Live data from Hacker News

AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

hermit-tech.com

51–60 of 183 posts

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#52
post #4

There are some good points, and I ask the question of where is the ground breaking stuff myself, but severely weakened by * stretching the timeline: the actual real programming ability appeared in LLMs in the last 6-8 months, not 3-4 years, * using the weakest possible tool: and I bought $10 worth of DeepSeek credits that is a far cry from Claude with Fable. Also, I know nothing about marathons but for most uses putt…

Even as someone using AI on the regular I'm starting to hate the "You didn't actually use this exact most expensive model so your point is invalid" argument. This is fair to say if someones last experience with AI was copy-pasting code into GPT3 chat windows years ago, but Deepseek is a more than capabale model and enough for someone to get an informed opinion about the technology. If people have actual counter argum…

In this case, the argument is valid though. Only recently have some of the models become powerful enough (for some) to actually be useful in day to day programming, without too much hand-holding. For most, this change occurred with the introduction of Claude Opus, and OpenAI and Google have caught up. Unfortunately, none of the "open" models is at this level yet.

The field is moving fast, and asking for scientific arguments is not realistic. It takes an extreme amount of effort to show what exactly is different.

We were in a similar position with static vs dynamic typing for decades. There is still no scientific proof that one is better than the other, but it is quite obvious to professionals which flavor works better in a given situation.

So, even though the argument might be sloppy, I subscribe to it. Using DeepSeek to dismiss better models is the bad argument here.

Edit: added "(for some)" as a disclaimer that you still need to be a fairly decent programmer to actually benefit.

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#53
post #23

If one truly believes it's not in a bubble, then borrow and leverage an unlimited amount and bet the house & your family on creating a business with infinite growth and value. Don't know how to do your own prompts? Borrow and then hire others to do it for you. If those who you hire don't know, they can hire others too.* [* This is not financial advice. Please don't actually do this.]

You could make the converse argument, too: why don't you borrow and leverage and bet and short these AI companies, if you so vehemently think it's a bubble? The bottom line is that markets are complicated, useful technologies are often accompanied by bubbles, investors are not always rational, and people generally try to make the best decision with the information they have available. The answer is likely somewhere i…

You mean for companies that make -$2.50 for every $1 of revenue, and bury their groups $2Tn debt in a footnote?

It is not a question of if the bubble will go, but when... but you are right that Bears or Bulls always get it wrong predicting the future (if they are a legal investor.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTiYaWFP59Q

Personally, Shrek movie release correlation with market corrections is funny, and a new film is due June 2027. Please hedge your bets with a diversified portfolio. =3

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#54
post #3

> Uses only DeepSeek and comes to the conclusion that LLM's are bad at coding? Why not use actual frontier models, and you know do some real research, before writing a blog post?

> do some real research It is funny that only real research on productivity gains from AI shows at best very minimal gains, but AI bros will always tell you "no no no, you have used wrong model, try a different one, there are more of them, you have to try, trust me" and call that a "research".

Show me the research you are talking about.

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#55
post #20
post #9

> The chatbot recommended some of the dumbest shit you could possibly do The "I tried it and it sucked" is borderline conspiratorial at this point. There are enough talented, thoughtful developers saying there's something real here, and it is worth believing them and investing some time to understand it, even if you come out the other side and decide you don't want to use LLMs. Use a very good model. Set up a good ha…

You describe my experience with Claude (except my gut feeling is that system prompts and especially skills are useless, and I've even done limited testing that agrees with that). However, your discourse is not the usual borderline religious discourse that's used by LLM advocates. You're not extreme enough either pro or against LLMs :)

> except my gut feeling is that system prompts and especially skills are useless

I tend to agree. Not with the extreme version of this statement: there are some genuinely useful instructions I give in my Claude.md and prompts. Comment style, how much to push back, which subagents to orchestrate for tests, reviews, etc.

But I've tried the single-sentence versions of those and versions with multiple files of long prompts for the orchestrator and its subagents, and I can't tell the difference in output quality. If anything, the shorter version is better

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#56

If one truly believes it's not in a bubble, then borrow and leverage an unlimited amount and bet the house & your family on creating a business with infinite growth and value. Don't know how to do your own prompts? Borrow and then hire others to do it for you. If those who you hire don't know, they can hire others too.* [* This is not financial advice. Please don't actually do this.]

While I do believe its a bubble, that seems like a silly viewpoint that presumes infinite risk tolerance.

Going long is not infinite, you only risk what you bet.

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#57
I don't disagree with the title of this weblog post, but its premise is wrong: the existence of AI has an impact on the total number of tech companies, but not on the number of companies that make it real big (the AirBnBs, Stripes and Dropboxes the author is looking for).

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#58
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the failure is in trying only one model / one prompt.

Right. Better throw money at 5 different ones and then people come and tell you that you just need MORE agents and throw MORE money at it or you're not doing it right.

I am convinced coding agent makes me extra productive.

I'm also convinced the effect would not be there If I had a 10$ budget.

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#59
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make the converse argument, too: why don't you borrow and leverage and bet and short these AI companies, if you so vehemently think it's a bubble? The bottom line is that markets are complicated, useful technologies are often accompanied by bubbles, investors are not always rational, and people generally try to make the best decision with the information they have available. The answer is likely somewhere i…

> You could make the converse argument, too: why don't you borrow and leverage and bet and short these AI companies, if you so vehemently think it's a bubble? Because going long and going short are very different. For successfully shorting something you need to have a pretty precise estimate of when the crash will happen. Being a comparatively short time off can cost you everything.

Also, the volatility of leveraging positions often costs more than any gain over the long term.

Most look forward to picking up the assets at a heavy discount. =3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE75WvOtcu8

Re: AI Can Make You Suck Faster Too

#60
Bit of a humbling/jarring moment when I realized that people are doing real paid work using LLMs that they could not otherwise do. I mean, it's quite obvious I suppose. But up until now I just assumed it was only a (massive) catalyst for things people would already be able to do with enough time. But nope -- it seems people are right now employed in roles that they would not be able to fulfil the tasks within if AI wasn't there telling them what to write/say/produce. Nobody is really going to come out and say that ... it's not something the less-AI-literate superiors would take kindly to.
Post reply on HN