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Fuck it, make it anyway

joelotter.com

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Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#301

Post by DidntUseIt »

MachineMan wrote: post #10

In general creators must do some honest introspection. Did you enjoy the crafts, or did you enjoy the compliments? Did you enjoy the difficult puzzles or the identity derived from a career that gives you the reputation and perceived value of someone who can do a thing most people can’t? Did you enjoy the code itself or the accomplishment of seeing your ideas brought to life? Who remains when the thing you do no longe…

Yep, calculator, etc.

A lot of random abstract comments like this about AI.

Share anecdotes and examples if you have any

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#302

Post by dofm »

moron4hire wrote: post #278
CuriouslyC wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're projecting, and there are plenty of people in crafts who are using AI output as an input to their own works who are having a blast. AI images make amazing collages/photobash inputs, and AI music is useful to sample or use as inspiration for parts you're stuck on. These people just keep quiet about their use because of the witch hunts being persecuted by people who are afraid of change. AI use in creative field…

I go to a lot of craft fairs and I've been seeing people using AI to make their banners or book covers or detail designs on mugs and such. Here are people playing a "support local creators" line and they won't support their own local graphic designers. There was one booth two shows ago that I particularly remember as it was selling "paintings" of pastoral scenes and wild life, "painted" on to log slices. This is a fa…

I am a 3D printing maker type nerd (I make my own tools for other creative tasks, rather than as their own outcomes) and I saw an incredible youtube video about 3D printed (flexi-dragon etc.) slop at US craft fairs.

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

She is so exasperated by it that she's unable to draw a conclusion, and I think that is actually the biggest problem with creative dishonesty on this scale. It is numbing.

Everyone knows that it is happening, everyone is clear that it is bad. But there is a paradox: serious-minded artists do use tools, of course. They also have an instinct about ways tool use would be dishonest. But they are introspective and they are often aware that their pragmatic use of a tool might be another's dishonesty. And they want to be inclusive, to build their "scene".

So actually there is less speaking out about it directly than there might be. And what that enables is this ever worsening bad-faith use of low-effort tools. The fact that the people selling the flexi dragons at craft fairs just bought them in bulk on Temu is the hilarious exasperating end point of it.

I think AI has made it more urgent for artists to speak out, sooner.

It has made me even more acutely aware that even though I make my own tools for my own creative projects (lo-fi and niche photographic tools, mostly), the fact that bits are 3D printed is probably interesting only to me or to others who want to make their own tools for their own work; the fact that CAD and 3D printing liberated my idea from its prison in my brain is something I must not let myself think is an end goal. The end goal is elsewhere.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#304

Post by user43928 »

bakugo wrote: post #199
user43928 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent hundreds of hours on this, so there is still some friction. If I told you the exact market and use case, I'd still have a decent head start, but indeed, someone without a job could invest more time than I do. People in a cheaper location can work for far cheaper than I can afford to. With head start I don't meant that the idea is so novel that I need to keep it a secret. However, I believe that if there is an…

Hundreds of hours doing what? If you're not reviewing the code, then what are you doing, just planning features? Because that would be trivial to copy in a fraction of the time by just feeding screenshots of your app to one's AI of choice.

Yes, and a lot of QA testing.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#305

Post by springtimesun »

imdsm wrote: post #72
MachineMan wrote: post #10

In general creators must do some honest introspection. Did you enjoy the crafts, or did you enjoy the compliments? Did you enjoy the difficult puzzles or the identity derived from a career that gives you the reputation and perceived value of someone who can do a thing most people can’t? Did you enjoy the code itself or the accomplishment of seeing your ideas brought to life? Who remains when the thing you do no longe…

This is eery to read, as I've been thinking something very similar recently whilst discussing gen AI with a close friend who works in tech but isn't a developer, who now uses AI to build everything he wished he could. Meanwhile I've seen other people, colleagues, friends, who are programmers get incredibly frustrated about AI and it's almost entirely that it lets non-developers make things. The feeling I get is that…

There has to be a changing economic undertone to it as well. For a lot of years, the craft that many people enjoyed also happened to pay well and had significant barriers to entry. It's easy to like the craft when it pays you well.

The though experiment I would propose to programmers who only want to write the code is, would you do it if it was paid and regarded like an artist is? You pursue it for its own purpose knowing there is almost no shot of ever being paid or paid well and only a few people may ever read or run it. If the answer is no to that then I would propose that you are actually in it for something other than the craft and its worth settling what that is for yourself.

* I know I am stereotyping artists and there are many kinds and many ways to make your way in the world, it's just a thought experiment.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#306

Post by Lich »

DidntUseIt wrote: post #261
ThePhysicist wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sure, let's go and vibe code your own e-signing solution with Claude. Sure you can do it, LLMs never say no but if someone with actual e-signing expertise would start probing the LLM about what it actually did I'm sure we would see a lof of "Actually you're right to push back", "You're right that was entirely wrong, that's on me!", "Fair point, I did not consider that"... LLMs are still a joke when it comes to i…

I built the e-signing experience at DocuSign in 2012 in Node/Backbone, and later became a licensed background check investigator when I built Uber and DoorDash’s background check SDK that is used over 1 million times per year. Am I allowed to use Mistral 7b locally to build W9 automation or do I still need your permission? Lol this site!!!!

Amazing how someone with your experience can have such poor reading comprehension. He never said anything about permission to use llms. They are saying that to a domain expert like you, you can effectively use LLMs because you will be more likely to spot issues and thus guide it better given your background in the domain. He is saying that some biz bro who know nothing about docusign and esigning who decides one day to use LLMs to create software in that domain is likely to produce working, but buggy and non-compliant software.

As a non expert in a domain, LLMs can seem amazing because you don’t know the field therefore have a harder time spotting errors. As an expert they seem pretty dumb or they’re useful as long as you guide them. It’s akin to Cory Doctorow’s argument about the reverse centaur.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#307

Post by gandhiandy69 »

bigmadshoe wrote: post #256
gandhiandy69 wrote: post #134

I love how LLMs transformed my daily routine at work. So far I have more time coding what I want and get paid for it while Claude writes the boring Spring 2 Crud for me.

If Claude is doing your job for you do you not worry that you won't be employed soon? Big tech eventually won't pay people to drink coffee and work on their personal projects while Claude does their work for them.

Yes a bit but I work in a highly regulated corporate environment in which Engineers spend around 30% of their time with actual coding and the rest is gathering undocumented and silo’d knowledge through endless meetings and alignments, designing business processes around regulation obstacles and legacy apps, agile overhead and of course MFA processes and role ordering. Right now I don’t see much threat since it seems they have to dim down on autonomous workflows due to regulatory requirements and token costs.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#308

Post by vabadus »

user43928 wrote: post #4

I liked building apps and helpful tools before AI came around. I've been doing so for 15 years, 10 of them professionally. Today, I like it even better. It's never been so fun. What would have taken days of work, if it was feasible at all, I can have implemented in half an hour now and iterate on the result to make it work the way I want. I stopped reviewing the code at all. People on here are often saying how that's…

Same experience here. I have published 3 apps this year that have just been ideas I've been kicking around for far too long - I never had the time outside of my day job to work on them. Most modern models write code better than I could, maintain it better, and free me up to focus on creativity and trying to add value.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#309

Post by skrtskrt »

x3haloed wrote: post #164

This is 80% ego talking and 20% fear of change. The comment about hobby vs. work is correct, and it’s the crux of this. OP is attempting to console themselves. “I shouldn’t have to change to avoid ‘falling behind.’ I like how I’m doing it. I’m good at what I do.” The fact of the matter is the LLMs can be used to produce effective work faster than you. Yes. You are falling behind. And yes, it will reduce your value in…

Holy projection what a sad small little outlook

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#310

Post by dofm »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #300
dofm wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're projecting, No, I'm actually not. I'm an active creative portrait photographer and I take part in photographic communities with people much, much better than me, I am surrounded by dozens of gigging and working musicians, songwriters and composers in my friend group (and play a couple of instruments myself); I know painters and illustrators of great ability (though I am not that kind of artist). I listen to…

> AI music is not and cannot be inspirational. It's the absolute opposite of it. And serious musicians know it. So, your answer to "people are doing a thing" is to just say "no they're not! NANANANA can't hear you!" Musicians have claimed to take inspiration from things like water dripping from a leaky faucet and machine sounds, so your claim that AI outputs can't inspire artists is farcical. You're obviously biased…

> Musicians have claimed to take inspiration from things like water dripping from a leaky faucet and machine sounds

I don't think you really understand how this very concept undermines your argument.

If I saw an artist making creative non-AI work critiquing AI, or even using AI to pointedly critique AI, I would feel differently about that.

But I don't think you understand the core concepts here at all.

> You're obviously biased beyond the point of being able to share in a nuanced discourse, the next few years are gonna be SO rough for you, sorry to say. Buckle up.

This AI industry wizard-of-nihilism tosh gets so old. I am sure you think you're wise and informed and on some kind of nihilist high ground for saying it, though.

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