Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

"People who don't use AI will be left behind"

migrainebrain.bearblog.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 283 posts

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#241

Post by benterix »

btschaegg wrote: post #180
jerhewet wrote: post #87

Thank ghod I'm retiring in six months. I'm very thankful I came of age during the golden age of personal computing. I was able to own my own computer(s) and earn a living writing software on them and for them. Fifty years was a good run, and I consider myself lucky to have participated in it. IMO we've gone full circle: dumb terminals chained to mainframes and the whimsey of someone else's rules, restrictions, and re…

> I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural o…

It's funny because I was watching a lot of amazing new tech appear after I was 35 and most of it was exciting. Learning these things was fun and rewarding. You could say it made me happier.

Not sure why LLMs feel the opposite. Maybe it's because of the terrible marketing and pushing it down everyone's throats. Maybe it's because of the personality of people like sama, or how it's being used to produce the so-called AI slop globally. Maybe something completely different. But there's something bleak and off-putting in it.

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#242

Post by benterix »

rurp wrote: post #186
jerhewet wrote: post #87

Thank ghod I'm retiring in six months. I'm very thankful I came of age during the golden age of personal computing. I was able to own my own computer(s) and earn a living writing software on them and for them. Fifty years was a good run, and I consider myself lucky to have participated in it. IMO we've gone full circle: dumb terminals chained to mainframes and the whimsey of someone else's rules, restrictions, and re…

A huge part of what attracted me to programming was how free and open it was. The fact that literally anyone with a computer could install Python/Javascript/etc for free and create virtually any software they wanted, limited only by their own abilities and determination, was wildly exciting to me. I would say empowering, if that weren't such a cheesy overused term. If you were any good at it, you could get a great jo…

Fortunately, we do have more or less open models, and they get better and better each year.

Unfortunately, sama & co hunger for global domination makes them more and more expensive to run.

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#243

Post by benterix »

znpy wrote: post #238
rurp wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge part of what attracted me to programming was how free and open it was. The fact that literally anyone with a computer could install Python/Javascript/etc for free and create virtually any software they wanted, limited only by their own abilities and determination, was wildly exciting to me. I would say empowering, if that weren't such a cheesy overused term. If you were any good at it, you could get a great jo…

> A huge part of what attracted me to programming was how free and open it was. The fact that literally anyone with a computer could install Python/Javascript/etc for free and create virtually any software they wanted, limited only by their own abilities and determination, was wildly exciting to me. but you can still do that, AI is not preventing you from doing any of that in any way.

True, but this is like saying 10 years ago: you don't need to learn React, you can continue coding in Angular.

People do want to learn and use new tech but instead what is promoted is an access to a proprietary and (increasingly more) expensive API.

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#244

Post by ch_fr »

jjav wrote: post #235
sdevonoes wrote: post #62

Any engineer (any person actually) can “learn to use AI” in a couple of days. It’s not rocket science; there’s no chance of left behind. If you haven’t use LLMs at all, a weekend would be enough to be on par with everyone else in the industry

> If you haven’t use LLMs at all, a weekend would be enough to be on par with everyone else in the industry Disagree. It takes a lot of experimenting to find the right balance between sufficient guardrails and insane halluciations. And it'll be different depending on work domains. I'm still refactoring AI workflows every week after more than a year or so and still working on it. Will probably be a perpetually ongoing…

But does this translate as "one year of cumulative work" or rather "one year of rearranging your workflow and discarding obsolete ideas"?

If you spend a year walking in circles, someone can easily close the gap with one step. Especially if models and harnesses are supposedly getting more powerful all the time.

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#246

Post by pydry »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #193
pydry wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i always found it to be easier to write code myself than to direct a junior developer. the level of teaching involved would always mean the overall velocity of work slowed down. some people say you can throw them the drudge work but i find that if you're doing coding right (e.g. you dont let your code base degenerate into a mess of boilerplate), there is barely any drudge work to do.

You're missing the real goal of directing a Junior, which is you're teaching them to be a team player, Junior devs will surpass your expectations, the rate at which they goof or are about to goof should decrease over time the more you mentor them. If you do it right, you not have a strong ally and coder under your belt, or would you rather someone else teach them their bad habits?

Im not missing the point that they need to be trained. I was quite explicit about that being necessary. Nor am I denying the benefits of them being trained.

I just cant pretend that I'll get extra productivity while I'm training them.

Certain professions lend themselves well to a apprentice/master framework because the apprentice doing the drudge work that requires less skill frees up time. This can increase overall productivity while the apprentice is trained. Development isnt really like that though.

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#247

Post by pydry »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #119
pydry wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i always found it to be easier to write code myself than to direct a junior developer. the level of teaching involved would always mean the overall velocity of work slowed down. some people say you can throw them the drudge work but i find that if you're doing coding right (e.g. you dont let your code base degenerate into a mess of boilerplate), there is barely any drudge work to do.

i always found it to be easier to write code myself than to direct a junior developer. Me, too. But that doesn't mean I'm a great developer, just a shitty manager.

It's doesnt mean either. It's just a reflection of the high cost of training.

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#248

Post by embedding-shape »

jeffbee wrote: post #213
embedding-shape wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no AI-hypeman (nor the opposite, I guess), and I agree that replacing AI for critical thinking and writing will only turn out bad in the long-term. But "your dignity"? You mean like "I feel shameful over that people saw that my writing was actually AI?" or something else?

I meant the indignity of trying to have a conversation with someone who at first seems like a reasonable professional, but who at some point in the conversations insults you with something like "I asked Claude and ..."

Yeah, that'd be a terrible experience, not gonna lie. Bit like the folks that used to just quote whatever Google served them as the first hits when you're actively having a conversation.

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#249

Post by shinryuu »

sshine wrote: post #181
JeremyNT wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a spectrum of where to draw the line. There's clearly some level where you want a human making decisions for even the most vibey of project, because without some kind of a spec about what you're trying to build and what features you want you'd get nonsense. But like... maybe don't stress the details too much.

> clearly some level where you want a human making decisions Yes, clearly. There was a meme out there, "just make something cool idk". Statements like "Don't let AI make decisions" are made because of the loss of control we experience as mechanical parts of our work (such as writing to files) gets automated.

There is also the famous saying from IBM.

  > A computer can never be held accountable
  > Therefore a computer must never make a management decision

Re: "People who don't use AI will be left behind"

#250

Post by intended »

btschaegg wrote: post #180
jerhewet wrote: post #87

Thank ghod I'm retiring in six months. I'm very thankful I came of age during the golden age of personal computing. I was able to own my own computer(s) and earn a living writing software on them and for them. Fifty years was a good run, and I consider myself lucky to have participated in it. IMO we've gone full circle: dumb terminals chained to mainframes and the whimsey of someone else's rules, restrictions, and re…

> I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural o…

I WANT to be excited by LLMs.

But it has been so frustrating to listen to the hype and then contend with the actual results.

How bizarre is this tool, that I have been forced to conduct interviews across all domains, to see where people are having actual productivity gains?

I never had to do this with the iPhone, or with word, excel or any number of cool technological inventions.

The early internet empowered people, and we created some of our most amazing collaborative intellectual achievements like wikipedia.

Today, aside from being built by harvesting the IP of people, LLMs are shuttering our entire information economy. Sites I go to for info are either going behind paywalls or shutting down because they are being rapaciously harvested by bots.

Yes, history rhymes and repeats; however there are other tunes that have been played that sound similar but end differently.

Post reply on HN