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We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
91–100 of 283 posts
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#92Competence Does Not Mean What You Think it Means.
Please don't fucking tell people that AI is competent. It is not and it cannot ever be because it is not alive.
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#93https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Bough_Breaks_(Star_Tr...
Amazing how we always have a Trek episode for everything.
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
You started with logic gates. How much EE did you do, or the actual physics that makes the transistor possible? Those are the previous (deeper) levels that people had to know before they got abstracted away.
When I took software focused computer engineering around 2010, we still had courses that took us all the way down to transistors and even the physics of P and N junctions and how that applies to CMOS. (And even some basic analog electronics.) Did I end up an expert at those layers? Of course not, but I know the basics and I know enough that if I need to I know where to start learning more. Just like I wasn't a C++ or…
Similar experience in the 90s, but we don't really know the intricacies of doping silicone, or smelting metal to make the pins. And what about mining it?
I think the last time people knew how things were made was in preindustrial societies because they had to build everything themselves (whatever little things they had)
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#95The graybeards are aging out, nobody compiles their kernel anymore, and someday something deep will break and there will be no one left who can climb down and fix it.
I dunno. I suspect it'll be slightly different in the OSS world[1]. There will be some folks who can climb down there and fix it, but since that skill is no longer valued (as in, being able to do that isn't valued by most users now, much less in some hypothetical future). And they will be expected to do that, now, without thanks. And when they say "I'm too old for this shit...you can go pound sand" because this was one unpaid insult too many, users will shrug their shoulders and load windows or buy a mac because those companies are paying & tasking people to keep things running. And by inches oss ceases to be a thing.
[1] Yes, I know there are many oss devs who get paid for their work. Many critical contributors do not.
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#96Yes, it was not easy to install and play a game on the computer in the 90's. Today, we also don't want to wait for the game to boot.
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#97A shame that Pangram flags this as AI.
https://www.pangram.com/history/c0a9cde2-7a5c-4588-83a3-0269...
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#98@ryancbriggs - 18 Oct 2024 > When I was young I fixed my parents’ computer and now that I’m older I fix computers for my kids. Are we the only generation that knows how computers work? https://x.com/ryancbriggs/status/1847391612428517844 https://xcancel.com/ryancbriggs/status/1847391612428517844
No, that person is just the only one in his family who knows how computers work. There's plenty of people in generations both older and younger that know too, just apparently not his parents or his kids. Some of the most impressive assembly written today is by people younger than 20. It'll be fine.
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#99I doubt you ever understood the solid state physics, semiconductor fabrication processes, supply chain logistics, monetary policy, shipping routes, mining engineering, etc. "Knowing how things work" is a stone-age attitude.
It's not hard to understand the physics and fabrication.
The rest of that isn't part of how a computer works.
Re: We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works
#100Folks who keep mentioning that this is no different than any previous upward leap of abstraction in human history are missing a key point that the frontier labs are certainly not missing: this is the first time in computing that you are becoming completely dependent on a _subscription service_. I don't need to know how my CPU works because it continues to work once built. Once I outsource all cognition to a billable…
But this too shall pass, it used to be you were dependent on a subscription to just have access to a computer itself (mainframe) and now we all have one in our pockets. I’m sure some day we will be able to run something as good as Claude at home.