My AI skeptic friends are all nuts

Most of the time I can go faster than these tools if I have confidence in myself and allow the momentum to build up over the course of 20-30 minutes. Every time I tab out to an LLM is like a 5 minute penalty over what I could have done unaided on a good day.

Getting the model prepared to help you in a realistic domain often takes a few minutes of arranging code & comments so that it is forced toward something remotely sane. I'll scaffold out entire BS type hierarchies just so I can throw a //TODO: .... line in the middle somewhere. Without this kind of structure, I would be handling unfiltered garbage most of the time.

It's not that these tools are bad, it's that we need to recognize the true cost of engaging with them. ChatGPT is like a jackhammer. It will absolutely get you through that concrete slab. However, it tends to be quite obnoxious & distracting in terms of its operational principles.

I'll be damned if I give up control of my machine to a tool that hallucinates actions to take using hastily put together and likely AI-generated "agents". I still want to be the primary user of my machine, and if that means not using cutting edge tools invented in the last 6 months, so be it. I don't trust the vast majority of tools in this space anyway.

> I’m sure there are still environments where hallucination matters.

Still? The output being correct matters in _most_ environments, except maybe art and entertainment. It especially matters in programming, where a 99% correct program probably won't compile.

> But “hallucination” is the first thing developers bring up when someone suggests using LLMs, despite it being (more or less) a solved problem.

No, it's not. It's _the_ problem that's yet to be solved. And yet every AI company prefers chasing benchmarks, agents, or whatever the trend du jour is.

> I work mostly in Go. [...] LLMs kick ass generating it.

I also work mostly in Go. LLMs do an awful job generating it, just as with any other language. I've had the same shitty experience generating Go, as I've had generating JavaScript or HTML. I've heard this excuse that the language matters, and IME it's just not the case.

Sure, if you're working with an obscure and niche language for which there is less training data, I suppose that could be the case. But you're telling me that there is no good training data for Rust, the trendiest systems language of the past ~decade? C'mon. Comparing Rust to Brainfuck is comical.

I won't bother responding to all points in this article. I will say this: just as AI doomsayers and detractors deserve criticism, so does this over-the-top praising. Yes, LLMs are a great technology. But it is also part of a wildly overhyped market that will inevitably crash as we approach the trough of disillusionment. Their real value is somewhere in the middle.

If you've had a dog you know that "dog training" classes are actually owner training.

Same with AI tools. I see big gains for people who spend time to train themselves to work within the limitations. When the next generation of tools come out they can adapt quickly.

If this sounds tedious, thats becuase it is tedious. I spent many long weekends wrestling with tools silently wrecking my entire codebase, etc. And that's what I had to do to get the productivity improvements I have now.

[1]: https://github.com/devchat-ai/gopool