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Feeling Sad about AI

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Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#201

Post by 1234-asdv »

simonw wrote: post #171
erqtw1 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web developer who wrote some early parts of Django and has reserved the top comment spot tells us to surrender to the inevitability. There are other areas of software, and given the multitude of horrible websites that use 100% CPU and look ugly AI does not work even for web development! This is defeatist propaganda.

> given the multitude of horrible websites that use 100% CPU and look ugly AI does not work even for web development! Yes, that's my point. You need taste and engineering skill to build websites that are good even with AI assistance. My comment here is meant to be the opposite of defeatist propaganda! I'm arguing that those of us with skills and experience are becoming more, not less valuable.

It is strange then that those with skills and experience apparently refrain from building websites, since all AI websites are worse than any non-SEO website before 2023.

There isn't a single one that is good, and one that was built by a web framework developer whom I shall not name uses 100% CPU for a static website.

The point of this is that AI is unnecessary and makes products worse even with experienced people operating the AI.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#202

Post by landdate »

reenorap wrote: post #48

I feel the opposite of sad, I am very very excited. I love programming and I love technology, but the stuff I'm doing now is beyond what I could not do on my own, and now I'm spending a few hours building complete end-to-end stuff. This is the golden age for builders. I created a fully working house simulator, I made a math test creator for my kids, I fixed up some other side projects that I had and added observabili…

ambition: the feeling of innate dissatisfaction that motivates one into fixing a problem that doesn't exist.

you ambitious people have destroyed the world and humanity. if you had an ounce of self awareness you would hide your face in shame.

Those who decided its not enough to survive from hunting and gathering are demons. Farmers are rotten and their putrid large brains know nothing but more. Same mentality behind paraphelia btw. Those who are never satisfied build a hell out of their yearning. Simple minded folk deserve better than you demons. I only feel bad for them, everyone else, enjoy your suffering, you have recieved exactly what you deserve.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#203

Post by WhatsTheBigIdea »

I fully understand your sadness. The world is changing quickly and it is not clear how things will shake out. It feels like I can control or effect close to none of it.

On the bright side, you are clearly smart, literate, capable, thoughtful, high-functioning, analytical, caring and alive! You've got a lot to work with!

Adaptation is almost always driven by discomfort. It is sad to see the things and the life we love going away.

Keep your chin up, be good to yourself and the people around you, stay flexible, and just keep landing on your feet... over and over... and don't stop.

25 years ago I woke up from the sound of the first plane hitting. I watched people jump to their deaths. I watched, heard, felt, smelled the towers fall. I lost very good friends. One was an SWE working in tower 1. It sucked. It made me realize that each day is a gift. Even the days that don't go your way.

One foot in front of the other. Just keep working to bring your light to the world and you will be fine.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#204

Post by VCFundedGenYer »

bluepeter wrote: post #109

AI doomerism makes me sad, especially when it keeps popping up even in HN and Reddit tech threads. I can't help but see even this post itself as a kind of AI doomerism. Here we have the greatest innovation I've seen in my career... It's such a game-changer for me personally, and I can't wait to see what happens. But the anti-data center and anti-AI voices are rising, rising. I know that over-regulation is a real risk…

It is not a game changer for anyone, yourself included.

That is the fallacy - you think this is some amazing thing when it isn't. You're experiencing AI psychosis.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#205

Post by simonw »

discreteevent wrote: post #185
simonw wrote: post #66

I'm not sure how useful it is to say this, but I think a lot of people (myself included, a few years ago now) have been through this moment of existential crisis and come out the other side. The initial reaction, when some coding agent does a piece of work that would have taken you a week in an hour and does it well , is to be very disheartened by it. Once you come to terms with the idea that translating an exact spe…

> I'm not sure how useful it is to say this I have to be honest and say it's not very useful for me to hear you say this because you make your living from AI consulting and in a previous thread [1] you said that you don't review the code and then that you do. I'm not saying you have psychosis but your take on AI is inconsistent and confusing to me. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49179477

Yeah, that's why I said "I'm not sure how useful it is to say this", because I know a lot of people will be a) offended by the message or b) offended that I was the one to say it.

That particular reference isn't fair though. You need to view that comment in context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49176830#49178944

The issue of "do you review every line of code or not" is the single most complex in all of the conversations about the practice of applying coding agents. If my messaging on that is inconsistent it's because of that complexity, and because my understanding of that issue is evolving over time.

Just today, Boris Cherny (Claude Code creator) tweeted that "Production code written by Claude should have a higher bar than if it was written by a human": https://twitter.com/bcherny/status/2098217573276131577

I'm entirely in agreement with that. The interesting challenge is how we achieve that new high bar.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#206

Post by xpct »

hbn wrote: post #86
pram wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK man it’s a golden era for one-man indie games right now (I just finished Endacopia) and that can only increase with AI assistance. I wouldn’t be too cynical about it

That also makes it a more difficult to make it a career than ever. There's simply too many games releasing. Steam is absolutely FLOODED with new games releasing, and it's very hard to stand out. https://steamdb.info/stats/releases/

I agree. I open Steam sometimes and I'm met with a conveyor of games that look good enough for me to buy, but I can play a few of them at most before all of them are replaced with a new batch next month.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#207

Post by notpachet »

urue wrote: post #53
pixl97 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- if SWE’s are fked so is everyone else! - Technical writers: It will never be me. [Oh no, it was me] - Graphics designers: It will never be me. [Oh no, it was me] - SWE: It will never be me. [Oh no, it was me] - everybody else: Haha, Idiots, it will never be me. <- We are here.

Technical writers? Mate that job was outsourced to places like India years ago. Moreover who’s actually getting laid off? The bozo’s whose value was questionable. The good ones remain. Market does its thing. And?

Moreover who’s actually getting exterminated?

The species whose value was questionable.

The good ones remain.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#208

Post by simonw »

xnx wrote: post #187
simonw wrote: post #66

I'm not sure how useful it is to say this, but I think a lot of people (myself included, a few years ago now) have been through this moment of existential crisis and come out the other side. The initial reaction, when some coding agent does a piece of work that would have taken you a week in an hour and does it well , is to be very disheartened by it. Once you come to terms with the idea that translating an exact spe…

> set of problems that you face as a software engineer and realize that there is so much left Definitely true at this exact moment, but very uncertain that AI won't also outrun those other areas faster than even existing experts.

You need expertise to productively use that AI.

Try getting Claude to write you a graduate essay about quantum mechanics. If you don't have at least some understanding of the topic area it's effectively worthless.

Now imagine someone with no existing web knowledge trying to get Claude to build them a Progressive Web App with offline capabilities that uses SQLite compiled to WASM. Moon language.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#209

Post by xpct »

dd8601fn wrote: post #85
pram wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK man it’s a golden era for one-man indie games right now (I just finished Endacopia) and that can only increase with AI assistance. I wouldn’t be too cynical about it

Maybe there’s a narrow window to make hay right now, but that has to be closing fast for the same reasons. I wouldn’t be giving kids any career advice around software development of any kind, myself. Now seems like the worst time in my life to be making long term projections on the subject.

I hold the opinion that learning about tech is important, especially as more and more of our world revolves around software.

Biased of course, but I'd keep betting on software over other fields when it comes to career options.

Re: Feeling Sad about AI

#210

Post by ericmcer »

simonw wrote: post #66

I'm not sure how useful it is to say this, but I think a lot of people (myself included, a few years ago now) have been through this moment of existential crisis and come out the other side. The initial reaction, when some coding agent does a piece of work that would have taken you a week in an hour and does it well , is to be very disheartened by it. Once you come to terms with the idea that translating an exact spe…

I am wondering how this will effect other industries more. We are pretty flexible as software engineers because our skillset needs to constantly evolve. For a lawyer or radiologist or anyone who has been able to do the same thing every day for 20 years? What kind of reaction will they have when they see the ground shifting beneath them.
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