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AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

simonwillison.net

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Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#141

Post by simonw »

wolfcola wrote: post #104
latexr wrote: post #97

> the productivity boost these things can provide is exhausting . What I personally find exhausting is Simon¹ constantly discovering the obvious. Time after time after time it’s just “insights” every person who smoked one blunt in college has arrived at. Stop for a minute! You don’t have to keep churning out multiple blog posts a day, every day. Just stop and reflect . Sit back in your chair and let your mind rest. W…

edited: quote misattributed

That was me quoting the Harvard Business Review article.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#142

Post by latexr »

alain13 wrote: post #107
latexr wrote: post #97

> the productivity boost these things can provide is exhausting . What I personally find exhausting is Simon¹ constantly discovering the obvious. Time after time after time it’s just “insights” every person who smoked one blunt in college has arrived at. Stop for a minute! You don’t have to keep churning out multiple blog posts a day, every day. Just stop and reflect . Sit back in your chair and let your mind rest. W…

I find Simon’s blog and TILs to be some of the highest signal to noise content on the internet. I’ve picked up an incredible number of useful tips and tricks. Many of them I would not have found if he did not share things as soon as he discovered something that felt “obvious.” I also love how he documents small snippets and gists of code that are easy to link to and cross-reference. Wish I did more of that myself.

> Many of them I would not have found if he did not share things as soon as he discovered something

You don’t know that. For all you know, your life would’ve been richer if you’ve read those thoughts after they’ve been left to stew for longer. For all you know, if that happened you would’ve said “most” instead of “many”. Or maybe not, no one can say for sure until it happens

> that felt “obvious.”

It’s not about feeling obvious. There is value in exploring obvious concepts when you’ve thought about them for longer, maybe researched what others before you had to say on the matter, and you can highlight and improve on all of that. Everyone benefits from a thoughtful approach.

> I’ve picked up an incredible number of useful tips and tricks. (…) I also love how he documents small snippets and gists of code that are easy to link to and cross-reference.

That is (I think clearly, but I may be wrong) not what I’m talking about. A code snippet is very far removed in meaning from a human insight. What I wrote doesn’t just concern Simon’s readers, but Simon as a person. Being constantly “on” isn’t good, it leads to exhaustion (as reported), which leads to burnout. While my first paragraph in the previous comment was a criticism, it was merely an introduction to the rest of the post which was given in empathy. I want us all to do and be better.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#143

Post by bayindirh »

co_king_3 wrote: post #76
pousada wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> percentage of good, well planned, consistent and coherent software is going to approach zero So everything stays exactly the same?

> So everything stays exactly the same? No, we get applications so hideously inefficient that your $3000 developer machine feels like it it's running a Pentium II with 256 MB of RAM. We get software that's as slow as it was 30 years ago, for no reason other than our own arrogance and apathy.

Do not insult P-II w/256 MB of RAM. That thing used to run this demo[0] at full speed without even getting overwhelmed.

Except some very well maintained software, some of the mundane things we do today waste so much resources it makes me sad.

Heck, the memory use of my IDE peaks at VSCode's initial memory consumption, and I'd argue that my IDE will draw circles around VSCode while sipping coffee and compiling code.

> for no reason other than our own arrogance and apathy.

I'll add greed and apparent cost-reduction to this list. People think they win because they reduce time to market, but that time penalty is delegated to users. Developers gain a couple of hours for once, we lose the same time every couple of days while waiting our computers.

Once I have read a comment by a developer which can be paraphrased as "I won't implement this. It'll take 8 hours. That's too much". I wanted to plant my face to my keyboard full-force, not kidding.

Heck, I tuned/optimized an algorithm for two weeks, which resulted in 2x-3x speedups and enormous memory savings.

We should understand that we don't own the whole machine while running our code.

[0]: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=1221

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#144

Post by aetherspawn »

I’m convinced all these blog posts on AI productivity are some kind of high level propaganda trying to create a Folie à deux that AI is much better than it is.

The worst part is that it’s so convincing: not only does everyone who can’t make it work feel gaslit about it, but some people even pretend that it works for them so they don’t feel like they’re missing out.

I remember the last time this happened and people were convinced (for like 2 years) that a gif of an ape could somehow be owned and was worth millions of dollars.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#145

Post by simonw »

sph wrote: post #130

Is a blog reposting other content worth its own post? Previous discussion of the original article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945755

In this case I don't think so. My post here even links back to the original Hacker News conversation from the "via" link.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#146

Post by co_king_3 »

bayindirh wrote: post #143
co_king_3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So everything stays exactly the same? No, we get applications so hideously inefficient that your $3000 developer machine feels like it it's running a Pentium II with 256 MB of RAM. We get software that's as slow as it was 30 years ago, for no reason other than our own arrogance and apathy.

Do not insult P-II w/256 MB of RAM. That thing used to run this demo[0] at full speed without even getting overwhelmed. Except some very well maintained software, some of the mundane things we do today waste so much resources it makes me sad. Heck, the memory use of my IDE peaks at VSCode's initial memory consumption, and I'd argue that my IDE will draw circles around VSCode while sipping coffee and compiling code. >…

No insult intended!

Thanks for sharing the demo!

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#147

Post by simonw »

latexr wrote: post #142
alain13 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Simon’s blog and TILs to be some of the highest signal to noise content on the internet. I’ve picked up an incredible number of useful tips and tricks. Many of them I would not have found if he did not share things as soon as he discovered something that felt “obvious.” I also love how he documents small snippets and gists of code that are easy to link to and cross-reference. Wish I did more of that myself.

> Many of them I would not have found if he did not share things as soon as he discovered something You don’t know that. For all you know, your life would’ve been richer if you’ve read those thoughts after they’ve been left to stew for longer. For all you know, if that happened you would’ve said “most” instead of “many”. Or maybe not, no one can say for sure until it happens > that felt “obvious.” It’s not about feel…

> There is value in exploring obvious concepts when you’ve thought about them for longer, maybe researched what others before you had to say on the matter, and you can highlight and improve on all of that.

That's exactly what I try to do.

I wrote more about my approach to that here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/#trying-to-a...

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#148

Post by looneytoon53 »

simonw wrote: post #133
co_king_3 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t have to keep churning out multiple blog posts a day, every day. How do you know that? You don't think he's being paid for all this marketing work?

I'm paid by my GitHub sponsors, who get a monthly summary of what I've been writing about on the basis that I don't want to put a paywall on my content but I'm happy for people to pay me to send them less stuff. I also make ~$600/month from the ads on my site - run by EthicalAds. I don't take payment to write about anything. That goes against my principals. It would also be illegal in the USA (FTC rules) if I didn't…

[flagged]

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#150

Post by energy123 »

fhd2 wrote: post #4

I feel agentic development is a time sink. Previously, I'd have an idea, sit on it for a while. In most cases, conclude it's not a good idea worth investing in. If I decided to invest, I'd think of a proper strategy to approach it. With agentic development, I have an idea, waste a few hours chasing it, then switch to other work, often abandoning the thing entirely. I still need to figure out how to deal with that, fo…

That's weird, I'm the opposite. Previously I would start coding immediately, because writing the code helps me figure out the what and the how, and because I'd end up with modular/reusable bits that will be helpful later anyway.

Now I sit on an idea for a long time, writing documentation/specs/requirements because I know that the code generation side of things is automated and effortlessly follows from exhaustive requirements.

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