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Fuck it, make it anyway

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Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#631

Post by andrewflnr »

abstractcontrol wrote: post #603
andrewflnr wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI has included everything from neural nets to video game NPCs for as long as I'm aware of. What else is the broad umbrella term? We have to have one. And for anything else, you need to be specific about its properties anyway. In particular, usage of "real AI" is nonsense without a more precise definition.

It isn't nonsense. If AI was such a broad umbrella term, why would companies be tripping over themselves to use it? If it meant video game NPC level of intelligence, nobody would be in a hurry to adopt it. It's very clear that when Nvidia or OpenAI use the term AI, they really want you to think these LLMs are actual human level intelligence. That is why they are doing it. When I use nonsense like "real AI" I think yo…

Everyone thinks they know what "real AI" means, but they usually mean some mishmash of "general intelligence", "human-like intelligence", and "deserves moral rights", none of which firmly imply each other but which they'll often freely equivocate between. If you mean something more specific than this semantic disaster zone, say that instead.

AI company marketing usage only indicates they're trying to take advantage of this confusion. They're bullshit artists who are trying to make sales, not communicate.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#632

Post by rafabulsing »

59percentmore wrote: post #625
rafabulsing wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing, which anyone who's ever done any type of art realizes, is that 99% of the time, there isn't really such a thing as a high fidelity image in your mind's eye. You feel like there is... But the minute you try to bring it into creation, you find out just how absurdly fuzzy it really is. A non-artist might believe that the failure of bringing your mind image to life is a failure of _skill_. That you are just ph…

>Looking at an AI output and deciding whether it happens to match the fuzzy idea you had enough or not, simply isn't the same thing. Yes, it is. I say this as someone with a BFA. The feeling of a happy accident from a slip of the tablet pen and a "mistake" in the generation is the exact same: "I wasn't expecting that, but it works." Same when it's an unhappy one: "That's wrong, we need to fix that." I don't care to s…

I don't really have anything to say other than the fact that you both don't thing there's a difference between using AI and actually creating something yourself, and that you also don't care for explaining why those are the same thing to you, but you also still feel the need to nevertheless reply anyway... It's fitting, is all.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#633

Post by socalgal2 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #262
socalgal2 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just see it as tool. Used to be you had to calculate things by hand on paper. Then we got calculators, then spreadsheets. Complaining that by hand was better seems line nonsense. I'm old enough to have taken typing lessons in high school on typewriters with real ink and needed to use white-out to fix things and if there are too many mistakes having to start over from scratch. I don't want to go back. Construction w…

If we strip away all the layers of onion, we are not left with a Platonic ideal onion, we're left with nothing. Removing every chore, task, craft, friction from life does not leave an ideal perfect life, it leaves nothing. Some people are feeling closer to that nothing than others. A human who liked caring for horses, feeding them, brushing them, comforting them during thunderstorms, blanketing them in cold weather,…

The difference is that person who loved tending to horses had no delusions they were mot out of a job and their horse tending would just be a hobby with few exceptions. They didn’t complain trucks sucked and couldn’t do the job of hauling people and goods better than horses. They saw the progress and had to come to terms what it.

That’s a far cry from how many on HN are dealing with LLMs

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#634

Post by daveguy »

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…

One question: did you jump straight from programming to depending on the AI without looking at the code? If so, I've got some bad news for you.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#635

Post by ahaferburg »

I disagree with the "nobody cares about my tools anymore because they could order it themselves." They didn't, they wouldn't, and they won't. It's not about how the work got produced, it's about having an idea, getting over the initial hump, and seeing it through. It's pretty much the same as before, except that the hump got a little easier.

A couple months ago I made a task tracker. Actually I didn't make it, I started making it. It's far from done, not only because it still has bugs, but because I still don't know exactly what I want it to be. I'm still discovering its shape.

I would never have started that without the AI assistance, and never would have grown it so quickly to what it is now.

If your moat is just one prompt, that may be an issue. Most of the time it's less about how to get somewhere and more about what is interesting or tasteful or useful or fun.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#636

Post by johnnyanmac »

properbrew wrote: post #618
johnnyanmac wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The human in your analogy would be better off working with animals on a farm, or vet practice, where the technological advances that deliver better care to animals would make them feel even more fulfilled. Yes. And instead they are stuck in the role of slop doula, unable to afford the luxury of being able to perform a furfilling role in society.

But what if they no longer have to "tolerate mucking out the stables" and can instead focus on riding. We could go back and forth on the analogy but I think it comes down to one of two things: 1. You enjoy writing code to fix a problem 2. You enjoy fixing problems and solve that by writing code If you're in camp 1 then AI feels extremely unfulfilling and understandably so, for camp 2 it's a whole new world.

> what if they no longer have to "tolerate mucking out the stables" and can instead focus on riding.

Then you haven't seen the say to day life of modern western civilization. That's not the reality. People are working more than ever for the worst buying power in a century in a time where the job market is worse tham ever. Recreation in all forms that's not scrolling social media is down, because people can't afford it.

>We could go back and forth on the analogy but I think it comes down to one of two things:

Your two things are completely orthogonal to my comments. This isn't about enjoying your job. It's about not being able to survive on the remaining jobs left (which aren't much).

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#637

Post by johnnyanmac »

dgabriel wrote: post #627
johnnyanmac wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the craft is important, then the money is secondary the money is secondary. Sadly, rent is primary. Give me enough to retire and I'll happily spend the rest of my days on my craft. Until then, the options are combining your craft, minmaxing your career to minimize work (too late for me), or to do something else that pays the bills for the next 30 years. And the cost to retrain isn't cheap either.

That's most people. You have a day job that pays the bills, and you have your passion and art that fulfills you. You had the great temporary luck to have both for a bit, but it's not coming back. I don't feel sorry for us, and it's not helpful to carry so much animosity.

> You have a day job that pays the bills

That's the part that worries me most. Jobs aren't paying the bills these days, the ones that do are in decline.

> You had the great temporary luck to have both for a bit, but it's not coming back.

I had 5 years, so I'm not too sure of that. I'm better off than someone properly Gen Z, but you're talking about someone who was getting his feet wet in a senior role, them suddenly the floor collapsed from beneath. Not enough time to minmax retirement plans even if I was working some kind of Blind success story (I wasn't.

> I don't feel sorry for us, and it's not helpful to carry so much animosity.

I'll survive. I don't have generational wealth but I have a good support network. After over 3 years there might be a moment of reprieve finally.

I will continue to be angry. I was civil and tried to be empathetic for 10 years now. It's clear that lied on deaf ears. Ignore the negotiations, and you get pitchforks. Then fires rise once again. Let's see how many factories need to burn this guided age.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#638

Post by eszed »

Chris2048 wrote: post #620
eszed wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of that, but I think there's a bit of "ball-hiding" going on in most of these conversations. It isn't only that programmers crave(d) praise or social recognition (though maybe that's it for some), but they're also having to come to terms with the fact that their "art-form" suddenly has much, much less economic value. They were able, for a long time, to (and I say this absolutely non-pejoratively - in…

> their "art-form" suddenly has much, much less economic value Can you define art/artist? If software is art, then what profession isn't? Software still has value, specifically utility , it's just cheaper to produce, its market value is lower. How is that comparable to the arts?

Oh, you're not going to bait me into that one! "What is Art?" is the central 20th century aesthetic question, which no one ever answered to anyone else's satisfaction. Nowadays artists and critics have mostly stopped addressing it, because it's just exhausting, and everyone gets on with whatever it is they do. (But, yes: every profession can be Art is one of the answers some people propose! You can make your own mind up about that.)

What I observe, however, is that the people on this board who most mourn the end of hand-coding talk about code much like artists talk about art. It also, if it is to continue, looks like it will be an aesthetics-driven pursuit, appreciated by its practioners and a small cognoscenti. However you care to define the practice itself, economically speaking, that's an art market.

Probably, those folks are in an even worse position than that. Though I've written some software I'm proud of, I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly competent developer, and while I can appreciate clean code, and love 'the story of Mel', and all that, would I pay extra for an artisanal, organic, free-range, hand-coded app or whatever? No, I frankly wouldn't - and I'm to the right of probably 98% of the general population on the appreciates-software-aesthetics curve. The fine arts world depends on the money it generates from its own rightmost 2%, but are there enough wealthy patrons for whom hand-crafted software will be a prestige marker? That's difficult to imagine.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#639

Post by Chris2048 »

eszed wrote: post #638
Chris2048 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their "art-form" suddenly has much, much less economic value Can you define art/artist? If software is art, then what profession isn't? Software still has value, specifically utility , it's just cheaper to produce, its market value is lower. How is that comparable to the arts?

Oh, you're not going to bait me into that one! "What is Art?" is the central 20th century aesthetic question, which no one ever answered to anyone else's satisfaction. Nowadays artists and critics have mostly stopped addressing it, because it's just exhausting, and everyone gets on with whatever it is they do. (But, yes: every profession can be Art is one of the answers some people propose! You can make your own mind…

> you're not going to bait me into that one!

but it's you throwing around the term. e.g. "economically speaking, that's an art market" - in what sense? How do you define an "art market"? It all seems very tautological.

> aesthetics-driven pursuit

aesthetics can usually biased by utility, to the extent of being a proxy for it. You can find the aerodynamics of a aeroplane or hummingbird wing beautiful, but there is still functionality driving it.

aesthetics is not the opposite of instrumental value; perhaps affective value, or sentimentality is?

> would I pay extra for an artisanal, organic, free-range, hand-coded app

what is artisanal code? I think talking about ux design conflates things, consider only backend code.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#640

Post by Chris2048 »

card_zero wrote: post #630
Chris2048 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their "art-form" suddenly has much, much less economic value Can you define art/artist? If software is art, then what profession isn't? Software still has value, specifically utility , it's just cheaper to produce, its market value is lower. How is that comparable to the arts?

Dwarf Fortress (the ASCII version) was exhibited in MoMA. I think software sits in an interesting place between shovels and Fabergé eggs.

Hmm, game design is a little different to other forms of software, and DF in particular since it's a niche interest that happened gained a following and became profitable. Would a temple-os be exhibited in MoMA?
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