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AI is turning us into glue

lincoln.swaine-moore.is

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Re: AI is turning us into glue

#21

Post by abletonlive »

rglover wrote: post #9

Really enjoyed this post. > Putting aside existential risks, I don't see a future where a lot of jobs don't cease to exist. I'm personally betting on the plateau effect with LLMs. There are two plateaus I see coming that will require humans to fix no matter what we do: 1. The LLMs themselves plateau. We're already seeing new models get worse, not better at writing code (e.g., Sonnet 3.5 seems to be better than 3.7 at…

This feels like a "if i say it enough, people will agree and it will be true" kind of comment. Almost none of these propositions check out or even make sense. I literally can't distinguish between reddit commenters and HN commenters. An unoriginal HN complaint but frustrating to witness over time.

1. Plateau != Regress. Why point to regressions as evidence of plateau? Why only look at a single model and minor version? we are clearly still at AI infancy, regressions are to be expected from time to time.

2. Where's the evidence of this? Humans are using AI to branch out and dip their toes into things that they wouldn't have fathomed doing before. How would that lead you to "disincentivized"?

> Doubly so when systems that were primarily or entirely "vibe coded" start to break in ways

So in this fantasy everybody is vibe coding resilient code/systems that lasts for 10+ years and everybody stops learning how to code, and after a decade or so, they start breaking and everybody is in trouble? This world you're creating wouldn't stand up to the critique of sci-fi readers.

I'm sorry but if we can vibe code systems that last 10+ years and nobody is learning anything because they are performing so well, then that's a job well done by OpenAI and co. We're probably set as a civilization.

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#22

Post by abdullahkhalids »

sarreph wrote: post #14
rglover wrote: post #9

Really enjoyed this post. > Putting aside existential risks, I don't see a future where a lot of jobs don't cease to exist. I'm personally betting on the plateau effect with LLMs. There are two plateaus I see coming that will require humans to fix no matter what we do: 1. The LLMs themselves plateau. We're already seeing new models get worse, not better at writing code (e.g., Sonnet 3.5 seems to be better than 3.7 at…

On your second point - I don’t agree that humans in general will plateau. I think instead the _gap_ between humans who crave to create and learn, and those who are ostensibly potatoes, will be magnified. I see it a bit like the creator economy, where you have these maker vs consumer tranches of people.

Humans are fundamentally creators of tools and art and imaginary world - this is one of the factors that distinguishes us from animals. For most of human history, most humans spent a lot of their time creating. The very recent phenomena of a large fraction of humans creating almost nothing in their adult life is caused by modern economic systems, almost all of which force people to work so much every day that all their creative energies are sapped.

Go to a 4 day 24 hour work week and you will find almost everyone creating again.

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#23

Post by 7speter »

rglover wrote: post #9

Really enjoyed this post. > Putting aside existential risks, I don't see a future where a lot of jobs don't cease to exist. I'm personally betting on the plateau effect with LLMs. There are two plateaus I see coming that will require humans to fix no matter what we do: 1. The LLMs themselves plateau. We're already seeing new models get worse, not better at writing code (e.g., Sonnet 3.5 seems to be better than 3.7 at…

The thing about being an “AI mess fixer” will be that you’ll still need experience that fuels the creativity to solve problems generated by the AI.

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#24

Post by rglover »

abletonlive wrote: post #21
rglover wrote: post #9

Really enjoyed this post. > Putting aside existential risks, I don't see a future where a lot of jobs don't cease to exist. I'm personally betting on the plateau effect with LLMs. There are two plateaus I see coming that will require humans to fix no matter what we do: 1. The LLMs themselves plateau. We're already seeing new models get worse, not better at writing code (e.g., Sonnet 3.5 seems to be better than 3.7 at…

This feels like a "if i say it enough, people will agree and it will be true" kind of comment. Almost none of these propositions check out or even make sense. I literally can't distinguish between reddit commenters and HN commenters. An unoriginal HN complaint but frustrating to witness over time. 1. Plateau != Regress. Why point to regressions as evidence of plateau? Why only look at a single model and minor version…

Like I said, in the short-term this will sound false, but in the long-term I expect it to be frighteningly accurate.

> I literally can't distinguish between reddit commenters and HN commenters.

No need to condescend. I have a fair amount of experience building with and using these tools daily. I'm not just some "reddit idiot."

> So in this fantasy everybody is vibe coding code that lasts for 10+ years and everybody stops learning how to code

I'm extrapolating. Look at what happened in the wake of the industrial revolution. Most people don't know how to fix or create anything today, and instead, rely on fast-and-cheap products or services made by or offered by other people. Hence the panic over China and tariffs. The AI-ification of everything is just another, modern version of a similar thing.

I could absolutely be wrong (and hope I am). But when you track human laziness over time, it leads to deterioration and incompetence. I view this as a gradually than all of a sudden type of problem. One that will be incredibly difficult to dig ourselves out of later.

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#25

Post by blogabegonija »

LoganDark wrote: post #5
blogabegonija wrote: post #3

Guys like these need dmt. srlsly.

I would highly caution against recommending DMT to random strangers. It is not for the faint of heart and it is also nowhere near a magic fix-all. Also, its routes of administration mostly suck (smoking/vaping or MAOIs).

Lammers should try anyway.

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) and psychedelic medicines are among the most high-profile evolving disruptive innovations within mental healthcare in recent years. Although AI and psychedelics may not have historically shared any common ground, there exists the potential for these subjects to combine in generating innovative mental health treatment approacheshttps://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.15...

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#26

Post by minimaxir »

turtlebits wrote: post #11

"I like fixing thorny bugs". Not me. Any tool that can get me to the solution faster is always welcome. IME, AI does well handling the boring parts.

It depends on the thorny bug. I like fixing bugs where the solution is to implement something clever and I learn something in the process. I don't like fixing bugs where I forget a comma or do a subtle one-off error.

Most thorny bugs fall into the latter in my experience.

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#27

Post by m4rtink »

There is a story about this by Stanislaw Lem: "Elsewhere Tichy meets a race of aliens (called "Indioci" in the Polish original, "Phools" in the English translation) who, desiring perfect harmony in their lives, entrust themselves to a machine, which converts them into shiny discs to be arranged in pleasant patterns across their planet." - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijon_Tichy#Stories

(Not glue, but close enough.)

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#28

Post by arctek »

myhf wrote: post #7

Why do articles like this always say things like "I've used LLMs to get some stuff done faster" and then go on to describe how LLMs get them to spend more time and money to do a worse job? You don't need LLMs to frustrate you into lowering your standards, the power to do that was within you all along.

Has anyone actually measured this yet?

Much of this feels like when they did studies on people who take mushrooms for example feel like they are more productive, but when you actually measure it they aren't. It's just their perception.

To me the biggest issue is that search has been gutted out and so for many questions the best results come from asking an LLM. But this is far different from using it to generate entire codebases.

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#29

Post by eacapeisfutuile »

rglover wrote: post #24
abletonlive wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a "if i say it enough, people will agree and it will be true" kind of comment. Almost none of these propositions check out or even make sense. I literally can't distinguish between reddit commenters and HN commenters. An unoriginal HN complaint but frustrating to witness over time. 1. Plateau != Regress. Why point to regressions as evidence of plateau? Why only look at a single model and minor version…

Like I said, in the short-term this will sound false, but in the long-term I expect it to be frighteningly accurate. > I literally can't distinguish between reddit commenters and HN commenters. No need to condescend. I have a fair amount of experience building with and using these tools daily. I'm not just some "reddit idiot." > So in this fantasy everybody is vibe coding code that lasts for 10+ years and everybody s…

You are not wrong and that is a rational and a plausible forecast.

Re: AI is turning us into glue

#30

Post by stavros »

So there's a wrong way and a right way to code with LLMs. The wrong way is to ask the LLM to write a bunch of code you don't understand, and to keep asking it to write more and more code to fix the problems each iteration has. That will lead to a massive tower built on sand, where everything is brittle and collapses at the slightest gust of wind.

The right way is to have it autocomplete a few lines at a time for you. You avoid writing all the boilerplate, you don't need to look up APIs, you get to write lines in a tenth of the time it would normally take, but you still have all the context of what's happening where. If there's a bug, you don't need to ask the LLM to fix it, you just go and look, you spot it, and you fix it yourself, because it's usually something dumb.

The second way wins because you don't let the LLM make grand architectural choices, and all the bugs are contained in low-level code, which is generally easy to fix if the functions, their inputs, and their outputs are sane.

I like programming as much as the next person, but I'm really not lamenting the fact that I don't have to be looking up parameters or exact function names any more. Especially something like Cursor makes this much easier, because it can autocomplete as you type, rather than in a disconnected "here's a diff you won't even read" way.

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