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Not everyone is using AI for everything

gabrielweinberg.com

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Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#431

Post by Gigachad »

inigyou wrote: post #416
tripleee wrote: post #174

I fear AI is going to be used for everything not because it's the best solution, but because people are inherently lazy and just want to get their thing done, and they don't care so much about the quality. "low effort and convenient" seems to consistently win over "best quality" and this is going to be a downgrade in everything, for everyone

We already see the slopification of everything as companies have been reducing the quality of their output for many years. Look at windows 11 vs 98. Yes it does more and crashes less but is it actually better apart from that? Of the things both of them do, which one does them better? Which one runs faster? Which one is easier to use?

Windows is the result of having almost the entire market. There has been no reason for Microsoft to improve windows because it won't sell more licenses. They have already sold Windows to every person who will possibly buy it. So the only avenue for growth is selling additional services on top like cloud subscriptions, AI products, etc.

Contrast that to the last 10 years in Linux where things have become immensely better.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#432

Post by inigyou »

malfist wrote: post #417
inigyou wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make it that way on purpose, to save money.

Who is "they" and what specific actions are they taking?

The government that runs the benefits programs. They make you jump through hoops to get any benefits. The first hoop is even knowing that a program exists that you qualify for.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#433

Post by AvAn12 »

calf wrote: post #364
AvAn12 wrote: post #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 y…

I didn't understand your comment about Turing complete languages, could you explain that part please?

At the end of the day, the processor can only do Turing operations: assign values to variables (registers, memory locations, storage), loops, bitwise operations, and conditionals. Whether the source code is python, java, or lisp, it has to compile or interpret down to machine code ultimately. Likewise if the running software is a word processor, DOOM, or an LLM, at the end of the day it will be executed by the processor using the three operations. Lots of other fancy hardware and software may accelerate things but ultimately it is those ops that are the running code. The rest is many wonderful conveniences and abstractions.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#434

Post by arkaic »

nutjob2 wrote: post #48
sriram_malhar wrote: post #3

Anyone who does a Google search gets a satisfactory looking answer as the very first entry. I daresay most people don't go beyond that, not even the entries on the first page, let alone go to the next. I argue that this is at the level of everyone for everything.

When was the last time you used Google? The first entry (and a few after that) is always spam. Anyone who does a search and accepts the first answer just doesn't care much or is incompetent. Anyone with any critical thinking whatsoever does way more than that if they want a correct answer.

Google searches are still part of my everyday use if you're a power user like me that ctrl/cmd+L to the browser bar and the first auto complete is a web search rather than a bookmark or history item

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#435

Post by mike_hock »

inigyou wrote: post #416
tripleee wrote: post #174

I fear AI is going to be used for everything not because it's the best solution, but because people are inherently lazy and just want to get their thing done, and they don't care so much about the quality. "low effort and convenient" seems to consistently win over "best quality" and this is going to be a downgrade in everything, for everyone

We already see the slopification of everything as companies have been reducing the quality of their output for many years. Look at windows 11 vs 98. Yes it does more and crashes less but is it actually better apart from that? Of the things both of them do, which one does them better? Which one runs faster? Which one is easier to use?

Given the hardware these systems run on, and the compilers and development tools they had available, Win98 was actually the more impressive piece of engineering.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#437

Post by roxolotl »

matt_daemon wrote: post #428

It baffles me that Hard Fork is so popular when they regularly have such uninformed takes

I swear the Sydney incident and the subsequent dislike of Kevin by LLMs caused Kevin to believe in Roko’s Basilisk and so he’s super pro AI now.

But more likely it’s just that those who still listen to Hard Fork agree with the conclusions before listening to the podcast.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#438

Post by coldtea »

TACD wrote: post #388
coldtea wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A truthful, nuanced, well reasoned answer will be well received by an employer with a culture you want to work in. If you're into long shot betting AND your savings aren't running out while waiting to land a new job, that might be a good strategy

I don’t see why “truthful, nuanced, well reasoned” is the long-shot vs cagey and evasive.

Obviously because the latter lands more jobs.

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#439

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

"This tracks with Microsoft's new United States AI Diffusion site, based on "anonymized, aggregated Microsoft telemetry.""

Surreptitious surveillance, probably with dubious consent

Is Redmond afraid to just ask users

Then compare the data

If no one asnwers when asked then maybe that means they don't wish to allow Microsoft collect that data

"SearchLight asked about a range of technologies and to say "whether you believe the overall impact of each technology on society is positive or negative." AI only has an +8% net positive rating right now, right next to +7% for social media, which were only greater than crypto at -17%."

LOL. This is what happens when people are asked for their opinions

Re: Not everyone is using AI for everything

#440

Post by throwaway219450 »

losvedir wrote: post #236
vibe_that_works wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The former. I would not expect any candidate - especially a new grad - to have actually used GasTown style setups unless they were coming from another company with money to burn on those sorts of multiple-agent scenarios. I barely run more than one or two Claude sessions at once because it slams into the usage limit so fast.

I could steer the conversation to explore if the candidate had insight into why GasTown or other "swarm" models exist though. Do they know what a system prompt is? How context is managed/affects output? How harnesses can delegate to simpler models, and when to use different classes of model? I wouldn't expect anything particularly deep here, but bonus points for a solid understanding/experience of the tooling and how to get the most out of token budgets is valuable.

To the parent point: even if you refuse to use LLMs for whatever reason, I would expect any coding applicant to have at least tried them. I'd assume the person is living under a rock if they said no.

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