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AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

simonwillison.net

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Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#251

Post by nilsherzig »

localhoster wrote: post #19

TBH, I have found AI addictive, you use it for the first time, and its incredible. You get a nice kick of dopamine. This kick of dopamine, is decreasing with every win you get. What once felt incredible, is just another prompt today. Those things don't excite you any more. Plus, the fact that you no longer exercise your brain at work any more. Plus, the constant feeling of FOMO. It deflates you, faster.

I think the randomness is addicting. While writing a prompt often doesn't result in the perfect outcome, it very well could. Pressing the "prompt lever" (again and again), waiting for the result to show up looks a lot like gambling.

See "Variable Ratio Schedule" https://www.simplypsychology.org/schedules-of-reinforcement....

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#252

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

elicash wrote: post #174
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leftist thought process never ceases to amaze me: "This time, its going to be the correct version of socialism."

You can be libertarian and a capitalist and still be pro-union. At the end of the day, a Collective Bargaining Agreement is just a private contract between two parties. It can be a way to raise wages without government setting a minimum price for labor. While I'd agree most of its proponents (like myself) also favor other left-wing policies, I'm just saying it doesn't need to be.

Unions are labour cartels for the purpose of extracting above-market wages from the commons, a sort of mafia. They are incompatible with capitalism and libertarianism, especially with libertarianism.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#253

Post by sisnxb »

energy123 wrote: post #150
fhd2 wrote: post #4

I feel agentic development is a time sink. Previously, I'd have an idea, sit on it for a while. In most cases, conclude it's not a good idea worth investing in. If I decided to invest, I'd think of a proper strategy to approach it. With agentic development, I have an idea, waste a few hours chasing it, then switch to other work, often abandoning the thing entirely. I still need to figure out how to deal with that, fo…

That's weird, I'm the opposite. Previously I would start coding immediately, because writing the code helps me figure out the what and the how, and because I'd end up with modular/reusable bits that will be helpful later anyway. Now I sit on an idea for a long time, writing documentation/specs/requirements because I know that the code generation side of things is automated and effortlessly follows from exhaustive req…

I used to do this, but found scoping my agent usage down to smaller chunks got better results than trying to do it all from the get go. And looking back it makes sense - code is the most expressive form we have to tell the computer what to do, not English.

The size of the chunk varies heavily on what I’m doing ofc.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#254

Post by thisisit »

rybosworld wrote: post #206
cedws wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m finding that the code LLMs produce is just average. Not great, not terrible. Which makes sense, the model is basically a complex representation of the average of its training data right? If I want what I consider ‘good code’ I have to steer it. So I wouldn’t use LLMs to produce significant chunks of code for something I care about. And publishing vibe coded projects under my own GitHub user feels like it devalues…

We've gone from "it's glorified auto-complete" to "the quality of working, end-to-end features, is average", in just ~2 years. I think it goes without saying that they will be writing "good code" in short time. I also wonder how much of this "I don't trust them yet" viewpoint is coming from people who are using agents the least. Is it rare that AI one-shots code that I would be willing to raise as a PR with my name o…

Building expertise isn't a straight line. Going from a bad to average is much easier than going from average to good.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#255

Post by oblio »

kvgr wrote: post #105
oblio wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You built something. Now comes the hard or impossible part: is it any good? I would bet against it.

Oh, thank you for informing me.

Well, I can turn this around: "Oh, thank you for informing me that Claude built a compiler. Whoop-de-do".

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#257

Post by co_king_3 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #252
elicash wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be libertarian and a capitalist and still be pro-union. At the end of the day, a Collective Bargaining Agreement is just a private contract between two parties. It can be a way to raise wages without government setting a minimum price for labor. While I'd agree most of its proponents (like myself) also favor other left-wing policies, I'm just saying it doesn't need to be.

Unions are labour cartels for the purpose of extracting above-market wages from the commons, a sort of mafia. They are incompatible with capitalism and libertarianism, especially with libertarianism.

Who fucking cares. I would gladly start a mafia to exploit the commons if it meant I got paid more for working less.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#258

Post by rimonbubbledew »

alain13 wrote: post #107
latexr wrote: post #97

> the productivity boost these things can provide is exhausting . What I personally find exhausting is Simon¹ constantly discovering the obvious. Time after time after time it’s just “insights” every person who smoked one blunt in college has arrived at. Stop for a minute! You don’t have to keep churning out multiple blog posts a day, every day. Just stop and reflect . Sit back in your chair and let your mind rest. W…

I find Simon’s blog and TILs to be some of the highest signal to noise content on the internet. I’ve picked up an incredible number of useful tips and tricks. Many of them I would not have found if he did not share things as soon as he discovered something that felt “obvious.” I also love how he documents small snippets and gists of code that are easy to link to and cross-reference. Wish I did more of that myself.

[dead]

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#259

Post by co_king_3 »

RAMJAC wrote: post #246
co_king_3 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trolling. You're peeved that you don't have a rebuttal.

Who said I was peeved. You are trolling. We all have a better use of our time than this.

I am not trolling.

Why are you putting words in my mouth?

I suspect it's because my genuinely held opinion offends your precious sensibilities.

In other words, you're mad.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#260

Post by MyHonestOpinon »

FieryTransition wrote: post #192
falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

And Unix was mainly made by two people, it's astounding that as I get older, even tech managers don't know "the mythical man month", and how software production generally scales.

I do agree with this idea in the sense that companies keep trying to add people to projects to do more things or complete projects sooner which ends up wasting a lot of effort. A more cost conscious way is to have smaller teams and let them more time to explore better approaches for longer.
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