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Not everyone is using AI for everything

gabrielweinberg.com

261–270 of 565 posts

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#261
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

You’ve actively made the choice to go hungry instead of hedging your answers during an interview?

I certainly feigned enthusiasm when I was in high school to get an after school job in order to help my family buy food.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then, do you put AI into it anyway because they asked for it, or do you tell them that you won’t do that?

> you tell them that you won’t do that? Of course I will do that, I get paid for doing that. Most of the times I can convince that AI is not necessary by showing small PoC flow with AWS diagrams of data flows. This works well especially if the ask comes from technical people. Other times the C-level interjects (CEO, CFO, sometimes even CTO) and demands that AI should be there. I literally had CEOs send me instagram r…

Use 'AI' to create anti-AI reels showing how much they suck at all tasks. Spam CEO's underlings.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. I made that choice in the past and will do it again. "Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes"

You should really examine your situation and beliefs if you think this isn’t a privileged position to be in.

Hacker news is full of people having given up, building torment nexii and coping/rationalizing _incredibly_ hard.

So while I agree that privilege is certainly a factor, so is what I've just said.

A lot of people here live very cushy lives that cushion them from very pointy thoughts and questions. As someone who too has to live in this world, I'd rather they didn't.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your post on Who's Hiring provides some needed context... want a Flutter developer who is unusually strong at directing AI-driven software delivery. This is not a traditional "write the code yourself" role. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223956

Not wrong. But my statement is true across organizations I have worked with in the past year, several of them not AI-native.

You've worked as a hiring manager at several organizations in the past year?

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. I made that choice in the past and will do it again. "Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes"

You’ve actively made the choice to go hungry instead of hedging your answers during an interview? I certainly feigned enthusiasm when I was in high school to get an after school job in order to help my family buy food.

Yes.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#266
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

>* I made that choice in the past*

You were replying to “The job market is much different when you're just starting out”. The past is not now, and you are not just starting out, so your comparison of their position and yours is invalid IMO.

> and will do it again.

Good for you for sticking to your guns, I'm about to do the same with a company that has all but said “dig into AI or get left behind”¹, but those starting out as freshly minted grads likely do not have the luxuries that we might have² and the jobs market is freakishly competitive for them right now³ in a way that I don't think it ever has been before.

--------

[1] time will tell if I leave of my own volition before getting kicked!

[2] experience (both actual experience and experience “talking the talk”) to help getting the next gig, a mortgage paid off so making ends meet is easier, etc.

[3] It had been heading that way for a while, the recent explosion of GenAI+agnetics has made it worse.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#267
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…

One trick is to ask them that question first to gauge their perspective on it first

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. I made that choice in the past and will do it again. "Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes"

I think it depends. The people that I know that have made significant sacrifices to live along their morals are usually people who 1) are intensely bitter when others will not sacrifice as much as them; 2) are completely understanding of people who will not sacrifice as much as them or acknowledge that they simply have less to sacrifice than others. For example someone who is willing to live the "dirtbag" lifestyle o…

In the end, everyone makes their own choices.

I don't want to preach martyrdom, but I am also offended by people choosing moral bankruptcy when faced with even the slightest hardships.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#269
post #82
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…

> 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. Have you considered just answering truthfully? Would you even want to work somewhere where you need to play a role and where they flip out when you say the wrong word you should've correctly guessed through mind reading? T…

> Have you considered just answering truthfully?

It's 2026, you gotta sell your soul just to get a phone screening

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#270
It's important to factor in just how many US adults are basically illiterate nowadays.

As of 2023, 27% of American working-age adults were at a PIAAC Literacy Level of 1 or below, out of a total of 5 levels. This has gotten drastically worse in the past 10 years as, in 2013, Level 1 and below was only 17%.

Full scores for 2023 are: % Level 1 or below: 27% Level 2: 29% Level 3: 31% Level 4/5: 13%

For reference, Level 1 means someone can't really handle a full page of text, and can sort of handle simple 1-page web pages. Level 2 is the point where someone can start to handle a few pages of straightforward text, but still nothing particularly complicated.

(Both of those descriptions undersell just how bad it really is, but I'll leave it at that, for the sake of brevity.)

People that aren't using AI at all often aren't using it because they effectively can't. On a fundamental level.

Source: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp

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