Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#81

Post by JKCalhoun » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

dcastm wrote: post #28

Many people who enjoyed building and coding things are going through this right now, myself included. In my case, I felt that I was pretty good at rapid product prototyping and had made that part of my identity. Then AI agents made it trivial. It took me some time to process and accept that reality. But I’m okay with it now. I simply had to move on. After a while, I found two things that have helped: 1. Leaning into…

Me, programmer by trade (well, before I retired). But now I use LLMs to help me with electronic (hardware) projects. As a hobbyist (and a somewhat dim bulb when it comes to electronics) it's been a pretty good match. I've been enjoying creating projects that were perhaps just out of reach before LLMs. (Either that or they are a bit improved for having the LLM over my shoulder.)

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#82

Post by senordevnyc » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC

steinbeck wrote: post #40

I don’t get it. The premise is flawed. AI does not create world shattering products. You haven’t made any big hits either (with or without AI). What’s changed? Use AI all you want, that isn’t going to bring your passion to life. It’s no different than using an IDE or React or GitHub. The world is still starving for novel experiences and solutions to annoying problems and clunky workflows. AI hasn’t changed that. It h…

Kinda surprised the steinbeck username wasn’t taken before now…

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#83

Post by MotoriX » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:39 PM UTC

xerios wrote: post #23

When using AI you're not the one doing the work, thus you don't feel the same satisfaction as crafting something yourself, nor does it incite any passion. I had the same feeling at some point, until I went back to coding by hand just to exercise my skills, and I have to say after a while it felt so much better and I was hooked on working my little side project. Using AI doesn't scratch the same itch for me.

I kept the classic way of coding for myself, just for fun, and use AI for the fast-paced coding.

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#84

Post by VCFundedGenYer » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

AI has systematically destroyed the tech industry, as well as any adjacent hobby or interest that requires tech.

This is burning people out at astronomical rates. We had a principal engineer randomly quit and he said he is straight up leaving IT and not coming back due to the AI nonsense. I've heard this same story across the tech world as well - people are done with this garbage.

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#85

Post by bugbull » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

k310 wrote: post #62

Suggestion from left field. Solve problems. There are plenty of unsolved problems in this world. Rather than rant how seniors still live mostly analog lives because "tech is aimed at 20-somethings", the old saying goes, solving problems that don't make a quick buck and scale to insane (and as we see with Meta, unsustainable) sizes [0] but which meet needs is the definition of "value". No trillion dollar IPO, just pro…

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Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#86

Post by bugbull » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

worldsavior wrote: post #77

Find another hobby, or find another way to make you enjoy coding. Understand underneath what drove you to coding and apply it somewhere else.

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Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#87

Post by red-iron-pine » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

because you are a primate and not a vessel for capitalistic expansion and wealth accumulation.

take a look at how often lions just kinda, like, sit there.

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#88

Post by adamtaylor_13 » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:23 PM UTC

The anecdata I'm seeing is that people whose identity was "I am a good coder" are experiencing an (understandable) disorientation and even identity loss.

That appears to be the crux of it. There are still fun problems to be tackled. In fact, I'm having a ton of fun figuring out how to use AI to build subtractive solutions: solutions that remove, or reduce to enhance what is left.

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#89

Post by greenowl » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

mstaoru wrote: post #76

It is very difficult. I consider myself reasonably skilled in AI usage (multiple harnesses, skills, MCP, etc). I use only the latest models: Opus 5, GPT 5.6 Sol. I experiment with different plan-build-evaluate frameworks like GSD, OpenSpec, Superpowers. I have a reasonable AGENTS.md without much cruft: test coverage ~80%, ASD-STE100 English, use uv - things like that. I can churn out single-use scripts and micro-proj…

Once you let AI into a large codebase there's no going back. It's a virus that slowly takes over.

Re: Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

#90

Post by monkpit » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

Depression