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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

#181

Post by cpursley »

teekert wrote: post #110

Had a similar experience recently, set up Claude code, wrote plans, CLAUDE.md etc. The plan was to end up with a nice looking hugo/bootstrap/ website. Long story short, it was ugly and didn't really work as I wanted. So I'm learning Hugo myself now... The whole experience was kind of frustrating tbh. When I finally settled in en did some hours of manual work I felt much better because of it. I did benefit from my pla…

It sort of sounds link you expected a one-shot miracle or am I misreading? Try this: start from scratch and use openspec explore - talk to it about what you are going for, tell it to call the built-in frontend-design skill and install a hugo skill first (https://skills.sh/?q=hugo), context7 for docs and playwright to check it's work via screenshots etc. Also optionally share any websites with the ascetic / layout you are going for. Be very descriptive. Also ask it to teach you about hugo as it goes and explain it's decisions, I'v learned a lot this way.

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

#182

Post by jmkni »

fhd2 wrote: post #6
bilekas wrote: post #3

> I've had conversations with people recently who are losing sleep because they're finding building yet another feature with "just one more prompt" irresistible. This is actually a really good point that I have kind of noticed when using AI for side project, so being on my own time. The allure of thinking "Oh I wonder how it will perform with this feature request if I give it this amount of info". Can't say I would p…

What kills me personally is that I'm constantly 80% there, but the remaining 20% can be just insurmountable. It's really like gambling: Just one more round and it'll be useful, OK, not quite, just one more, for hours.

Gambling is a great analogy, my lucks going to turn around, just one more prompt

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

#183

Post by windexh8er »

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…

Simon is a new form of troll and you hit the nail on the head of what: soapboxing the obvious all in the name of AI. Just like the OpenClaw article that hit the FP yesterday, these types of folks are either doing this for marketing or they're really elated by the mediocre. Has Simon actually produced anything novel or compelling? His blog posts surely aren't - so if that's any indication of his work output I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is a hard no.

And, who wants to be working on 3 projects simultaneously? This is the new "multitasking" agenda from generations ago with a new twist: now I just manage prompts and agents, bro! But the reality is: you think you're doing more than you actually are. Maybe Simon is just placating to his inevitable AGI overlords that he will still be useful in the coming Altmania revolution? No idea. Either way half the time I read his posts (only because they're posted here and I'm excited for his new discoveries) I can't stand to stomach his drivel.

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

#184

Post by darkwater »

shakna wrote: post #94
darkwater wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Previously, I'd have an idea, sit on it for a while. > With agentic development, I have an idea, waste a few hours chasing it, What's the difference between these 2 periods? Weren't you wasting time when sitting on it and thinking about your idea?

Sitting on an idea doesn't necessarily mean being inactive. You can think at the same time as doing something else. "Shower thoughts" are often born of that process.

I know, and letting an agent/LLM "think" about some ideas does not waste your time either. Yes, it "wastes" energy and you need to read and think about the results after, we don't have neural interfaces to computer, so the inner thinking feedback loop will always be faster. But I keep thinking GP comment was unfair: you can just have your idea in the background to check whether it is good or not exactly the same, and after that time "discuss" it with an LLM, or ask it to implement the idea because you think it's solid enough. It's a false dichotomy.

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

#185

Post by jmkni »

teekert wrote: post #110

Had a similar experience recently, set up Claude code, wrote plans, CLAUDE.md etc. The plan was to end up with a nice looking hugo/bootstrap/ website. Long story short, it was ugly and didn't really work as I wanted. So I'm learning Hugo myself now... The whole experience was kind of frustrating tbh. When I finally settled in en did some hours of manual work I felt much better because of it. I did benefit from my pla…

I find it's most valuable doing stuff I already know how to do, but would take me a long time.

You can watch what it's doing and eyeball the code to know if it's going in the right direction, and then steer it towards what you want.

If you have it doing something you have no clue about then it's total gamble

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

#186

Post by songodongo »

Productivity aside, what I notice most at work is that our offshore resources are submitting basically 100% AI generated work. Beyond the code itself, ever since we rolled out Copilot, their English has improved immensely. I have to wonder what is the point of keeping them on if they’re just sub-par prompting all their work.

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

#187

Post by simonw »

latexr wrote: post #177
simonw wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In your posts I have repeatedly seen you advocate for opposing ideas at different (but not too distant) points in time. One of my core beliefs is that "two things can be true at the same time". I write about opposing ideas because they have their own merits. I believe that most of the criticisms of generative AI are genuine problems. I also believe that generative AI provides incredible value to people who learn ho…

> One of my core beliefs is that "two things can be true at the same time". Which is, of course, true in some cases and false in others. But again, not what I’m talking about. > Got any examples that stood out to you of my inconsistency? Sorry, I don’t. You publish too often and obviously I’m not going to trawl through a sea of posts to find specific examples. I’m not trying to attack you. Again, my initial post was…

OK, I think I get it.

Your primary argument here is that it's better to sit with ideas for a while before writing about them.

My counter-argument is that's what I do... for my long form writing (aka "entries"). My link blog is faster reactions and has different standards - while I try to add value to everything I write there it's still a high volume of content where my goal is to be useful and accurate and interesting but not necessarily deep and thoughtful.

And yeah, you're absolutely right that the speed at which I comment here is that same thing again. I treat comments like they were an in-person conversation. They're how I flesh out ideas.

I wrote about my philosophy around blogging in one of my long-form pieces a few years ago: https://simonwillison.net/2022/Nov/6/what-to-blog-about/

> I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back.

That's why I like having different content types - links and quotes and notes and TILs - that reduce the pressure to only publish if I have something deep, thoughtful and unique to say.

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

#188

Post by tzury »

I would learn more about air combat by listening to a 12 minutes conversation with a jet fighter pilot, than I will from 3-day seminar by air force journalists.

Tell me about what’s the LLM impact on your work, on account your work is not wiring about AI.

Or if one wish for a more explicit noise filter: Don’t tell me what AI can do. Show me what you shipped with it that isn’t about AI.

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

#189

Post by windexh8er »

simonw wrote: post #136
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…

Writing about "the obvious" is a useful service. Often people doubt what their own experience is telling them until someone else helps confirm their suspicions and put them into words.

The opposite is also true. People often follow people off of a (figurative) cliff because that's what everyone is doing. We have copious toxic online communities to show for that. Most of the conversations around AI are falling into that type of cultish aspect. Look no further than YouTube to find how many born-again-AI-zealots emerged with ClawdBot/MoltBot/OpenClaw. It's just not as obvious in the blogosphere. The thing that is obvious is the constant "findings" that are nothing more than opinions. There's no historical evidence you won't change your mind in 10 minutes. And that's why I feel, as I read them, that these types of blog posts are foundationally built in sand.

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

#190

Post by latexr »

everdrive wrote: post #25

People are a gas, and they expand to fill the space they're in. Tools that produce more work do make people's lives easier, they mean an individual just needs to do more work using their tools to do so. This is a disposition that most people have, and therefore it's unavoidable. AI is not exciting to me. I only need to use it so I don't fall behind my peers. Why would I ever be interested in that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
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