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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

#131

Post by aworks »

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.

It was a long time ago but I attended a session by IBM at an OO conference. The speaker's claim was that the half-life of programming language knowledge was 6 months i.e. if not reinforced, that how fast it goes.

I learned the Q array language five years ago and then didn't touch it for six months. I was surprised how little I remembered when I tried to resume.

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

#132

Post by pixl97 »

elAhmo wrote: post #94
Forgeties79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of this is because we aren’t paying the actual cost of these chatbots. If ChatGPT wasn’t essentially free for casual users then we’d definitely see a much smaller/slower adoption rate. I wonder if a single person using them, even paying for tokens, isn’t substantially subsidized. Probably not but I’m speculating. If 3D printers could’ve given usage away for years directly in our homes then I bet we would’ve seen…

Well, we are not paying for Gmail, Youtube, TikTok either, all sorts of other services that are free as well.

Well, we are paying for it, but not directly with cash.

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

#133

Post by acedTrex »

marliechiller wrote: post #105
acedTrex wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was me you couldn't waterboard this info out of me.

Why? Is this is because of shame or fear of losing your job?

Because its incredibly embarrassing to admit you can no longer do very basic programming tasks as a "professional" in that field.

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

#134

Post by jimbokun »

roxolotl wrote: post #89
ori_b wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're racing to build hell.

A hell that’s been widely documented in fiction as well. That’s the part that’s so wild to me about this. None of this was unseen. Across every medium the extreme commercialization and general collapse of the social contract due to AI has been described and a lot of the authors have been largely prophetic.

In the US this is due to the overall failure of trust in our institutions.

No one trusts Congress or the US government to effectively regulate AI for the greater good of the population. Each party believes regulations proposed by the other party will be used to discriminate against and control their party.

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

#135

Post by dodu_ »

awongh wrote: post #103
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…

The most obvious thing is bio-tech, protein folding, drug discovery, etc. As in, things that have an actual positive effect on humanity (not just dollars). I don't really get people who are dismissive about this aspect of AI- my original question wasn't about cost-efficiency of developing these things, but just that the technology itself is creating things that wouldn't have been possible before. It seems hard to ref…

Correct me if I'm off base but these things (protein folding and drug discovery) both existed before AI, no?

The implication of your comment seemed to be that this was going to be so much more than replacing people. But I fail to see how any of the items you listed are anything other than that.

These things have always been possible. Just slow and limited by labor. Which is the primary and novel "unlock" of AI.

You can argue it's a good thing, and in many areas I'd probably agree. I'm directly responding to your skepticism and implied absurdity that replacement is the main unlock here. It absolutely is.

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

#136

Post by sweezyjeezy »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #130
sweezyjeezy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is HN so a lot of us are pretty terrified of your 1). We went from 'you have a good job for the next couple of decades' to 'your job is at extreme risk for disruption from AI' in the space of like 5 years. Personally I have a family, I'm a bit old to retrain, but I never worked at a high-comp FAANG or anything so I can't just focus on painting unless my government helps me (note - not US/China). That's extr…

I'm 33 and I feel sort of lucky that I'll still potentially have time to retrain. I'm fully prepared to within the next 5 years or so (and potentially much less) I'll probably need to retrain into a trade or something to stay relevant in any sort of field. Many people claim its going to become a tool we use alongside our daily work, but its clear to me thats not how anybody managing a company sees it, and even these…

I also have contemplated just retraining now to try and get ahead of the curve, but I'm not confident that trades can absorb the shock of this - both in terms of supply (more unemployment) and demand (anything non-commercial will be hit by capital flight on the customer-side). I figure I will just try and make as much money on a higher wage as I can and hope for the best...

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

#137

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

coldpie wrote: post #107
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.

I do woodworking for a hobby and wanted to find a nice "intro to routers" article. After skimming past the obvious SEO crap on google I clicked the first likely-seeming link and was greeted by an AI slop image of two misshapen routers being operated by three disembodied hands with seventeen fingers each. I immediately threw my laptop out the window, watched it shatter into five hundred pieces, walked across the stree…

For questions like this you can ask an AI directly instead of getting herded through the clickbait.

Education and targeted summary searches are one of the best uses. I literally found the location of the criminal who embezzled thousands of euros from my condominium with an AI search. It took me around fifteen minutes. Other people had been looking for years. (True story...)

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

#138

Post by pixl97 »

chromacity wrote: post #113
himata4113 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I never really had to "teach" that to my kids,

It's better to look at these things statistically rather than anecdotally. And statistically the Xennial group seems to have the highest penetration of computer skills, even more so than the generations that followed them. Simply put the new tablet generation is more apt to use apps and not understand the premises of how they work.

If you find yourself going to an actual computer to make 'large' purchases you're part of a group that is not growing in size.

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

#139

Post by wanderingstan »

jimbokun wrote: post #114
wanderingstan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes! Continuing on thoughts of LLM compression, I'm now convinced and amazed that economics will dictate that all devices contain a copy of all information on the Internet.

I wrote a post about it: Your toaster will know mesopotamian history because it’s more expensive not too.

https://wanderingstan.com/2026-03-01/your-toaster-will-know-...

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

#140

Post by pixl97 »

boh wrote: post #85

AI is destroying the economic premise that has drawn so much investment into Silicon Valley. It's going from a capital light business model with network driven moats that allow market domination, to a capital heavy, high burn-rate model with the potential to not only offer ZERO moat protection but destroy the ones that already exist. Cloud infrastructure + vibe coding now make it possible to quickly replace existing…

That sounds like Silicon Valley's fault for taking the actual silicon out of the valley.

Sounds like it's best to be the shovel manufacturer now.

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