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Grief and the AI split

blog.lmorchard.com

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Re: Grief and the AI split

#201

Post by simianwords »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #168
PaulHoule wrote: post #23

You can use gen AI entirely in the spirit of craft. For instance if you need to consume, implement or extend some open source software you can load it up in an agent IDE and ask “How do I?” questions or “how is it that?” questions that put you on a firm footing.

You don't need AI for this, we've had search engines and good online resources for decades

Being blunt here but this is a good example of dogmatic thought.

AI is leaps and bounds better than google at searching.

“You don’t need google for this, we have had public libraries for decades” energy.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#202

Post by simianwords »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #193
reverius42 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current AI is much, much better than current search engines (which themselves seem worse than they were decades ago, for some reason).

It really isn't. AI has nothing on a good search engine like Kagi.

This is easily disproven. I mean how can someone still believe this? Wow!

I can come up with many examples that would take you ages to search in Kagi vs one prompt in ChatGPT.

You really should be updating.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#204

Post by fellowniusmonk »

I love developing clever algorithms and writing elegant code. It's a hobby of mine and it makes me happy.

I love shipping tangible products because it makes others happy and makes me money.

Do what you love for work and you'll never love anything again.

Do what you love for a hobby and keep it pure.

Don't let either be your identity, you only diminish yourself and grow old in the doing.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#205

Post by heavyset_go »

est wrote: post #177

I wonder what happens if Claude was exploited by hackers and all chat logs were released one day. Nearly every corp secrets would be instant leaked.

What happens when providers achieve AGI, as they claim, and then use what they've learned from your company's prompts, context, memory and outputs to put you out of business

Even without AGI, that internal source code, data and trade secrets are valuable on their own. Would suck if someone capitalized on it

Re: Grief and the AI split

#206

Post by domlebo70 »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #189
rudedogg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real divide is over quality and standards. We all have different thresholds for what is acceptable, and our roles as engineers typically reflect that preference. I can grind on a single piece of code for hours, iterating over and over until I like the way it works, the parameter names, etc. Other people do not see the value in that whatsoever, and something that works is good enough. We both are valuable…

> Also, theres the pace of advancement of the models. Many people formed their opinions last year, and the landscape has changed a lot. People have been saying this every year for the last 3 years. It hasn't been true before, and it isn't true now. The models haven't actually gotten smarter, they still don't actually understand a thing, and they still routinely make basic syntax and logic errors. Yes, even (insert yo…

Maybe I'm solving different problems to you, but I don't think I've seen a single "idiot moment" from Claude Code this entire week. I've had to massage things to get them more aligned with how I want things, but I don't recall any basic syntax or logic errors.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#207

Post by cableshaft »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #189
rudedogg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real divide is over quality and standards. We all have different thresholds for what is acceptable, and our roles as engineers typically reflect that preference. I can grind on a single piece of code for hours, iterating over and over until I like the way it works, the parameter names, etc. Other people do not see the value in that whatsoever, and something that works is good enough. We both are valuable…

> Also, theres the pace of advancement of the models. Many people formed their opinions last year, and the landscape has changed a lot. People have been saying this every year for the last 3 years. It hasn't been true before, and it isn't true now. The models haven't actually gotten smarter, they still don't actually understand a thing, and they still routinely make basic syntax and logic errors. Yes, even (insert yo…

All I know is it feels very different using it now then it did a year ago. I was struggling to get it to do anything too useful a year ago, just asking it to do a small function here or there, often not being totally satisfied with the results.

Now I can ask an agent to code a full feature and it has been handling it more often than not, often getting almost all of the way there with just a few paragraphs of description.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#208

Post by cableshaft »

suzzer99 wrote: post #77
simonw wrote: post #2

This sounds right to me: > Before AI, both camps were doing the same thing every day. Writing code by hand. Using the same editors, the same languages, the same pull request workflows. The craft-lovers and the make-it-go people sat next to each other, shipped the same products, looked indistinguishable. The motivation behind the work was invisible because the process was identical. Helps explain why some people are d…

Enjoying something and getting satisfaction out of it are two different things. I don't enjoy the act of coding. But I enjoy the feeling when I figure something out. I also think that having to solve novel puzzles as part of my job helps preserve my brain plasticity as I age. I'm not sure I'll get either of those from claude.

> I also think that having to solve novel puzzles as part of my job helps preserve my brain plasticity as I age.

Yeah, this is a concern. I remember when I took a break from coding to work as a video game producer for a couple of years and I felt like my ability to code was atrophying and that drove me nuts.

Now I'm not so sure. There's just so much dumb garbage that's accumulated around coding nowadays, especially with web dev. So much time just gluing together or puzzling out how to get APIs or libraries to works and play nice together.

It's not like back in the days where it was relatively simple with PHP and HTML, when I first started. Much less you could do back then, sure, but expectations were a lot lower back then as well.

I might just content myself with doing Sudoku or playing/designing board games to help keep that brain plasticity going, and stop fighting so hard to understand all this junk. Or finally figure out how to get half-decent at shader math or something, at least that seems less trivial and ephemeral.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#209

Post by cableshaft »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #153
adriand wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel zero sense of sadness about how things used to be. I feel like the change that sucked the most was when software engineering went from something that nerds did because they were passionate about programming, to techbros who were just in it for the money. We lost the idealism of the web a long time ago and the current swamp with apex reptiles like Zuckerberg is what we have now. It became all about the bottom l…

I see developers talking about this idea of intense and unimaginable excitement about AI. It seems orgasmic for them, like something the hardest drugs couldn't fulfill them. I find it very strange. What exactly is so exciting? I'm not disagreeing but when you say "opportunities I'm racing towards," what does that mean? This idea of "racing towards" sounds so frenetic, I struggle to know what that could mean? What I s…

Well, I have a backlog of at least 20 graveyard game projects that I stopped working on from one frustration or another over the past 20 years, or getting excited by a new exciting idea and leaving it alone, that I wouldn't mind resurrecting and finally putting some of them out there. Even if not a ton of people play them.

In fact it being easier to get them out there I might care less that they should be marketable and have a chance to make serious money, as opposed to when I was sinking hundreds of hours into them and second guessing what direction I should take the games to make them better all the time.

The art wasn't the problem (the art wasn't great, but I could make functional art at least), it was finding the time and energy and focus to see them through to completion (focus has always been a problem for me, but it's been even worse now that I'm an adult with other responsibilities).

And that hasn't always been the issue, I did release about a dozen games back in the day (although I haven't in quite a few years at this point).

Of course someone may say 'well that's slop then', and yeah, maybe by your standards, sure. These games aren't and never were going to be the next Slay The Spire or Balatro. But people can and do enjoy playing them, and not every game needs to be the next big hit to be worth putting out into the world, just like not every book needs to be the next 1984 or Great Gatsby.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#210

Post by wolvesechoes »

The real split is between people that believe technological progress is good by itself and by the law of nature it always makes life better and easier, and people that know the history and know that stuff like 8 hours workday wasn't spat out of steam machine - it had to be fought for through political struggle, because actual "natural" consequence of increased productivity was increase in workload.
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