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AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

koshyjohn.com

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Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#221

Post by erxam »

LtWorf wrote: post #178
erxam wrote: post #42

Here's the question I want to posit and nobody who's against AI has managed to answer satisfactorily: what is it in for me if I were to acquire all those skills? I don't give a shit about this career. I don't give a shit about engineering. I despise every second of it. There's nothing to aim for other than being a drone that does whatever is asked of it. If AI can reduce my mental workload, why wouldn't I want to del…

I mean… there's other jobs in the world. If you chose to do something you hate, that's maybe a bit your fault too?

Tell me where these mythical jobs that won't leave me broke as shit and that I'll enjoy are. I'm very much a humanities person, and it was already a sad tragicomedy of a sphere before AI hit the ground. It's probably even more dire now, let's be real.

And I don't have the personality for running a start-up or any company, unfortunately. I'm extremely risk-averse and withdrawn. If I really had no other choice, I'd probably have to budget in a ton of... chemical helpers (stimulants).

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#222

Post by arealaccount »

coldtea wrote: post #155
keeda wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... nobody in the field of "Software Engineering" is actually an Engineer if we go by a strict definitions. This is a pet peeve of mine, so while I understand what you mean, I will challenge you to come up with a strict definition that excludes software engineering! And since I've had this discussion before, I'll pre-emptively hazard a guess that the argument boils down to "rigor", and point out that a) economic fe…

> I will challenge you to come up with a strict definition that excludes software engineering! "Structured, mature, legally enforced, physically grounded standards based approach to the construction of repeatable, reliable, verifiable, artifacts under stable (to the degree that matters) external constraints". Some niche software development (e.g. NASA/JPL coding projects with special rules, practices, MISRA etc) can…

Yea we do standups every day and plan story points twice a month???

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#223

Post by thomastjeffery »

staticshock wrote: post #66

The eloquence with which this point gets (repeatedly) made is continuing to improve each next time I read it. However, I still feel like we haven't nailed it. That is, we are not yet at the "aphorism" stage of the discourse (e.g. "the medium is the message", "you ship your org chart", "9 mothers can't make a baby in a month"), in which the most pointed version of this critique packs a punch in just a few words that r…

Meaning is abstract. We can't express meaning: we can only signify it. An expression (sign) may contain the latent structure of meaning (the writer's intention), but that structure can only be felt through a relevant interpretation.

To maintain relevance, we must find common ground. There is no true objectivity, because every sign must be built up from an arbitrary ground. At the very least, there will be a conflict of aesthetics.

The problem with LLMs is that they avoid the ground entirely, making them entirely ignorant to meaning. The only intention an LLM has is to preserve the familiarity of expression.

So yes, this kind of AI will not accomplish any epistemology; unless of course, it is truly able to facilitate a functional system of logic, and to ground that system near the user. I'm not going to hold my breath.

I think the great mistake of "good ole fashioned AI" was to build it from a perspective of objectivity. This constrains every grammar to the "context-free" category, and situates every expression to a singular fixed ground. Nothing can be ambiguous: therefore nothing can express (or interpret) uncertainty or metaphor.

What we really need is to recreate software from a subjective perspective. That's what I've been working on for the last few years... So far, it's harder than I expected; but it feels so close.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#224

Post by erxam »

sumeno wrote: post #62
erxam wrote: post #42

Here's the question I want to posit and nobody who's against AI has managed to answer satisfactorily: what is it in for me if I were to acquire all those skills? I don't give a shit about this career. I don't give a shit about engineering. I despise every second of it. There's nothing to aim for other than being a drone that does whatever is asked of it. If AI can reduce my mental workload, why wouldn't I want to del…

Why are you employable if the AI does everything for you?

Mostly to do the work that AI can't do just yet. I've got the feeling that, by the time AI can do those jobs, we'll be mired in bigger issues.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#225

Post by [deleted] »

keeda wrote: post #128
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineer as a term has already drifted vastly since nobody in the field of "Software Engineering" is actually an Engineer if we go by a strict definitions. Engineers are accredited and in some countries even come with a title.

> ... nobody in the field of "Software Engineering" is actually an Engineer if we go by a strict definitions. This is a pet peeve of mine, so while I understand what you mean, I will challenge you to come up with a strict definition that excludes software engineering! And since I've had this discussion before, I'll pre-emptively hazard a guess that the argument boils down to "rigor", and point out that a) economic fe…

[deleted]

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#226

Post by joe_mamba »

23df wrote: post #207
lispisok wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grade inflation and schools passing kids who should fail to game metrics and keep collecting student loans is a problem. I wouldnt consider hiring anybody from my alma mater who didnt score a sandard deviation or higher on the tests.

Unis imo are irrelvant in the context of software production. Id take someone who didnt finish or dropped out provided they can answer the question below. The only thing worth asking people is: what have you produced? Within this one question is so much detail that any other artifact is moot.

>Unis imo are irrelvant in the context of software production. Id take someone who didnt finish or dropped out provided they can answer the question below.

What you'd take is irrelevant if the HR/recruiter doing the initial screening of resumes is looking at an oversupply of candidates with degrees.

Hiring is broken is many ways. Candidates without degrees are faring even worse now are the initial recruiter screening stage due to the poor market.

In my EU country, academic inflation is so bad due to free education and psyopping everyone to path of academia, that not having a MSc is basically a red flag to companies for getting a SW job as most candidates have one, which means you're expected to have one too if you want to get a job.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#227

Post by skywhopper »

keeda wrote: post #128
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineer as a term has already drifted vastly since nobody in the field of "Software Engineering" is actually an Engineer if we go by a strict definitions. Engineers are accredited and in some countries even come with a title.

> ... nobody in the field of "Software Engineering" is actually an Engineer if we go by a strict definitions. This is a pet peeve of mine, so while I understand what you mean, I will challenge you to come up with a strict definition that excludes software engineering! And since I've had this discussion before, I'll pre-emptively hazard a guess that the argument boils down to "rigor", and point out that a) economic fe…

“Accredited”

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#228

Post by 000ooo000 »

People who let AI do their thinking at any level never valued it in the first place. "Use it or lose it", as they say. The count of studies backing this up continue to rise and yet so do the articles saying LLM use in software development is fine because our value is in our thinking.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#229

Post by 1ncorrect »

j-conn wrote: post #202
1ncorrect wrote: post #192

‘AI’ is my newest litmus test for whether who I’m engaging with should be taken seriously or not. ‘AI’ doesn’t exist, and LLMs have vanishingly narrow legitimate justifiable use cases. Any output from one is intrinsically, explosively, imprecise, and can’t be trusted to be build upon without specialist treatment. I’m yet to identify any application of a LLM which can rationally be mistaken for intelligence. Anyone wh…

> ‘AI’ doesn’t exist, and LLMs have vanishingly narrow legitimate justifiable use cases. … I’m yet to identify any application of a LLM which can rationally be mistaken for intelligence. What’s the opposite of AI psychosis? Burying your head in the sand? Because anyone who could write this unironically today is certainly afflicted.

No one who is impressed by the current applications of LLMs should be in any way involved with making decisions which affect those not similarly cognitively impaired.

It’s no different to religions or economics.

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