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Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

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Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#161

Post by Krei-se »

evolve-maz wrote: post #83

It's interesting to see how over the span of just a few years a lot of people went from: > Architecture astronauts are out of touch and shouldn't give any advice because they haven't written code in ages. Only the hands on engineers can shape it since the design evolves in step with writing the code. To > I focus on the architecture patterns and high level goals and let the LLM take care of the rest. Similar commenta…

I think they are lying to themselves. The patterns change with the hardware and environment, i sure code different and use other data structures when having to account for VRAM now, network security, etc.

Going from the specification to the code is not a one way street. You adapt the whole chain. Saying the only thing that matters is the spec is squinting your eyes and hoping for the best.

You stop learning how things actually end up in memory, compute, storage and network this way. Not sure how you can build a secure and fast spec then.

And even if you do know i never understand why not typing it out. You can use a lib if you don't want to worry about these details or know you are not skilled enough (tls f.e. ...). But having AI do it introduces uncertainty where there can be determinism.

I think it's just laziness and people not liking the pain of learning or needing to show off whatever first. Who knows. Still don't see a reason to use these tools outside of learning or whatever i used a google search for before.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#162

Post by skydhash »

N_Lens wrote: post #156
philjackson wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this with real-world examples you've experienced?

AI amplifies existing process. For people without sufficient clarity I imagine it amplifies that lack of clarity, which is where it is factually unproductive while it still ‘seems’ to be productive (producing slop). At the end of the day, LLMs are still tools.

> For people without sufficient clarity I imagine it amplifies that lack of clarity, which is where it is factually unproductive while it still ‘seem’ to be productive

Convenient way of saying "you're holding it wrong".

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#163

Post by wartywhoa23 »

staticautomatic wrote: post #92
turpentine wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are going from the era of manual, line-by-line mental model transcription to one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms. Focusing on data structures, architecture and algorithms is what competency in programming has looked like since forever. Building systems out of smaller pieces gets you there. If your complaint above is that you were struggling with syntax…

Do you remember how bad documentation was? I still have nightmares about Twisted.

And I have wonderful lucid dreams about MSDN.

Also, are you implying that docs became better in the AI era?

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#164

Post by suby »

owebmaster wrote: post #151
epolanski wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can achieve more with AI than without. What's the complain exactly? That AI still hasn't made my effort and thinking and directing and checking and ideas completely redundant and thus out of job? It's like you people see everything in black and white and miss that most of the real world is a gradient of shades of grey and quite never full black or white.

> What's the complain exactly? What complain? OP asked a question. Carmack created Doom, Quake in 2, 3 years. What has he created in 4 years of AI? Should be exceptional if one of the most productive programmers ever says it makes him more productive. What does he have to show?

You're comparing the challenge of building game engines in the 90's with the more open-ended AGI research. It's different enough that I don't think it's valid to conclude he's less productive now based on impact over time.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#165

Post by skydhash »

owebmaster wrote: post #151
epolanski wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can achieve more with AI than without. What's the complain exactly? That AI still hasn't made my effort and thinking and directing and checking and ideas completely redundant and thus out of job? It's like you people see everything in black and white and miss that most of the real world is a gradient of shades of grey and quite never full black or white.

> What's the complain exactly? What complain? OP asked a question. Carmack created Doom, Quake in 2, 3 years. What has he created in 4 years of AI? Should be exceptional if one of the most productive programmers ever says it makes him more productive. What does he have to show?

That reminds me of something on my last job. Before AI, we had not so good communication, but if we had a question, the person on the other end will try to give you a passable answer. After AI, everyone seems to be a proxy for the LLM tools they're using and any misleading statement you point out is answered by "Why don't you use $llm_tool to check it out?".

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#166

Post by cheschire »

hypfer wrote: post #115
PostOnce wrote: post #88

John Carmack is a personal hero of mine, so it pains me to say this: Carmack hasn't produced anything noteworthy since AI was invented, therefore, how productive can it really be? It could be he is doing incredible work in private... but it could also be that he's lost in the weeds, because AI is so counterproductive while feeling the opposite? I remain a skeptic.

I mean his post boils down to "Get on the bandwagon because you might otherwise miss out. All the cool kids do AI now." There are valid concerns there (and you should probably be playing around with LLMs), but he voiced none of them. He just led with a metaphor about obsolescence and then continued spreading FOMO with an authoritative voice.

Perhaps he is actually lamenting being the out of touch kung fu master, but his pride won't allow him to articulate the ways in which he identifies with that?

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#167

Post by anonzzzies »

N_Lens wrote: post #156
philjackson wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this with real-world examples you've experienced?

AI amplifies existing process. For people without sufficient clarity I imagine it amplifies that lack of clarity, which is where it is factually unproductive while it still ‘seems’ to be productive (producing slop). At the end of the day, LLMs are still tools.

Yeah, that gives me the scary feeling that especially here people are overvalueing themselves by a lot. They find AI counterproductive because they simply never were good at what they do before AI. This is always always my read of people who value talking, meetings and office time as important: I have never met people who have that and who are not sales or just plain suck at their job; AI amplifies that. Also with salespeople who now send me presentations that just have a bucket loads of hallucinations in them: turns out they never read them but had interns write most of them: now they still cannot read and AI generated stuff looks plausible. I only have anecdotal experiences but this sure seems to resonate for the AI negativity around here. I could be wrong but it's so far removed from our experiences.

LLMs are just tools indeed.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#168

Post by Razengan »

sriram_malhar wrote: post #131
Razengan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worry about the world that we will be living in when a whole generation has skipped learning the basics the hard way. Have you been schooled in farming? Raising livestock? Milking cattle? Does your ability to cook good food depend upon your ability to till soil and sow seeds? I don't mean that in ass way but re: what other comments said: > it feels like a rich getting richer scenario in all aspects of society Tha…

> Have you been schooled in farming? Raising livestock? Milking cattle? Does your ability to cook good food ... Pushing that analogy, AI is the equivalent of automating everything from tilling, growing, all the way to cooking. It is as if the human is involved at the beginning in specifying what they want, and at the end, in plating up the food and consuming the product. The next generation will have no clue about th…

> That kind of power breeds fascism.

uhmmm and what have y'all been doing to prevent fascism and wealth inequality up until the point -before- AI became a thing?

What did you do about the mandatory government IDs required to access the internet?

What did you do to reduce police brutality and unaccountability in the USA?

AI is the ONE thing that COULD give the common peasantry a chance.

..maybe that's why so many fires are being stoked against it.. *thinking emoji*

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#169

Post by hermitcrab »

sriram_malhar wrote: post #31

Everyone who writes enthusiastically about AI already has the benefit of having worked without AI. They have been schooled in the basics. Enough of us know about data structures, concurrency, networks, language design etc. from the ground up that the knowledge is passed on. I worry about the world that we will be living in when a whole generation has skipped learning the basics the hard way. Given the attendance rate…

Herodotus wrote about finding people living in the ruins of a great city (Babylon) who had no idea who built it or how they built it.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#170

Post by Razengan »

rwmj wrote: post #155
Razengan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worry about the world that we will be living in when a whole generation has skipped learning the basics the hard way. Have you been schooled in farming? Raising livestock? Milking cattle? Does your ability to cook good food depend upon your ability to till soil and sow seeds? I don't mean that in ass way but re: what other comments said: > it feels like a rich getting richer scenario in all aspects of society Tha…

I haven't been schooled in farming, but my understanding of food has greatly increased since we started growing our own vegetables.

Yes, but that still has little bearing on actual cooking skills, no?
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