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

This time is different

shkspr.mobi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 400 posts

Re: This time is different

#21

Post by ravioli_fog »

edent wrote: post #14
troosevelt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not really saying anything, though. For every tech hype that has failed, there is another that's changed the world. This IS changing the world and our industry, regardless of whether it reaches the heights of the hypers. I mean you're just stating that sometimes tech doesn't meet it's hype. What's insightful about that? It's a given; cherry-picking examples doesn't prove your case.

The thing is, the successful tech rarely get the excessive hype. MRNA vaccines. Where are the countless breathless articles about these literal life saving tech? A few, maybe, but very few dudes pumping out asinine "white papers" and trying to ride the hype train. Solar and battery. Again, lots of real world impact but remarkably few unhinged blowhards writing endless newsletters about how this changes everything. I'…

I personally see plenty of hype but I've also been following the trends and using the tools "on the ground". At least in terms of software these tools are a substantial shift. Will they replace developers? No idea, but their impacts are likely to be felt for a very long time. Their rate of improvement in programming is growing rapidly.

Do feel AI is overall just hype? When did you last try AI tools and what about their use made you conclude they will likely be forgotten or ignored by the mainstream?

Re: This time is different

#22

Post by nozzlegear »

edent wrote: post #14
troosevelt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not really saying anything, though. For every tech hype that has failed, there is another that's changed the world. This IS changing the world and our industry, regardless of whether it reaches the heights of the hypers. I mean you're just stating that sometimes tech doesn't meet it's hype. What's insightful about that? It's a given; cherry-picking examples doesn't prove your case.

The thing is, the successful tech rarely get the excessive hype. MRNA vaccines. Where are the countless breathless articles about these literal life saving tech? A few, maybe, but very few dudes pumping out asinine "white papers" and trying to ride the hype train. Solar and battery. Again, lots of real world impact but remarkably few unhinged blowhards writing endless newsletters about how this changes everything. I'…

Unrelated to the conversation but:

> Not everything is written to be insightful. Some things are just written to get them out of my head.

I like that, going to use it as the motivation to get some things out of my own head.

Re: This time is different

#23

Post by NitpickLawyer »

p-o wrote: post #19

By the looks of it, 2026 might be the year where reality and fiction will finally collide with AI and we'll be able to see if all the hype was warranted. But like all the previous hype, most of the people that were the loudest won't say they were wrong, and they'll move to the next thing, pretending like they never were the one that portrayed AI as the holy Graal.

> and we'll be able to see if all the hype was warranted.

Umm, what? For the past 3 years, every year I've said something along the lines of "even if models stop improving now, we'll be working on this for years, finding new ways to use it and make cool stuff happen". The hype is already warranted. To have used these tools and not be hyped is simply denial at this point.

Re: This time is different

#24

Post by edent »

ravioli_fog wrote: post #21
edent wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, the successful tech rarely get the excessive hype. MRNA vaccines. Where are the countless breathless articles about these literal life saving tech? A few, maybe, but very few dudes pumping out asinine "white papers" and trying to ride the hype train. Solar and battery. Again, lots of real world impact but remarkably few unhinged blowhards writing endless newsletters about how this changes everything. I'…

I personally see plenty of hype but I've also been following the trends and using the tools "on the ground". At least in terms of software these tools are a substantial shift. Will they replace developers? No idea, but their impacts are likely to be felt for a very long time. Their rate of improvement in programming is growing rapidly. Do feel AI is overall just hype? When did you last try AI tools and what about the…

I spent an hour with Gemini this morning trying to get instructions to compile a common open source tool for an uncommon platform.

It was an hour of pasting in error messages and getting back "Aha! Here's the final change you need to make!"

Underwhelming doesn't even begin to describe it.

But, even if I'm wrong, we were told that COBOL would make programming redundant. Then UML was going to accelerate development. Visual programming would mean no more mistakes.

All of them are in the coding mix somewhere, and I suspect LLMs will be.

Re: This time is different

#25

Post by redwood »

I hoped the article would be be a meta-discussion of "time" and perhaps relativity or some other phenomenon. Sigh, it's an investment thesis saying "This Time is Different" is a risky bet.

Re: This time is different

#27

Post by p-o »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #23
p-o wrote: post #19

By the looks of it, 2026 might be the year where reality and fiction will finally collide with AI and we'll be able to see if all the hype was warranted. But like all the previous hype, most of the people that were the loudest won't say they were wrong, and they'll move to the next thing, pretending like they never were the one that portrayed AI as the holy Graal.

> and we'll be able to see if all the hype was warranted. Umm, what? For the past 3 years, every year I've said something along the lines of "even if models stop improving now, we'll be working on this for years, finding new ways to use it and make cool stuff happen". The hype is already warranted. To have used these tools and not be hyped is simply denial at this point.

Maybe AI is useful to you, but the US economy is currently buoyed by promises of AI replacing the workforce across the board.

Most of Mag-7 are planning to spend over 500B on capex this year alone on building out datacenters for AI pipelines that have yet to prove that it can generate a sustainable profit. Yes, AI is useful in some environments, but the current pricing is heavily subsidized. So my point stand, the hype is not warranted.

Re: This time is different

#28

Post by ej88 »

edent wrote: post #24
ravioli_fog wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally see plenty of hype but I've also been following the trends and using the tools "on the ground". At least in terms of software these tools are a substantial shift. Will they replace developers? No idea, but their impacts are likely to be felt for a very long time. Their rate of improvement in programming is growing rapidly. Do feel AI is overall just hype? When did you last try AI tools and what about the…

I spent an hour with Gemini this morning trying to get instructions to compile a common open source tool for an uncommon platform. It was an hour of pasting in error messages and getting back "Aha! Here's the final change you need to make!" Underwhelming doesn't even begin to describe it. But, even if I'm wrong, we were told that COBOL would make programming redundant. Then UML was going to accelerate development. Vi…

> write an article dismissing ai

> usage is copy pasting code back and forth with gemini

the jokes write themselves

Re: This time is different

#30

Post by edent »

redwood wrote: post #25

I hoped the article would be be a meta-discussion of "time" and perhaps relativity or some other phenomenon. Sigh, it's an investment thesis saying "This Time is Different" is a risky bet.

That sounds like an interesting article. You should write it.
Post reply on HN