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Taste Is All That's Left

notashelf.dev

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Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#141

Post by notashelf »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #139

I think the "taste" described here actually can be formulated as a measurable quantity, just one that can't be accurately measured in practice . According to James Shore's 2006 essay "Quality With a Name" [0], "good design" amounts to nothing more or less than minimising the expected engineering time needed to create a good enough product over the space of changes that are likely to be needed during its lifetime (I'm…

I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to conclude AI can acquire what I have described, and would continue to defend as taste. The real question, then, could be whether its acquired taste renders you obsolete? So what if you can be replaced, what then? A question that popped into my mind is whether taste, as immeasurable as a metric as it is, would be what keeps you relevant just enough to matter.

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#142

Post by madrox »

We've been talking about taste for a year now as it relates to AI, so I'm going to counterpoint it: if competitors can reproduce your features, UX, and visual decisions within days, your taste is not really an advantage. How many apps implemented pull down to refresh once one person did it? How many people even remember (or care) whose taste spawned that UX pattern? [1]

AI is not inaugurating an age of taste. It is shortening the half-life of taste and commoditizing software. What happens when software features, UX, and visual fidelity aren't competitive advantages anymore? If you ask me, it looks like business did in the 90s. We'll probably see the return of department store software in the next few years.

1: for the record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull-to-refresh

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#144

Post by scotty79 »

devin wrote: post #130
scotty79 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. Scarcity forces you to do with what you have. Only in abundance, only when you can have everything, you have room and reason to develop taste.

It is quite the opposite in my experience.

Who had historically the most taste? The rich or the poor? And who had the worst taste? The people who grew up in poverty mindset that got rich. These are widely shared, common cultural observations.

You need a long term, persistent abundance to develop and even have a use for taste.

I don't see why would software be any different.

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#145

Post by ryoshu »

boron1006 wrote: post #128

I don’t like the term taste, but the problem that I have is that LLMs don’t seem to work “good enough”. They seem to be able to solve the immediate problem, but stacking this on the scale of 3-4 devs over 6 months or so doesn’t seem to produce anything. One thing that I’m particularly frustrated with is the writing quality of LLMs. Like this is the thing that they should be able to do, but I would say almost everythi…

I like judgement. Taste is a subset.

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#146

Post by notashelf »

boron1006 wrote: post #128

I don’t like the term taste, but the problem that I have is that LLMs don’t seem to work “good enough”. They seem to be able to solve the immediate problem, but stacking this on the scale of 3-4 devs over 6 months or so doesn’t seem to produce anything. One thing that I’m particularly frustrated with is the writing quality of LLMs. Like this is the thing that they should be able to do, but I would say almost everythi…

I'll risk sounding antagonistic and ask you this: if LLMs are not "good enough", why are they still around?

Obviously "good enough" was a poor pick of words of words on my behalf---and I'll gladly own it---but they should be "good enough" for something if a significant amount of resources keep getting allocated to them. Yes on a very personal level you look at LLM-generated code and think to yourself "wow this is garbage" but what about the people, as pointed out many times in this thread, that simply do not care? Does that not count as "good enough"?

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#147

Post by derangedHorse »

madrox wrote: post #142

We've been talking about taste for a year now as it relates to AI, so I'm going to counterpoint it: if competitors can reproduce your features, UX, and visual decisions within days, your taste is not really an advantage. How many apps implemented pull down to refresh once one person did it? How many people even remember (or care) whose taste spawned that UX pattern? [1] AI is not inaugurating an age of taste. It is s…

It's not about being the only person doing it, it's about choosing to include it. Many don't know what works and what doesn't. Being able to discern a set of features that are cohesive to a smooth experience is taste. Innovating and establishing oneself as the first person to deliver those experiences is a moat in itself.

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#148

Post by dmarcos »

madrox wrote: post #142

We've been talking about taste for a year now as it relates to AI, so I'm going to counterpoint it: if competitors can reproduce your features, UX, and visual decisions within days, your taste is not really an advantage. How many apps implemented pull down to refresh once one person did it? How many people even remember (or care) whose taste spawned that UX pattern? [1] AI is not inaugurating an age of taste. It is s…

Also Microsoft couldn’t match Apple taste with effectively all resources in the world. And they really tried.

True taste is interesting because is more like a worldview, a modus operandi, a continuous process… those are harder to replicate.

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#149

Post by ryeights »

ricardobeat wrote: post #131
vor_ wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've updated the article to state that no LLM was used.

The update itself has strong AI tells: > I do write like this sometimes. The short sentences, the reversals, the one-word lines—all of it. It’s just the way it is. > That says something about my writing. It says nothing about who wrote it. > So let me be plain about it: Claude was not here. No LLM wrote this—not a sentence of it, nor was it outlined, drafted, reviewed, checked, etc. by one Either the author is doing…

Right, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading all the comments taking this article seriously.

I think AI has broken HN. The readership is so head-in-the-sand about AI that they wouldn't recognize 2000 words of Claudeslop if it genuinely slapped them in the face

Re: Taste Is All That's Left

#150

Post by SCLeo »

notashelf wrote: post #146
boron1006 wrote: post #128

I don’t like the term taste, but the problem that I have is that LLMs don’t seem to work “good enough”. They seem to be able to solve the immediate problem, but stacking this on the scale of 3-4 devs over 6 months or so doesn’t seem to produce anything. One thing that I’m particularly frustrated with is the writing quality of LLMs. Like this is the thing that they should be able to do, but I would say almost everythi…

I'll risk sounding antagonistic and ask you this: if LLMs are not "good enough", why are they still around? Obviously "good enough" was a poor pick of words of words on my behalf---and I'll gladly own it---but they should be "good enough" for something if a significant amount of resources keep getting allocated to them. Yes on a very personal level you look at LLM-generated code and think to yourself "wow this is gar…

> I'll risk sounding antagonistic and ask you this: if LLMs are not "good enough", why are they still around?

To quote the parent commenter:

> They seem to be able to solve the immediate problem,

but not long term

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