’ll be 10x faster and all the company problem will be solved. Essentially 1. Use AI everywhere 2. ??? 3. Profit.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#233

I understand the point being made, but it does feel a bit like writing a post in the early days of the internet saying: "No, everyone is not using the internet for everything." Which would have been entirely true when written, and entirely false a relatively short time later. Everyone does use the internet for everything today, and everyone will use AI for everything soon.

In my non-tech circle, most people don't even realize how the internet is running literally everything. Even if we start to use mass scale AI for something, they wouldn't realize or care much about it. They at best turn on the TV to watch netflix or look at the phone to send messages on whatsapp. If all of that went away tomorrow, they'd be inconvenienced at best and then go on with their day to day life. This feels…

"They at best turn on the TV to watch netflix or look at the phone to send messages on whatsapp. If all of that went away tomorrow, they'd be inconvenienced at best and then go on with their day to day life."

I'm not saying it is a good thing, but this is completely out of touch with how dependent (most) people are on these technologies.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#234
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not having used agents and not being able to comment on what to do and what not to do with them is immediate out since early this year. From all the tech that we have, agents are really not that hard to learn on the job. They're also not a magical silver bullet.

True, but please don't give job seekers false hope with this statement. I commonly see 60 - 180 applicants for one open position. Good luck finding a hiring manager who wants to take a bet instead of going with proven experience. I think upskilling is the right move in this environment and it is dead simple: Invest a couple of days to show initiative, learn agents yourself and be able to speak from true experience.

I love that we’re already talking about “proven experience” for a technology that’s essentially 15 months old, arguably only broke into the mainstream 3-6 months ago, has an unclear RoI for many companies, and seems to be changing quickly in both cost and “best practices.”

You’re more or less admitting that you’re playing trendy tech lottery. Which is fine, but maybe not generalizable to the whole industry.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#235
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If whoever is hiring is actually good at their job: yes. That is of course assuming that they're looking for some long-term stable team member. A skilled interviewer smells dishonesty. However, and to be fair, whether and how they act on it depends on the specific situation.

What is this "skilled interviewer" thing and where have you seen it?

While this industry surely is frustrating and full of pitiful fraudsters, I don't think that what you're saying is fair or leading us anywhere.

Most of our stuff in this world actually does work, and the reason why it does is that skilled (teams of) people that care have built it. Meaning that these people can be found in many _many_ places.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#236
post #72

On the post-grad job hunt right now - I note that most employers will ask in a technical interview or whiteboard interview "how are you using LLMs?" It's tough to answer because you want to hedge for both an AI enthused employer and an AI hesitant employer with limited information about who they are and how they personally use these products. I've been responding with a sort of long winded answer about how 'there is…

Replying as a hiring manager since this might help other post-grad job seekers: - Any long-winded answer to a question is immediate out and has been for years. - Not having used agents and not being able to comment on what to do and what not to do with them is immediate out since early this year.

What does "use agents" mean from your perspective? Just Claude Code with some MCPs? Or like a full on GasTown type setup?

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#237
post #69

Some of the advantages are second order. For example; ChatGPT is replacing my Google searching. Not necessarily because it's better, or because it's summaries are better than Google (I find them subjectively better but it's not clear cut). But because the app has a nice history; can ask a relatively complicated question and go do something else and then come back to it, ask a follow up. Etc. None of that is specifica…

That's funny, Google Gemini and AI mode in search has replaced my ChatGPT prompting, because I know Gemini will correctly cite sources (as of course it's by Google) rather than hallucinating. Also, Gemini is free or at least has much higher usage limits than ChatGPT or Claude, and it's well integrated into Android and soon Apple with their new Siri, so things like circle to search just work well.

That's totally fair and things may change. For me its the history and the fact I can come back to it.

If I am honest I believe my final solution will be a combination of Open Claw, a custom knowledge wiki based on Wikmd. I just need a good all for Claw with history that is as good as gpt

Edit: and context too. It inferred my energy supplier from previously chats and so when I just asked a pertinent question it referenced their policy. Admittedly Google will have way more context if they get the product right.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#238
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to work for an employer, and not have to compromise your values and or professional integrity. The attitude suggested by your response suggests you haven't lived that reality yet. Either way, I'd rather be rejected by an employer for speaking my truth, than lie to be somewhere I'd rather not be.

This a very condescending and privileged comment. The job market is much different when you're just starting out, and it's especially brutal these days for new grads.

It is not. I made that choice in the past and will do it again.

"Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes"

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#239
I think the gap is because 1. For coding, Claude is amazing - mainly because of its curated skills and because massive amounts of working code has already been carefully labeled over the last decade or so via GitHub. And because with any Turing complete language, there is only so much one can do.

But 2. For most other things, LLMs are fairly underwhelming. Research is usually mediocre. Try being rigorous and repeat your research prompt many times - then make a confusion matrix to tally up how many false positives and false negatives occur. And for the rest, be honest and ask yourself if the LLM is doing much more than a basic search engine query or trip to Wikipedia would have told you. For “normie” use cases, it’s handy-ish but far from revolutionary

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#240
> More than 30 percent of the US working-age population is using AI [meaning about 70% isn’t], an increase of 3 percentage points from the end of 2025

This makes me less bearish on the AI investments that are being made, if 70% of the working age population isn't using AI then there still is a lot of growth. The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed (yet)

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