Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Please stop the AI confidence theater

elenaverna.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 282 posts

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#161

Post by heresalexandria »

preommr wrote: post #139
heresalexandria wrote: post #107

My observation is that a lot of folks still discounting the capabilities or impact of AI either aren't working with frontier intelligence or aren't using it right. While the coding horse has been beat within an inch of its life already, I'd recommend throwing Codex on 5.5 high thinking with Computer Use + auto approve at the next thing you're about to spend 5+ minutes on to start to get a feel for how well it handles…

I hate that these discussions go nowhere because there's no common metric anymore. I have no idea what stuff like "is it always perfect?" means because it varies so much from person to person. Too many people have different expectations, are working on different problems, or have different standards or goals for there to be a common constructive discussion.

Totally agree that the lack of a common base of evaluation is terrible for the discussion, and benchmaxing only contributes to this.

The only way to get a sense for these systems is to use them on things you know well, and everyone knows different things at different levels.

People also tend to underestimate how fast this is moving and base their take on dated and subpar systems for a variety of reasons, a key one being that the firehose is too big for any one person to have a proper focus on all of it.

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#162

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

ghusto wrote: post #59
algoth1 wrote: post #14

As someone who has worked closely to the marketing space, there’s a saying that goes something like: ‘then the marketers found about it and ruin everything’. Quick example: when amazon launched kindle self publishing, there was a golden age where wannabe writers could self-publish their books, and let the market dictate what survived and became successful. Eventually, some people got good money out of it. Then market…

There's an old Bill Hicks bit where during his already awkward standup, he takes a moment to somehow dial the awkwardness up further: If you're of a certain age, you'll know the bit: https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-a... It's awkward because you can feel how much he means every word. Of course it's part of the act and you're supposed to find it funny, but at the same time, he very much means…

Sounds very much like the South Park bit when they call the guy selling jewellery to the elderly via teleshopping!

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#163

Post by heresalexandria »

lilbigdoot wrote: post #158
slopinthebag wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they aren’t building a SaaS with React or a TUI with Typecript, which is about the only thing that LLMs have “solved”.

Seriously I've been on a sabbatical and have no pressure to use AI. I keep trying on my compiler and for coding they flail so hard every time. I love how good they are at helping me diagnose bugs, it's so much better than scouring google like I used to hoping for some result that matches what I'm seeing. Even then, they hallucinate all the time and just say odd things that don't make sense. As soon as you ask them so…

This sounds like you may be using subpar models and/or tools - have you had this experience using Codex with GPT-5.5 on at least "high" reasoning or on Claude Code using Opus 4.8 (both with ability to browse web and sufficient context for your project)?

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#164

Post by fibonachos »

throwaway219450 wrote: post #49
cahaya wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing with the article, but I think you are right that if you use AI in the right setting it can do much more than the average ChatGP that outputs Linkedin like crap: interdisciplinary teams/person + SOTA AI + Right context (customer/ internal pain points, access to the code, focussed Hackathon) = amazing cool things.

The biggest benefit for me has been getting side projects done. Little bugs or todos that would take more time than I have to spare, but don’t detract from the project. I’ve had Claude do stuff like interrogate IoT devices, look into proprietary file formats and even assisted debugging electronics from a text description and datasheets. It has stupidly broad knowledge as long as you watch out for things like getting…

Same here. Little side projects and convenience tooling for $day_job that otherwise wouldn’t have gotten built for lack of time. Doesn’t need to be perfect, beautiful code for an audience of one. It just needs to work.

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#165

Post by apsurd »

harimau777 wrote: post #159

Can someone explain to me: I have big problems with how AI companies stole artist's art and I have big concerns with how AI might be overused or misused. However, I don't understand how people can still say that AI is useless. Everyday when I use AI I am impressed with everything it can do. Particularly in coding, AI is useful right now (this may or may not be due to how messy the codebase that I'm working in is). To…

from a coding perspective, it’s about actual value creation. the llms cost money. The subscriptions are a great value subsidized by the frontier model companies.

llms ability to output usable code is insane, I agree. It changed the industry and the shape of what the job means. But the ability to code 10 X more output doesn’t magically create more value. In fact, I am personally skeptical and I’m planning on the first few years of growing pains. These LLMs make the job hard harder, make coordination and collaboration harder. There’s going to be a lot of churn. I quit my last job over the AI mandates.

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#166

Post by skydhash »

Theodores wrote: post #114
algoth1 wrote: post #14

As someone who has worked closely to the marketing space, there’s a saying that goes something like: ‘then the marketers found about it and ruin everything’. Quick example: when amazon launched kindle self publishing, there was a golden age where wannabe writers could self-publish their books, and let the market dictate what survived and became successful. Eventually, some people got good money out of it. Then market…

I have just been looking for a book on O'Reilly, of an existing tech, but I am not sure that tech really matters because AI has taken over in ways that do not interest me. With printed books for web development you want a recent book. I am sure there is much to be learned from the 2002 book, but I want 2024+. The list of titles starts out strong, with titles such as 'Web development with XYZ' but the 2024+ titles are…

I’m fine with old books. Just bought a bunch including “The TCP/IP Guide” and “The Linux Programming Interface”, which are more than a decade old. The oldest is “ The Design and Implementation of the 4.4Bsd Operating System” (30 years).

It’s better starting from an old books and retrace the updates from that. And with the benefits of hindsight, you can get truly good ones cheaply.

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#167

Post by heresalexandria »

lilbigdoot wrote: post #154
heresalexandria wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something a lot of folks struggling with these systems don't get is that the instruction and management of them is often quite important - just because they're capable doesn't mean they're mind readers. Most of the skepticism I encounter on this front is due to lack of proper direction, process involving planning and review before execution, and appropriate attention given to evaluation and feedback loops. If you ask…

I asked Qwen 3.7 pro to create a C# project that takes a string and reverses it, with a single file WASM target. It spun wheels for over 30 minutes and got nothing. I use LLMs all the time to help me diagnose bugs and work through my designs, but again and again, I am super unimpressed by their coding abilities. I can see how in some cases with a proper harness they probably do a decent job at certain tasks, but almo…

Qwen is a lightweight locally hosted model that's many months behind the SoTA available from the big three - while the crowd here (myself included) is excited for locally hosted models to catch up to the usable baseline, regardless of what benchmarks you based that selection on they aren't there yet.

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#168

Post by shepherdjerred »

nradov wrote: post #160
heresalexandria wrote: post #107

My observation is that a lot of folks still discounting the capabilities or impact of AI either aren't working with frontier intelligence or aren't using it right. While the coding horse has been beat within an inch of its life already, I'd recommend throwing Codex on 5.5 high thinking with Computer Use + auto approve at the next thing you're about to spend 5+ minutes on to start to get a feel for how well it handles…

I should use it to read and vote on HN comments so that I don't have to waste time doing that myself.

You’re absolutely right! This would save so much time.

Sent from my Claude Code

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#169

Post by sfadsdfsdfad »

romaniv wrote: post #36

The article has solid observations, but I would correct one important thing. It's not AI confidence, it's AI psychosis. A lot of people I know are forced to use AI at work. They universally tell me that their coworkers generate awful PRs with bugs, nonsensical code and fake unit tests. But they also universally tell me that they are different, have special workflows and prompts that create good code. The psychology b…

I am not forced to use it, but I am a peculiar type of dev. Very lazy. Can go for weeks without producing anything of value while I think of stuff, delete stuff and generally just cogitate. I would work for 3-5 hours if I could but I have to sit in a chair for 8 hours to please the pointy haired people.

My colleagues are absolute work horses. They work for 8-10 hours minimum. Always responding to emails, putting out fires. Always typing furiously, producing lots of code. You are waiting for it, I know it and yes, it's all shit and all those fires are of their own making.

I picked up stuff in a month or two that took my colleagues years and I'm not a genius, as you can undoubtedly tell. I am just exceedingly lazy and I honestly think it's pathological. It got me in a lot of trouble in the past, but now, with the way AI is going I'm having a blast.

I have some proclivity for architecture and directing large complex projects. I hate typing code, but I love pointing out how it should be done. This shit is a life saver but for the love of God if you are not supremely lazy and averse to code, don't use it. My productive colleagues + AI = goddamn disaster.

Re: Please stop the AI confidence theater

#170

Post by tines »

heresalexandria wrote: post #137
tines wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no brainer An excellent epithet for people who depend on AI!

The same attitude has been directed at points through history for people "who depend on the internet," "who depend on computers," and "who depend on machines." I was told growing up "you won't always have a calculator in your pocket" and yet now my phone has an offline LLM on it.

And if you can’t see the difference between those things, you’ll probably never know.
Post reply on HN