Leave Me Behind • Hacker News Board

Re: Leave Me Behind

#161

Post by broof » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

samiv wrote: post #115

ismaelyws wrote: post #87

Most humans derive their purpose and meaning from their work. Has always been that way. What do you think happens when you remove meaning from people’s lives at scale? It won’t be pretty.

It's not about removing meaning. A normal thoughtful person can surely come up with things to do and occopy their lives with. In fact for most of people work just gets in the way of that. What's it about is once you remove the paycheck that all proletariats need when things get "interesting".

I hear this all the time but where is the explosion in people learning art, music, increased time with friends and family, etc… instead it’s all the opposite. We’re using all our extra free time to doomscroll.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#162

Post by carlosjobim » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #36

furyman wrote: post #4

Mario Savio said a few lines when the industrial revolution peaked: There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious Makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to t…

> take human intelligence to another pinnacle I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber, and the tendency towards lazy thoughtlessness which AI engenders will accelerate that trend.

Neither intelligence nor knowledge, if you mean us average people.

But that shouldn't be any surprise. We're already at more than a hundred years of deliberate dumbing down of the population through schooling and mass media. These effects are exponential through generations.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#163

Post by beej71 » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #36

furyman wrote: post #4

Mario Savio said a few lines when the industrial revolution peaked: There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious Makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to t…

> take human intelligence to another pinnacle I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber, and the tendency towards lazy thoughtlessness which AI engenders will accelerate that trend.

If we train AI on human works and humans only do what the AI says, we're at a maximum.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#164

Post by mplanchard » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

stego-tech wrote: post #55

mplanchard wrote: post #13

The lack of humanity or ability to empathize with someone else’s feelings displayed in these comments, instead labeling the author’s personal experience as “main character syndrome” or “cope” demonstrates to me that the author may be correct that AI usage degrades the human experience. It also is a great example of why AI has such a PR problem among normal people.

Frustratingly, these attitudes have been around long before LLMs, and they'll continue to exist long after. To those individuals who have staunchly refused to broaden their horizons or empathize with their fellow man, these posts are direct threats to the wagons they've hitched themselves to, a challenge to their own narrow passions because they exist in a zero-sum environment where if even one person doesn't think a…

Wonderfully put, thank you. Ultimately, we’re supposed to be “engineers,” and that means (for our jobs) assessing tools and practices in terms of their net benefit on the products we create: there is no free lunch, and a thing’s downside is often proportional to its upside, so it seems wise to approach these things with caution and to have the kind of nuanced discussions that you note have been lacking.

I’d also hope, though, that as humans, we can recognize that tools do not exist in a vacuum, and that their effect on ourselves and society at large can be net negative even if they have a net positive effect on our work (whether due to something fundamental to the tool or due to the way it is being applied at scale). We can’t responsibly leave these discussions out of our analysis of the tool itself and its fitness for purpose, because we are members of society, and our adoption/use of the tool helps to determine that societal impact.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#165

Post by beej71 » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #135

I think this post is either LLM-written, or written in a standard blogpost style of today which is increasingly becoming LLM-like. Sam Kriss had a good recent post pointing out some of the "tells": https://samkriss.substack.com/p/if-you-let-ai-do-your-writin...

I definitely don't have time for AI-generated crap. I've got to get back to asking Claude to write code for me. ;)

Re: Leave Me Behind

#166

Post by kibwen » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

wat10000 wrote: post #155

kibwen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering developed societies with access to those specialized diets and medical science, the median person is definitely not stronger than the median person from a pre-industrial society, even taking malnutrition and injury into account. It seems you've never tried to arm-wrestle a farmer before.

Have you tried to arm-wrestle a subsistence farmer who saw multiple bad harvests growing up?

I've arm-wrestled office workers; I stand by my assertion.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#167

Post by ary » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

There are a number of comments here where people open up about their contrasting experiences of not being a part of a programming community. Those are well addressed, I think, but there is another point to consider.

We need to remember the people, that we may never talk to, that are downstream of all of this software. Not necessarily “the users” as there are many pieces of software meant for other devs, but I think the users deserve consideration nonetheless.

Handing over software quality to the stochastic code extruder is causing a sharp drop in the quality of software put out into the world. This is on top of all of the problems that existed before LLMs, like human error and perverse financial incentives. Shipping poor quality and user hostile software actually hurts people. Real people. Harm is caused in both big and little ways to living, breathing actual people. This “inevitable” slide into generative AI harms every single person it comes into contact with. The devs, the users, the investors, everyone. Those harms may happen at different times and in different ways and the creeping nature of it all might make it easier to ignore, but it’s happening.

“AI” is a blight. You can leave me behind as well.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#168

Post by cindyllm » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #32

lelanthran wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No because you still need a skilled human operator in the loop for clearly defining the input and to check the output. For now. Will that be true in 12 months? 4 years? If you're a programmer, your skills have been devalued significantly in the last 12 months. What makes you think the remaining value you offer will be required 12 months from now?

>Will that be true in 12 months? 4 years? I don't have a crystal ball. In 4 years whoever is US president might start another war and fuck the whole planet back to the stone age. Nobody will know what will happen in 4 years so why worry about it?

[dead]

Re: Leave Me Behind

#169

Post by Pfhortune » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

This really resonates with me, and reminds me of all that I've missed in the years since COVID and going full remote. There's magic in a room when a mob programming session results in a breakthrough that just can't ever be replicated remotely. Not sure I'd jump to sign up for a daily commute again, especially where I live now, an hour away from a major city without traffic, but I do miss that.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#170

Post by jcgrillo » Mon, May 25, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

riebschlager wrote: post #146

jcgrillo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's starting to terrify me how it seems that the worst people in the world are more than willing to wield this power, while good people opt out Maybe it's just that the capability is bad . Adtech, for example, isn't something that anyone uses for good. They blow a lot of smoke about it--looking at you, Apple--but despite the "good-washing" it's all just the same extractive, invasive, dehumanizing business. Bad peo…

In my mind, I would separate technology from its application. Advertising tech and AI coding tools are applications of technology stacks that could have been used to create what you and I might agree to be "better" tools. I don't need to tell you why ad tech got created instead of something that is a net societal benefit. At the same time, I would say that, yes, those applications do indeed expand human capabilities.…

Could adtech really be used for something better? The capability is to precisely model users' emotional reward centers and then bombard them with content that targets those reward centers. Is there any way you can imagine this being used for good? Even if you do it in the least bad, privacy preserving way possible you're still messing with people's minds on a massive scale. Sure, that's a capability alright! I can't imagine a decent use of that capability, though. In my view it's one that should be prevented via regulation and treaties, much like weapons of mass destruction.

Unlike weapons of mass destruction, though, there's nothing to be gained by working on adtech. Let me unpack that a bit--a "good guy" can justify working on nuclear weapons because if he doesn't his country will be unable to defend itself when the treaties break down. There's no similar existential threat with adtech. If I choose to not work on that poison, I'm not leaving any advantage on the table. My agency in this situation is worthless. At least that conclusion is why I don't do adtech anymore.

I broadly agree with your bigger point though. To the extent that AI coding tools are useful it's important to explore their use, and evaluate whether they're any good. But if I'm in a company that's forcing their use, or putting up token use leaderboards, or any of the other horror stories we've been hearing about, you can be damn sure I'd get myself fired or quit. At that point the inmates are running the asylum, and there's no reason to stay.