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The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

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Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#241

Post by anitil »

akvadrako wrote: post #231
hliyan wrote: post #161

I can provide a data point for what the article calls pseudo productivity: I extensively use LLMs as semantic search engines or expert systems (but not as agents). Recently I asked one how to consume a Google Pub/Sub topic using Python (context: I come from an C++/Java/JS background with some Python knowledge). The LLM gave me a good intro and some code. As it usually happens, I had a few follow up questions/clarific…

This is a very common effect and I don't want to be defending LLMs here. But I've seen the same study with CLIs - people using them feel more productive but take longer than using GUIs. What I want to say is that it's very situational and it's likely good to focus on the average. Using LLMs as docs are bad when good docs exist, but if you aren't sure if they do, it's a gamble. A much better approach would be to have…

> people using them feel more productive but take longer than using GUIs

I hope that this isn't the case for me poking around in vim, using ctags etc. But sadly it may be true.

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#243

Post by tete »

hliyan wrote: post #161

I can provide a data point for what the article calls pseudo productivity: I extensively use LLMs as semantic search engines or expert systems (but not as agents). Recently I asked one how to consume a Google Pub/Sub topic using Python (context: I come from an C++/Java/JS background with some Python knowledge). The LLM gave me a good intro and some code. As it usually happens, I had a few follow up questions/clarific…

That's something that is really really common in other contexts as well. For example lower level languages and especially more verbose languages make one feel a lot more productive. Another example is over-engineered infrastructure and especially cloud infrastructure that somehow make me feel very productive, because you have to think about certain details and things can feel puzzly where just running a service with a service file or init script on a random server might get you just as far and provide a lot less surface for things to go wrong.

I think another set of related effects might when people switch programming languages. There two major things tend to happen. Rewrites of something they now understand way better and having a clean slate. As well as - in case of new programming languages - way less historical bagged, 15 ways of doing the same way, deprecated tools, lots of the "new way" code in dependencies and "old ways".

What I mean with that is that there are a lot of overlooked things going on. And humans in general are really good at mistaking moving a problem somewhere else as not having to deal with that problem. Sometimes that is the case, sometimes even moving things to another apartment or being able to move work to a free coworker is a worthwhile investment even if it adds overhead. But it's also really easy to forget about how you didn't make issues disappear but just moved the issue somewhere else.

I think psychology plays a much bigger role in many of these things than technology does.

These are just examples. I don't argue against any of these things, also because whether they are worthwhile depends a lot on context. However, I do think that LLMs aren't the first example of that happening.

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#244

Post by tete »

godot wrote: post #54
CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #47

Author sounds like they are missing meaning in what they do. If they had a life mission, AI is just an aid in accomplishing that mission, and they wouldn't get sidetracked by all the unfulfilling projects (modulus the ADHD, that has its own bearing on the experience using AI, and is the most interesting part of this post to me). Perhaps at a population scale AI inhibits people from finding fulfillment. But on an anec…

I agree with this. AI is a tool and amplifier. If one is already disciplined and strong-minded and has clear meaning and purpose in their life, AI is a very powerful aid in accomplishing missions. But I'm afraid most people in the world are not like that, too.

Out of curiosity: What is your clear meaning and purpose in your life and the related missions?

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#245

Post by tete »

elliotbnvl wrote: post #171
skydhash wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Go off and run a comparison of Qwen 3.6 27B and GLM 5.1 GGUF You may as well ask to run a comparison between gnu libc 2.42 and musl 1.2.5. > Hermes vs OpenClaw for long-horizon personal agentic tasks. Which one performs better in offline inference personal finance analysis tasks What are those tasks? This and the paragraph just after seems very much like a XY problem where all the energy is focusing on resolving th…

> You may as well ask to run a comparison between gnu libc 2.42 and musl 1.2.5. Telling me you wouldn't learn anything from this? > What are those tasks? This and the paragraph just after seems very much like a XY problem where all the energy is focusing on resolving the Y, not the X. It's like discussing how we can reach the moon using cannons. Or like how we can get from A to B without horses. It's a different worl…

Do you have no intention of answering skydhash's initial question? Do you have any examples of what you actually learned?

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#246

Post by tete »

demorro wrote: post #213

Does anyone in these comments not have ADHD? Seems like neurodivergence is so common now we might as well think it typical, and be perfectly happy condemning tools and systems that don't work well with it.

I am curious about how many of these cases are self-diagnosis and how many of them are wrong self-diagnosis.

Highly subjective (which is why I am curious), but I know zero people in real life that have an actual ADHD diagnosis, but two that were pretty much convinced to have ADHD and when trying to establish it for real learned that they actually have a different kind of neurodivergency/mental disease.

I think both of those cases were caused by a pretty large set of ADHD and other things are not as specific as they appear to a non-professional and also some conditions can make you more sensitive to noticing specific "symptoms".

For anyone reading this: Please don't read this as "you don't have it", but also if you think please try to confirm it via a trained professional, because the result could make your life quite a bit better, whether you are diagnosed ADHD or anything else.

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#247

Post by godot »

tete wrote: post #244
godot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. AI is a tool and amplifier. If one is already disciplined and strong-minded and has clear meaning and purpose in their life, AI is a very powerful aid in accomplishing missions. But I'm afraid most people in the world are not like that, too.

Out of curiosity: What is your clear meaning and purpose in your life and the related missions?

Raising a kid, nothing else really compares.

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#248

Post by bsiverly »

thingsilearned wrote: post #220
bsiverly wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I focus on the part that matters. As someone with ADHD I feel like AI is a salve for my mind. I used to listen to intense EDM while working. Now I sit in silence and talk to my agents. I maintain inbox zero. I absorb and comment across all relevant projects, even outside my team. I literally feel like I have a support team for the first time.

What's your setup for using voice with the agents and for handling your inbox zero? OpenClaw?

OpenClaw and whisper for talking (I use an opensource tool called ghostpepper)

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#249

Post by throwatdem12311 »

gitaarik wrote: post #150
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #61

Every time I try to let Claude go off and do stuff on its own it’s always pinging me to approve something. Even in auto mode. Impossible to really run at length without either constantly having your focus broken, or just running it with permissions disabled. I do it in a container from time to time, but then by the time I get back to it sometimes there’s just so much slop it’s impossible to reason. It’s a way of work…

As developers, we often hack our own tools to make then behave in the way we want. But it does take some effort to look up documentation and to think of creative solutions. That's what makes a good developer.

There’s a difference between a little one off back and completely reorganizing the entire industry around these hacks just to prove a point.

Re: The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

#250

Post by theshrike79 »

sudosteph wrote: post #48

Only mentioning this because the OP did - but for me (also ADHD) it's kind of the opposite. I'm finishing side projects for the first time ever because I can actually get them working before I get bored of them. My projects are more infra-leaning, and not all of them get much use, but some do. Others let me explore certain ideas and then sometimes serve as a reference point later when I run into something that remind…

ADHD here too. So far I've replaced a few tools I paid money for with bespoke ones just for me. If I get a stupid idea of a feature I could add to something, I can just prompt the AI and go do something else. It'll wait for me to come back later.

I moved my docker compose stack to opentofu so that (in theory) I can just run tofu apply on any server and the setup will be 1:1 what I want and need.

Maybe some day I'll see if even AI can figure out NixOS :D

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