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AI is making me dumb

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Re: AI is making me dumb

#211

Post by rurp »

thisisthenewme wrote: post #126

As a developer, I kind of feel like this all smells like job security. After using LLMs for a while, I have to admit it's pretty nice, and I like using it. I've been vibecoding a few apps, and it's a good dopamine hit to immediately see your ideas come to life. However, based on my experience, it will bite you if you trust it blindly. Even in my vibecoded projects, it keeps adding "features" without me asking for the…

There are a lot of similarities to the outsourcing boom a decade or two ago. Lots of small/cheap companies saw that they could hire an entire team of devs in another country for less than one US developer and jumped on it with high expectations but low process. Many of them didn't do anything to make it successful. They blindly hired the cheapest option they could find, gave them some vague requirements, and had very little ongoing technical review or oversight.

The process often went the way you're describing. Initial rapid success as prototypes got up and running quickly with the messiest code imaginable. But over time progress slowed more and more as tech debt and poor decisions created an increasingly large drag, eventually resulting in a stalled/dead project.

Maybe this time is different, but a lot of my early work was cleaning up projects that fit this pattern. I hope the new up and coming developers will get the same opportunity.

Re: AI is making me dumb

#212

Post by Eighth »

Aurornis wrote: post #36

> With coding, I've been using AI entirely for a year or two. I've been entirely prompting and I haven't written a single line of code. I have mostly forgotten how to code I've been using AI coding tools a lot lately, though I'm always in the loop. I write most of the important code by hand, but I like to send Claude Code or Codex off to try to come up with a solution in parallel to compare. Having reviewed so much o…

When I wrote this I overlooked the fact that I was in management for years before, which is possibly the actual real reason I forgot how to code. I've probably also been avoiding coding by hand. That was a choice. When I went back into IC, I probably didn't feel good enough for the seniority level that I was at and rather than working to improve myself, I used AI.

Thanks for your comments. I didn't realise until I read this.

Re: AI is making me dumb

#213

Post by steezeburger »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #104
simianwords wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. we will be thinking at the level of systems like services and DB's and forget about inconsequential things like methods, classes, variables 2. we will think of verification loop more - tasks will be chosen that have more ability to be easily verified 3. the concept of the difference between "generation" and "verification" will be more mainstream [1] 4. spec driven development will become more common 5. scenario te…

> 2. we will think of verification loop more - tasks will be chosen that have more ability to be easily verified > 4. spec driven development will become more common I do believe both of these, recently someone created an rar open source alternative for all its version using LLM agents because of that specs and in some sense verification/easy debug (or compile time) aspect. On the other hand, I was making a GUI appli…

I've had pretty good luck with using playwright mcp to test web front ends. I think LLMs can totally test GUIs. Either via vision and computer control or via reading the GUI node tree (e.g. DOM) used by whatever you built the GUI with.

Re: AI is making me dumb

#214

Post by Eighth »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #189

I don't understand how one even uses "AI to write". Writing is the act of taking something that's been burning in my head for a time and emitting it for others. The LLM doesn't know what's in my head and therefore cannot write it...

I have a method of using voice transcription to brain dump my thoughts and ask AI to turn it into something organised and sensible.

Re: AI is making me dumb

#215

Post by moate »

DParida08 wrote: post #208

The day AI platforms suffer a massive and prolonged outage, it’ll trigger absolute panic and chaos. In many ways we are sacrificing a part of our creativity and independent thinking, but the reality is there’s hardly any alternative now. In a world moving this fast, choosing not to adapt often means getting left behind.

Nah. "the internet" or "the power grid" sure, but "AI" being down for an extended period of time would mostly just cause the stock market to shit the bed and trickle down effects from that, but not any actual loss in productivity. We did a lot of things 3 years ago believe it or not, and we'd just go back to working like that after some adjustments. (To be fair, I literally have "Don't Panic" inked on my arm, so I may just be inclined not to panic...)

I work for one of the largest companies on the planet doing work with a budget in the millions (meaning I am a nobody, but also not "nobody") and I don't touch AI personally. There is a group of very rich people who want to get much richer and see humanity as the thing hindering that dream who keep telling us that "if we don't train their new pet how to replace us, we'll be replaced" but I'm going to go ahead and say that AI is a thing, and probably relevant, but like in the way crypto is, not in the way the internet is. Does that make sense?

It's a scam for oligarchs. I'm saying AI is a scam for oligarchs and has very limited use cases and we're already starting to bump up against edges. Also a lot of people REALLY hate it, and that headwind didn't exist for things like "the internet" (you just had a large percentage of the population who initially didn't care, this is active animosity).

Re: AI is making me dumb

#216

Post by moate »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #189

I don't understand how one even uses "AI to write". Writing is the act of taking something that's been burning in my head for a time and emitting it for others. The LLM doesn't know what's in my head and therefore cannot write it...

Some people are stupid and think that they should be given accolades for all their abilities that are just locked away behind their stupidity. They keep telling us AI is the key to this. This is why I don't trust AI. It's being sold to me by rich idiots who can't understand why art is interesting.

Re: AI is making me dumb

#217

Post by schnitzelstoat »

throw4847285 wrote: post #138

We talk a lot about the risks of AI in schools, but those same risks apply in any learning environment. I recently started a new job and I find that AI is making it so much harder for me to onboard. I am adjusting to my role much slower than my peers who are using AI less. I am coding in a language I am unfamiliar with, which makes the lure of vibe coding stronger. I am at least skilled enough to recognize when Claud…

I’ve found the LLMs quite useful for summarising a codebase for me to quickly get a grasp on it.

It’s one of the real use cases I’ve had other than basically vibe coding

Re: AI is making me dumb

#219

Post by fstepho »

Slightly different take here. I'm not coding less, I'm just coding the harness instead of the product. Most of my time goes into AGENTS.md, hooks, sub-agents, verification loops to keep the agent from going off. https://openai.com/index/harness-engineering/ describes pretty much what I do all day now.
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