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AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

koshyjohn.com

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Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#181

Post by analog31 »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #55
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #24

There are plenty of engineers that couldn't work without a modern IDE or in languages without memory management. Or without the ability to use a library from GitHub / their package manager. It doesn't feel THAT much different to me. "Engineer" as a term might drift. There are "web developers" that can only use webflow / wordpress.

Engineer as a term has already drifted vastly since nobody in the field of "Software Engineering" is actually an Engineer if we go by a strict definitions. Engineers are accredited and in some countries even come with a title.

Engineers are accredited in the US too. But there is an "industrial exemption" that allows you to work as an engineer without a license for certain kinds of employers. You just can't offer engineering services to the public without a license. This is more important in some fields than in others.

Where I work, there are plenty of non licensed engineers, but we pay a 3rd party agency for regulatory approval. The people who work for that agency are licensed engineers. Their expertise is knowing the regulations backwards and forwards.

Here's what I think is happening within industry. More and more work done by people with engineering job titles consists of organizing and arranging things, fitting things together, troubleshooting, dealing with vendors, etc. The reason is the complexity of products. As the number of "things" in a product increases by O(n), the number of relationships increases by O(n^2), so the majority of work has to do with relationships. A small fraction of engineers engages in traditional quantitative engineering. In my observation, the average age of those people is around 60, with a few in their 70s.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#182

Post by LtWorf »

spacechild1 wrote: post #162
vips7L wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer Science.

I see. Computer Science is not an engineering degree and it is not about programming. That's what Software Engineering degrees are for.

Software engineers graduates I've met are usually much worse at programming than computer science graduates.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#183

Post by gerdesj »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #168
bla3 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "can't make 9 babies in a month" It's "9 women can't make a baby in one month".

In fairness, 9 women can't make 9 babies in a month either

No idea why you were dv'd.

It still takes roughly nine months to make a human baby, regardless of how many women or babies are involved!

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#184

Post by archfrog »

Very apt headline, IMHO.

I have been an ardent opponent of AI since it came up a few years back. I refuse to vibe code and I refuse to let AI think for me. I won't be an AI controller.

However, two days ago I found a nice, personal use case for AI: Advanced writing checks (grammar checks, mostly, and some rewordings) in Word using a rather expensive app.

I write a lot of US English, despite it not being my native language, and AI is now helping me to write much better than I did before. Also, I discovered that I am much worse at writing Danish than I was believing. In fact, I think I am better at writing US English than at Danish, that's a bit surprising as I am a Dane.

No AI was used during the writing of this entry, but I dearly love the writing tool already! I have heard similar stories from friends who say that AI is very good at summarizing long documents and stuff like that.

So, I personally think that AI CAN elevate one's thinking. I am learning more about Danish and US English grammar every day, now, than I did during a decade before. Writing is suddenly so fun because it involves growing my skills.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#185

Post by ua709 »

willhslade wrote: post #171
ua709 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point, I just wonder how accurate it is. We basically never look at the output of the compiler, so I agree that tool allows one to operate at a higher level than assembly. But I always have to wade through the output from AI so I’m not sure I got to move to the next level of abstraction. But maybe that’s just me.

Are compilers deterministic?

I'm sure someone, somewhere, once wrote one that wasn't but in general, yes they are.

The ones I use certainly are. And with a bit of training you can reason and predict how they will respond to a given input with a large degree of accuracy without being familiar with how the particular compiler under question was implemented.

Not so with the AI tools. At least with the ones I use anyway.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#186

Post by kristianc »

ctvdev wrote: post #115
staticshock wrote: post #66

The eloquence with which this point gets (repeatedly) made is continuing to improve each next time I read it. However, I still feel like we haven't nailed it. That is, we are not yet at the "aphorism" stage of the discourse (e.g. "the medium is the message", "you ship your org chart", "9 mothers can't make a baby in a month"), in which the most pointed version of this critique packs a punch in just a few words that r…

> That is, we are not yet at the "aphorism" stage of the discourse we learn by doing

... or by textbooks, Stack Overflow, senior engineers, code review. How many engineers today got their start by building Minecraft mods or even MySpace?

I do think that these pieces sometimes smuggle in a nostalgic picture of how engineers "really" learn which has only ever been partly true.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#187

Post by lukan »

lelanthran wrote: post #165
lukan wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can’t treat a prompt like source code because it will give you a different output every time you use it" But it seems we are heading there. For simple stuff, if I made a very clear spec - I can be almost sure, that every time I give that prompt to a AI, it will work without error, using the same algorithms. So quality of prompt is more valuable, than the generated code So either way, this is what I focus my thin…

Didnt work for the prod data that the AI nukes in spite of prompts saying "DON'T FUCKING GUESS", just like that in all caps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47911524 What makes you think it will work for you?

That I don't let agents run wild in a production environment?

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#189

Post by xnx »

lsy wrote: post #117
xnx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This concept won't reach that point because when you chisel too hard it crumbles. There are countless lower level tasks that typical programmers no longer learn how to do. Our capacity for knowledge is not unlimited so we offload everything we can to move to the next level of abstraction.

AI coding isn’t an abstraction, though. You can’t treat a prompt like source code because it will give you a different output every time you use it. An abstraction lets you offload cognitive capacity while retaining knowledge of “what you are doing”. With AI coding either you need to carefully review outputs and you aren’t saving any cognitive capacity, or you aren’t looking at the outputs and don’t know what you’re…

> AI coding isn’t an abstraction

Isn't it an abstraction similar to how an engineering or product manager is? Tell the (human or AI coder) what you want, and the coder writes code to fulfill your request. If it's not what you want, have them modify what they've made or start over with a new approach.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#190

Post by woeirua »

I don’t get why we shouldn’t outsource our thinking to the AI. As it becomes more capable, eventually it will be more competent than the average engineer. At that point companies should be _requiring_ the AI to make the larger decisions. By the end of this year AI might be better than all but the very best engineers. Then what?
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