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AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

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Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#111

Post by anthonypasq »

damnesian wrote: post #26
awongh wrote: post #16

I think it's clear to me that AI will be both things: 1) as in the article it's a contraction of work- industrialization getting rid of hand-made work or the contraction of all things horse-related when the internal combustion engine came around but- it will also be 2) new technologies and ideas enabled by a completely new set of capabilities The real question is if the economic boost from the latter outpaces the los…

Hard to understand, when essential human nature is so predictable? Sure, we will do novel things with it. But society in the main will use to it exploit labor. same as it ever was.

are you under the impression life was better before capitalism?

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#112

Post by dodu_ »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #40
dodu_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do people really believe no novel things will be unlocked with this tech? Yes. It's a mostly shitty but very fast and relatively inexpensive replacement for things that already exist. Give your best example of something that is novel, ie isn't just replacing existing processes at scale. It's been 3 and a half years now since the initial hype wave. Maybe I genuinely missed the novel trillion dollar use case that isn…

"Yes. It's a mostly shitty but very fast and relatively inexpensive replacement for things that already exist." Wouldn't that apply to most technological advances? Cars, computers, cell phones.

Yes, but I'm not the one who introduced the "novel" constraint to the argument.

e: Also I don't know that I'd strictly bucket these specific examples you gave as shittier versions, though I guess that's a matter of perspective.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#113

Post by chromacity »

himata4113 wrote: post #100
chromacity wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one ... presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyone would prefer to use that chatbox I don't know. We've been telling ourselves things like that about user interfaces for a long time. For decades, it was pretty much universally understood that everyone…

You already know how to use a computer or a phone, but take someone who has never seen or used a smartphone, computer or a laptop. I think the story will be very different.

I don't know. In a vacuum, if we prevent them from ever finding out that there's a faster way with less cognitive overhead? Sure. Until they have to explain to an agent precisely which shoes they want the AI agent to buy them...

In any case, in practice, people pick up stuff from each other. I'm old enough that learning to use the computer mouse needed to be a deliberate effort on my end. I never really had to "teach" that to my kids, they just picked it up naturally. So you might even have a difficulty producing that "computer-naive" subject in the first place.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#114

Post by jimbokun »

wanderingstan wrote: post #56
dukky wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this comment was going the opposite way - previously no internet/googling but now you can run a local model and figure things out without the need for internet at all

Mine as well. 2 years ago my mind was blown that I could code in a language I didn’t know (scala) while on a log train ride with no internet (Amtrak) using a local model on a laptop. Couldn’t believe it.

The staggeringly effective compression of LLMs is still under appreciated, I think.

2 years ago you had downloaded onto your laptop an effective and useful summary of all of the information on the Internet, that could be used to generate computer programs in an arbitrarily selected programming language.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#115

Post by I_am_tiberius »

neals wrote: post #15

I had to code something on a plane today. It used to be that you couldn't get you packages or check stackoverflow. But now, I'm useless. My mind has turned to pudding. I cannot remember basic boilerplate stuff. Crazy how fast that goes.

Soon everyone will run local models for simple stuff like that.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#116

Post by joseda-hg »

dwedge wrote: post #66
neals wrote: post #15

I had to code something on a plane today. It used to be that you couldn't get you packages or check stackoverflow. But now, I'm useless. My mind has turned to pudding. I cannot remember basic boilerplate stuff. Crazy how fast that goes.

Will you do anything differently knowing this? Does the risk of LLMs being unaffordable to you in the near future make you wary about losing the skills?

Open Models are currently within reach for most of the kind of writing I do I still decide what and why it generates what it does, I just don't do it manually

I'm not super worried, either I still do the last leg of the work, or I go back an abstraction level with my prompts and work there

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#118

Post by nyrikki »

Zigurd wrote: post #49
intended wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It a side effect of using AI. People using AI for tasks (essay writing in the MIT study linked below) showed lower ownership, brain connectivity, and ability to quote their work accurately. > https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872 There was a MSFT and Carnegie Mellon study that saw a link between AI use, confidence in ones skills, confidence in AI, and critical thinking. The takeaway for me is that people are getting into…

It's probably too much inside baseball to merit a study, but I'm curious if the results would change for part-time coders. When I'm not coding, I'm writing patents, doing technical competitive analysis, team building, etc. My theory is that if you're not full-time coding, it's hard harder to remember the boiler plate and obligatory code entailed by different SDKs for different modules. That's where the documentation…

SDKs and Binary format descriptors are where I see agents failing the most, they are typically acceptable for the happy path but fail at the edge cases.

As an example I have been fighting with agents re-writing or removing guard clauses and structs when dealing with Mach-o fat archives this week, I finally had to break the parsing out into an external module and completely remove the ability for them to see anything inside that code.

I get the convenience for prototyping and throwaway code, but the problem is when you don’t have enough experience with the quirks to know something is wrong.

It will be code debt if one doesn’t understand the core domain. That is the problem with the confidence and surface level competence of these models that we need to develop methods for controlling.

Writing code is rarely the problem with programming in general, correctness and domain needs are the hard parts.

I hope we find a balance between gaining value from these tools while not just producing a pile of fragile abandonware

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#119

Post by csomar »

Zealotux wrote: post #4

I'm currently looking for sort of niche clothes for an event and it's the first time I had to give up on buying online because of the sheer amount of AI-generated pictures. Going to a physical store was just a much better experience, I can't recall the last time this happened, almost all sellers on Etsy are using AI for their pictures.

This was my experience as well trying to buy a charger. You can't trust anything. For brands that have their own store, some have such a bad experience that it's easier and less stressful to go to the store and buy directly from there.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#120

Post by isodev »

awongh wrote: post #16

I think it's clear to me that AI will be both things: 1) as in the article it's a contraction of work- industrialization getting rid of hand-made work or the contraction of all things horse-related when the internal combustion engine came around but- it will also be 2) new technologies and ideas enabled by a completely new set of capabilities The real question is if the economic boost from the latter outpaces the los…

> AI pessimism is hard to understand

Well, it really isn’t. First, this entire post makes two assumptions: 1) that AI adds more value to the process than it removes and 2) that it’s sustainable.

It’s not pessimism to want to validate these first.

Are AI “gains” really transformative or simply random opportunities for automation which we can achieve by other means anyway?

Can the world continue to afford “AI as a service” long enough for the gains to result in improvements that make it sustainable? Are we dooming our kids to a hellishly warm planet with no clear plan how to fix it?

It’s not pessimism, just simple project management if you ask me.

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