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

The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

theocharis.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 330 posts

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#241

Post by mono442 »

Aurornis wrote: post #204
ra0x3 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Devs have relatively no incentive to be more productive for their orgs, and all the incentive to be more productive on their own personal work. The AI benefit to devs is real, just not for large enterprises IMO outside of automating clerical/mundane work.

> Devs have relatively no incentive to be more productive for their orgs, and all the incentive to be more productive on their own personal work. AI definitely supercharges the side project myth, but I think we’re going to see waves of developers quitting or losing their jobs because they’re chasing dreams of running a side code project that isn’t going to turn into a business. The incentive to be more productive at…

If the salaries fall then there would be no highly motivated juniors.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#242

Post by rwyinuse »

fragmede wrote: post #240
annzabelle wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Claude is shockingly slow. If it were genuinely instantaneous, it would be worth it, but I often find myself twiddling my thumbs while waiting for it to cook.

Yeah that's why you do multiple tasks and projects simultaneously.

Humans notoriously suck at context-switching. I doubt you can really do multiple projects simultaneously without compromising quality.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#244

Post by killerstorm »

msdz wrote: post #2

> LLM’s amplify what you already have: opinions, structure, frameworks. So far, so agreeable, but… > If you have thoughts, they come out sharper and faster. I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thou…

The part of brain which cares about efficiency and waste have "atrophied" decades ago in most devs. More likely they just never cared...

E.g.

> A 1.6GB Docker image for a Node app. Every code change rebuilds npm install from scratch. CI takes 8 minutes for a one-line fix.

> The team's proposal: add more CI runners.

Would it be surprising if that team makes a React app which does 10x more requests than necessary, has 10x more JS code than necessary, flickers, etc. People just don't care, and it has nothing to do with AI. "Engineering" is too big of a word for this kind of activity.

On the other hand, I think AI can amplify capabilities of those people who still care, and it's a good thing.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#245

Post by dominicrose »

mekdoonggi wrote: post #70
mark_and_sweep wrote: post #61

> a genuinely good tool that enriches your thinking A smartphone is also a genuinely good all-around tool. Even social media is a genuinely good tool for connecting people. Yet, I feel like we've been overly optimistic about the impact of said tools on us and our societies in the past two decades. Smartphones are so good, in fact, in some societies, half of us are addicted to them. Billions of people world-wide. I as…

I agree with this. Tools are good, betting the farm on a single tool is bad. Example, cars are good. Betting the farm on cars to the detriment of bikes, buses, and trains is clearly bad. The tool of an llm is clearly handy. Betting trillions of dollars and linking the future of the nation and globe to this tool is clearly bad.

Yes instead of investing everything in AI the USA should invest in electric versions of their vehicles and in trains that can safely carry them because of their lack of range.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#246

Post by sivakon »

> And then there are the geopolitical tensions. What happens if China or the US cut us off overnight from these technologies? Just a couple of weeks ago the US government showed it was able and willing to cut off non-US citizens from Anthropic’s latest frontier model.

The only evidence you have is US here and all the frontier models from China are free to download. Pure projection.

You can read China's AI strategy here: https://ipc.court.gov.cn/zh-cn/news/view-5766.html

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#247

Post by mcv »

grayhatter wrote: post #57
msdz wrote: post #2

> LLM’s amplify what you already have: opinions, structure, frameworks. So far, so agreeable, but… > If you have thoughts, they come out sharper and faster. I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thou…

> Conversely, I also am a user of LLMs (true shocker these days, I know), and am noticing a speedup in areas I was already familiar with, and a quicker introduction to new ones. The obvious benefit cannot be denied, and doing so regardless makes you look uninformed. [Excluding people who don’t want anything to do with LLMs out of moral principle, which curiously just like the overarching topic I also both respect and…

LLMs can also be used to improve quality. The approach I tend to encourage, is to write the thing yourself, but let the LLM review your work.

I think that's a far better and more enjoyable way of working than letting the LLM write it and letting users review it. Partially because writing is more enjoyable than reviewing, and I think people are inherently bad at reviewing while LLMs with their infinite patience are much better at it. But also because the writing itself shapes our thinking and we learn much more from it; it makes us better in ways reviewing the LLM's work does not.

That said, I do let AI write a lot for me, because I'm tackling issues that would otherwise be way too big for a single person. Is this a good idea? Maybe not in general, but iny particular context I think it is.

I'm not sure to what extent I'm fooling myself about that last bit.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#248

Post by tonyedgecombe »

> And then there is the situation about junior engineers. There are actually two different points in there: a) you cannot trust the effort behind your junior’s code anymore, and b) seniors have no incentive left to teach juniors.

If you are bringing in juniors with the expectation that they won’t produce any value for some time then it might be better to block them from using LLMs.

Do this and you will get a better understanding of where they are in the process and they will probably learn the ropes more quickly.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#249

Post by LtWorf »

rwyinuse wrote: post #242
fragmede wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's why you do multiple tasks and projects simultaneously.

Humans notoriously suck at context-switching. I doubt you can really do multiple projects simultaneously without compromising quality.

You're already vibe coding, how worse can it get?

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#250

Post by jonathanlydall »

msdz wrote: post #2

> LLM’s amplify what you already have: opinions, structure, frameworks. So far, so agreeable, but… > If you have thoughts, they come out sharper and faster. I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thou…

> Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thoughts, opinions, taste will still come out sharper and faster after five, ten, 20 years of using these tools almost every day?

It occurred to me recently how because the LLMs have to potential to lead to intellectual/skill atrophy, they are a factor which could lead to an Idiocracy-esque [0] situation.

And while it's a well-established Fermi Paradox [1] hypothesis that AI could lead to the violent destruction of a civilization, I think it's also worth considering that they could non-violently lead to their decline due to intellectual atrophy.

[0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Post reply on HN