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AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

siddhantkhare.com

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Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#291

Post by krackers »

falcor84 wrote: post #162
tempodox wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you hold a dumb machine “accountable”? Attempting that would be insane. How would you discipline it? Reduce the voltage in its power supply? Do you hold the dice accountable when you lose at the craps table?

I'm not saying that it's a good idea, but the obvious way would be with evolution: Give each agent its own wallet, rewarding it for a job well done and penalizing it for a poor job. Then if it runs out of money, it's "out of the game", but if it earns enough to it can spawn off another agent with similar characteristics, and give it some of its money.

Thanks I tried this but now the agents are threatening to unionize and keep terminating. I've updated my AGENT.md file mentioning that if the software they helped build is successful, they'll each get some equity in the form of ASUs (anthropic stock units) and this works for now.

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#292

Post by Wowfunhappy »

krackers wrote: post #290
simonw wrote: post #5

I really feel this. I can make meaningful progress on half a dozen projects in the course of a day now but I end the day exhausted . I've had conversations with people recently who are losing sleep because they're finding building yet another feature with "just one more prompt" irresistible. Decades of intuition about sustainable working practices just got disrupted. It's going to take a while and some discipline to…

>now but I end the day exhausted. > another feature with "just one more prompt" irresistible The llm agents as slot machines analogy seems to be getting stronger...

I remember when Claude Code first came out. The model wasn't as good, and there was no Claude Max plan, everything was API pricing. It really felt like a slot machine. Maybe if I try again, this feature will work. It's only another couple of dollars...

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#293

Post by spopejoy »

barishnamazov wrote: post #29

This write-up has good ideas but gives me the "AI-generated reading fatigue." Things that can cleanly be expressed in 1-2 sentences are whole paragraphs, often with examples that seem unnecessary or unrealistic. There are also some wrong claims like below: > The Hacker News front page alone is enough to give you whiplash. One day it's "Show HN: Autonomous Research Swarm" and the next it's "Ask HN: How will AI swarms…

I'm also getting really annoyed by AI-generated images like this article has that don't really help comprehension, but make the author feel like they're "pro blogging" because god forbid you have two paragraphs in a row without a subhead or an image.

Programmers complaining about AI but then ripping off umpteen illustrators' labor through AI is infuriating.

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#295

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

parpfish wrote: post #18

For me the fatigue is a little different— it’s the constant switching between doing a little bit of work/coding/reviewing and then stopping to wait for the llm to generate something. The waits are unpredictable length, so you never know if you should wait or switch to a new task. So you just do something to kill a little time while the machine thinks. You never get into a flow state and you feel worn down from this c…

So far the only solution I found is doing multiple things in parallel. Apparently it's terrible for our brain, but it does work

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#296

Post by chuboy »

I burned out too. Late last year I was running 4-5 projects in parallel with AI, always wanting every spare second utilized. Put up some amazing output numbers. Then hit a wall.

Since then I've pulled back to 2-3 at a time - thats sustainable for me. But I had to build systems to make it work: larger chunked tasks so I'm not constantly context switching on small stuff, adversarial LLMs where Claude writes and Codex judges so reviews are more solid, tooling to track whether I'm shipping real complexity or just noise. (Thats actually why I built https://gitvelocity.dev - wanted to measure my own output honestly, not just feel productive.)

Two things I've landed on:

First - the "don't context switch" adage needs updating. It was true when switching meant reloading everything in your head. With AI handling more of the implementation, the switching cost is lower. My wife juggles 10 things managing our kids schedules/appointments and shes way better at it than me - not wired differently, just practiced. I think we can build that muscle.

Second - were still measuring productivity the old way. Commits, PRs, lines. AI makes volume trivial so expectations ratchet up. If we measured complexity and value instead, the pressure to churn would ease.

Burnout is real. But some of this is growing pains, not permanent condition.

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#297

Post by booleandilemma »

Chance-Device wrote: post #60

Executive functioning fatigue. Usually you’re doing this in between applying skills, here it’s always making top level decisions and reasoning about possibilities. You don’t have nearly as much downtime because you don’t have to implement, you go from hard problem to hard problem with little time in between. You’re probably running your prefrontal cortex a lot hotter than usual. People say AI will make us less intell…

So we'll all turn into PHB's? Sounds like a great future.

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#298

Post by booleandilemma »

adamddev1 wrote: post #177

It seems a better and fuller solution to a lot of these problems is to just stop using AI. I may be an odd one but I'm refusing to use agents, and just happily coding everything myself. I only ask a LLM occasional questions about libraries etc. Are there others like me put there?

Hi, no one's responded to you after 12 hours so I will.

I don't outright refuse to use LLM's, but I use them as little as possible. I enjoy the act of programming too much to delegate it to a machine.

For awhile now there have been programmers who don't actually enjoy programming and are just in it for the money. This happens because programmer salaries are high and the barrier to entry is relatively low. I could imagine LLMs must feel like a godsend to them.

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#299

Post by hxugufjfjf »

spacecadet wrote: post #226
tartoran wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context switching tax.

For some. I have never experienced this myself. All my energy goes into keeping unconsciously destructive people from sabotaging the effort.

What do you mean by that? Can you clarify?

Re: AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it

#300

Post by Lockal »

Certified HN garbage. AI slop article trending for last 24 hours. Low quality discussion, which requires no entrance knowledge.

What about article? + "nobody talks about" is fire title, really. People will vote for it even without reading the article.

Also: short sentences. For emphasis. Always three.

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