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Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#11

Post by coldtea »

drstewart wrote: post #8
coldtea wrote: post #4

People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for me". I say the question isn't if you use AI to build you something, but if you nerd out and tinker yourself.

I'd further say it's not a TRUE Scottish tinkering unless you're hand writing machine code yourself and feeding it via punch cards.

"I asked somebody else to do this hobby project for me" is not the same as "I tinkered" whether that somebody else is a person or AI.

Same how you're not a musician just because you had Suno create something.

So, no, sticking to the actual meaning of a thing is not true scotsman fallacy.

Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#13

Post by al_borland »

mikert89 wrote: post #12

its the opposite, i can build far more and get stuck much less

There are things I’ve made that I wouldn’t have made without AI. But I don’t feel like it’s “nerding out” or “tinkering”. I get the end result, but I don’t learn anything or become more capable in the process. As a result, I get very little satisfaction from it.

Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#14

Post by mikert89 »

al_borland wrote: post #13
mikert89 wrote: post #12

its the opposite, i can build far more and get stuck much less

There are things I’ve made that I wouldn’t have made without AI. But I don’t feel like it’s “nerding out” or “tinkering”. I get the end result, but I don’t learn anything or become more capable in the process. As a result, I get very little satisfaction from it.

you just have to take the software to a higher level of abstraction... software that builds software. its different, but the tinkering is very much there, its just a massive paradigm shift

Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#15

Post by sejje »

coldtea wrote: post #4

People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for me". I say the question isn't if you use AI to build you something, but if you nerd out and tinker yourself.

For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you.

For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel.

I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help of AI. You can say I didn't build it, I don't really care--my ego isn't wrapped up in it.

Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#16

Post by gamessucknow »

sejje wrote: post #15
coldtea wrote: post #4

People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for me". I say the question isn't if you use AI to build you something, but if you nerd out and tinker yourself.

For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you. For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help o…

> For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective. That's maybe Matthias Wandel.

So if I outsource all the work to some guy on fiverr am I also a tinkerer?

Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#17

Post by sejje »

gamessucknow wrote: post #16
sejje wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you. For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help o…

> For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. So if I outsource all the work to some guy on fiverr am I also a tinkerer?

All of the coding work? Or all of the work?

(Depends what you're building, of course)

Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#18

Post by jtap »

I'm tinkering much more because I have an easy way to enter into a new domain and apply what I know to that domain. I can also get unstuck a bit more quickly as I go deeper. Before it was reading textbooks, this turned into searching the web, now I have a minion who can go write me a summary. Is the minion perfect? No, but more often it is.

Re: Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker because of AI?

#20

Post by coldtea »

sejje wrote: post #15
coldtea wrote: post #4

People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for me". I say the question isn't if you use AI to build you something, but if you nerd out and tinker yourself.

For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you. For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help o…

>For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing

Those are not tinkerers then, as there's no tinkering involved. Or there might be in other parts (e.g. with electronics to hook up and house the code AI wrote for you, if it's something that will run on a Raspberry Pi), but not in the coding part.

The question implies: "do you still enjoy nerding out and tinkering by writing code yourself, now that AI can write it". Else asking if you're demotivated from doing it "because of AI" wouldn't make sense.

So I would say that "I like making stuff by having AI write the code" is still an admission of not nerding out and tinkering (regarding code) anymore.

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