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I'm OK being left behind, thanks

shkspr.mobi

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Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#221

Post by mh- »

augusto-moura wrote: post #164
stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

What I get a bit annoyed is companies forcing AI tools, getting usage metrics and actively hunting the engineers that don't use the tool "enough", I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool. Even in the past, aside from technical limitaions, you were not required to use enough of a tool. It just sounds like a giant scheme to burn through tokens and give money to the AI corps, and tech directors…

The only thing I've mandated for engineers is that folks give it a try occasionally, as models, best practices, and tooling improves.

I'm currently tracking exactly two numeric metrics: total MAUs (to track the aforementioned), and total DAUs (to gauge adoption and rightsize seat-licensed contracts.)

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#222

Post by heytakeiteasy »

pennomi wrote: post #155
xondono wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This depends very much on your line of work. As a freelancer I do a bit of everything, and I’ve seen places where LLM breezes through and gets me what I want quickly, and times where using an LLM was a complete waste of time.

For sure. The more specialized or obscure of things you have to do, the less LLMs help you. Building a simple marketing website? Probably don’t waste your time - an LLM will probably be faster. Designing a new SLAM algorithm? Probably LLMs will spin around in circles helplessly. That being said, that was my experience several years ago… maybe state of the art has changed in the computer vision space.

> The more specialized or obscure of things you have to do, the less LLMs help you.

I've been impressed by how this isn't quite true. A lot of my coding life is spent in the popular languages, which the LLMs obviously excel at.

But a random dates-to-the-80s robotics language (Karel)? I unfortunately have to use it sometimes, and Claude ingested a 100s of pages long PDF manual for the language and now it's better at it than I am. It doesn't even have a compiler to test against, and still it rarely makes mistakes.

I think the trick with a lot of these LLMs is just figuring out the best techniques for using them. Fortunately a lot of people are working all the time to figure this out.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#224

Post by tutanosh »

I understand and empathize with his sentiment, but I think he is missing the point. Using AI effectively as an engineer requires a paradigm shift in terms of how you work. You cannot approach your work as you did in the past, and use AI and expect it to be a big improvement. In fact, if you do that you will likely be disappointed, and worse off. Shifting your paradigm is one of the hardest things you can do, even more so if you have been in the field for a while, but it is also the most rewarding, and opens up many new possibilities. It's not about being left behind, as much as it is about limiting yourself unnecessarily, by staying in your comfort zone.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#225

Post by jmye »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #31
fdghrtbrt wrote: post #25

Guy who's ok with being left behind (crypto, AI) did a MSc on the metaverse. Sounds like he tried to go with the hype once, got burned.

Some might call that learning from our mistakes.

People don't believe in that anymore. If your gut instinct was wrong, you're not only bound to it for all time, but you'd best angrily double down at every opportunity. God forbid you "flip flop" or consider new information, or whatever.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#226

Post by butlike »

luisgvv wrote: post #194
augusto-moura wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I get a bit annoyed is companies forcing AI tools, getting usage metrics and actively hunting the engineers that don't use the tool "enough", I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool. Even in the past, aside from technical limitaions, you were not required to use enough of a tool. It just sounds like a giant scheme to burn through tokens and give money to the AI corps, and tech directors…

I'm just using Copilot CLI for mindless stuff and set it to the premium models to meet the quota, as long as they can't see the prompts I think I should be fine

You're not going to get fired. Don't worry about it :)

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#227

Post by squeaky-clean »

keiferski wrote: post #56

I actually think the opposite approach might be the most optimal one, at least from a monetary perspective. That is, be on the cutting-edge of something, but be willing to bail out at the moment its future starts seeming questionable. Or even more specifically, maximize your foothold in it while minimizing your downside. Bitcoin is a good example: if you bought it 15 years ago and held it, you're probably quite wealt…

> That is, be on the cutting-edge of something, but be willing to bail out at the moment its future starts seeming questionable

Counterpoint, I sold all my Bitcoin in 2011 when Mt Gox got hacked and the price plummeted 80%. Would have done it again after their 2014 hack too if I had any left.

> Bitcoin is a good example: if you bought it 15 years ago and held it, you're probably quite wealthy by now

But you just said bail the moment it's future starts to be questionable. If you follow that you would have never held it for 15 years.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#228

Post by lapcat »

locknitpicker wrote: post #188
heytakeiteasy wrote: post #14

Feels like a false equivalency. It's just my experience, but I've completely ignored crypto and the metaverse, and I don't get the sense I'm missing out on much. In contrast, LLMs in their current state have (for me) dramatically reduced the distance between an idea and a working implementation, which has been legitimately transformative in my software dev life. Transformative for the better? Time will tell I suppose…

> Feels like a false equivalency. It's clearly a textbook example of survivorship bias. In the 90s the same argument was directed at this new thing called the internet, and those who placed a bet on it being a fad ended up being forgotten by history. It's rather obvious that this AI thing is a transformative event in world history, perhaps more critical than the advent of the internet. Take a look at traffic to estab…

> In the 90s the same argument was directed at this new thing called the internet, and those who placed a bet on it being a fad ended up being forgotten by history.

Almost all people are "forgotten" by history.

In any case, people who were not even born yet in the 1990s are using the internet today, very successfully, so clearly you can wait.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#229

Post by zephen »

augusto-moura wrote: post #164
stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

What I get a bit annoyed is companies forcing AI tools, getting usage metrics and actively hunting the engineers that don't use the tool "enough", I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool. Even in the past, aside from technical limitaions, you were not required to use enough of a tool. It just sounds like a giant scheme to burn through tokens and give money to the AI corps, and tech directors…

I don't doubt you, but I'm out of the loop.

Who does this?

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#230

Post by fdghrtbrt »

hparadiz wrote: post #206
fdghrtbrt wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your point. You said it would be nice to live..... what does that have to do with bitcoin? What's your point? Make a point.

My point is your opinion is sheltered and lacks life experience.

Your opinion on my opinion is not really relevant to bitcoin.
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