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AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

chrbutler.com

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Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#201

Post by lomase »

01100011 wrote: post #174
SoftTalker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a SWE, DBA, SysAdmin, I work up and down the stack as needed. I'm not using LLMs at all. I really haven't tried them. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clear "best practices" to emerge. I am sure that these tools are here to stay but I am also confident they are not in their final form today. I've seen too many hype trains in my career to still be jumping on them at the first stop.

It's time to jump on the train. I'm a cranky, old, embedded SWE and claude 4.5 is changing how I work. Before that I laughed off LLMs. They were trash. Claude still has issues, but damn, I think if I don't integrate it into my workflow I'll be out of work or relegated to work in QA or devops(where I'd likely be forced to use it). No, it's not going to write all your code for you. Yes your skills are still needed to d…

I am an old SWE and claude 4.5 has not changed a thing on how we work.

The teams that have embraced AI in their worlflow have not increased their output compared with they ones that don't use it.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#202

Post by lomase »

rafaelmn wrote: post #186
01100011 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time to jump on the train. I'm a cranky, old, embedded SWE and claude 4.5 is changing how I work. Before that I laughed off LLMs. They were trash. Claude still has issues, but damn, I think if I don't integrate it into my workflow I'll be out of work or relegated to work in QA or devops(where I'd likely be forced to use it). No, it's not going to write all your code for you. Yes your skills are still needed to d…

This was true since Claude Sonnet 3.5, so over a year now. I was early on the LLM train building RAG tools and prototypes in the company I was working at the time, but pre Claude 3.5 all the models were just a complete waste of time for coding, except the inline autocomplete models saved you some typing. Claude 3.5 was actually where it could generate simple stuff. Progress kind of tapered off since tho, Claude is st…

This was true since ChatGPT-1, and I mean the lies.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#203

Post by lomase »

code51 wrote: post #172
SoftTalker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a SWE, DBA, SysAdmin, I work up and down the stack as needed. I'm not using LLMs at all. I really haven't tried them. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clear "best practices" to emerge. I am sure that these tools are here to stay but I am also confident they are not in their final form today. I've seen too many hype trains in my career to still be jumping on them at the first stop.

I'm surprised these pockets of job security still exist. Know this: someone is coming after this already. One day someone from management will hear about a cost-saving story at a dinner table, the words GPT, Cursor, Antigravity, reasoning, AGI will cause a buzzing in her ear. Waking up with tinnitus the next morning, they'll instantly schedule a 1:1 to discuss "the degree of AI use and automation"

Lowballing contracts is nothing new. It has never ever worked out.

You can trow all AI you want, but at the end of the day you get what you pay for.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#204

Post by Muromec »

sanmon3186 wrote: post #146
SoftTalker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a SWE, DBA, SysAdmin, I work up and down the stack as needed. I'm not using LLMs at all. I really haven't tried them. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clear "best practices" to emerge. I am sure that these tools are here to stay but I am also confident they are not in their final form today. I've seen too many hype trains in my career to still be jumping on them at the first stop.

Why would you wait for dust to settle down? Just curious. Productivity gains are real in current form of LLMs. Guardrails and best practices can be learnt and self imposed.

Whenever I hear about productivity gains, I mentally substitute it for "more time to play video games left in the day" to keep the conversation grounded. I would say I rather not.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#205

Post by lomase »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #162
sanmon3186 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you wait for dust to settle down? Just curious. Productivity gains are real in current form of LLMs. Guardrails and best practices can be learnt and self imposed.

> Productivity gains are real in current form of LLM I haven't found that to be true I'm of the opinion that anyone who is impressed by the code these things produce is a hack

I just started a project, they fired the previous team, I am possitive they used AI. The app is full of bugs and the client will never hire the old company again.

Whoever says is time to move to LLMS is clueless.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#206

Post by lomase »

sockgrant wrote: post #14

“As a designer…” IMHO the bleeding edge of what’s working well with LLMs is within software engineering because we’re building for ourselves, first. Claude code is incredible. Where I work, there are an incredible number of custom agents that integrate with our internal tooling. Many make me very productive and are worthwhile. I find it hard to buy in to opinions of non-SWE on the uselessness of AI solely because I t…

Can you show something built with those tools.

The only reply I have got to this question was: it created a sap script.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#207

Post by rafaelmn »

lomase wrote: post #202
rafaelmn wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was true since Claude Sonnet 3.5, so over a year now. I was early on the LLM train building RAG tools and prototypes in the company I was working at the time, but pre Claude 3.5 all the models were just a complete waste of time for coding, except the inline autocomplete models saved you some typing. Claude 3.5 was actually where it could generate simple stuff. Progress kind of tapered off since tho, Claude is st…

This was true since ChatGPT-1, and I mean the lies.

Not really - 3.5 was the first model where I could actually use it to vibe through CRUD without it vasting more time than it saves, I actually used it to deliver a MVP on a side gig I was working on. GPT 4 was nowhere near as useful at the time. And Sonnet 3 was also considerably worse.

And from reading through the forums and talking to co-workers this was a common experience.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#209

Post by HPsquared »

portanus wrote: post #122
highfrequency wrote: post #107

The universal theme with general purpose technologies is 1) they start out lagging behind current practices in every context 2) they improve rapidly, but 3) they break through and surpass current practices in different contexts at different times. What that means is that if you work in a certain context, for a while you keep seeing AI get a 0 because it is worse than the current process. Behind the scenes the underly…

We don’t argue that microwaves will be ubiquitous (which they aren’t, but close enough). We argue that microwaves are not an artificial general barbecue, as the makers might wish were true. And we argue that microwaves will indeed never replace your grill as the makers, again, would love you to believe.

They do make those microwaves with a built-in grill element now!

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#210

Post by laterium »

muldvarp wrote: post #75
DennisP wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineers been automating our own work since we built the first assembler. So far it's just made us more productive and valuable, because the demand for software has been effectively unlimited. Maybe that will continue with AI, or maybe our long-standing habit will finally turn against us.

> Software engineers been automating our own work since we built the first assembler. The declared goal of AI is to automated software engineering entirely. This is in no way comparable to building an assembler. So the question is mostly about whether or not this goal will be achieved. Still, nobody is building these systems _for_ me. They're building them to replace me, because my living is too much for them to pay.

Who declared it? Who cares what anyone declares? What do you think will actually happen? If software can be fully automated, then sure SWEs will need to find a new job. But why wouldn't it increase productivity instead and there still are developer jobs, just different.
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