AI Stole the Joy of Programming • Hacker News Board

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#31

Post by bluGill » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:36 PM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #4

I've taken the simple solution: if I want to enjoy programming for programming's sake, I turn copilot off. If I want to be careful and understand the problem and its solution in detail, I turn copilot off. If I simply want to get a toy project done and don't care at all about the implementation process, I might leave it on. I've had an absolutely magical experience with copilot though. I honestly find it a bit strang…

Copilot does very well when I'm solving the same problem I've solved in the past with different parameters. Parse a CAN network packet (8 bytes so they do weird things like 6 bit counters with 2 bytes in byte 3 and the rest in byte 4) copilot can write that and the tests quickly - we have hundreds of different CAN packets we parse so there is a lot of example code to look at. Everything is just different enough to look like boilerplate while not actually being boilerplate. However when I'm trying to write code that isn't a variation of something I've done many times before copilot is not helpful. It can't complete as much and what does complete is wrong often for style reasons (it would be nice if the function it wants to call existed but it doesn't, or does takes some other parameter that it doesn't know)

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#32

Post by uh_uh » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:36 PM UTC

pluc wrote: post #21

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #6

It's just the start, it's about to steal the joy of everything in life pretty soon.

Sounds about right. Let's throw more money, power and natural resources at it and see if the scale tips the other way! If not well nothing of value will have been lost right? What's shortening humanity's lifetime in comparison to the potential productivity gains!

Aren't you at least a little bit excited for the potential benefits?

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#33

Post by almost_usual » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:36 PM UTC

code_for_monkey wrote: post #24

bowsamic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

its not about whether an LLM can do better work than you, its about if it can do cheaper work than you, and it can.

It’ll do both soon.

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#34

Post by zamadatix » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:36 PM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #10

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #6

It's just the start, it's about to steal the joy of everything in life pretty soon.

[flagged]

A lot of people don't/didn't set out in life to be a hyper-adaptiver worker who puts 110% into the latest thing they can be the best at all the time. They set out to be an average worker who learns a skill and lives a life focused on things outside of being the maximal worker. For these people it's even less about if an LLM can beat them (which, to be honest, for most all of us is or will be true at least for certain tasks) and more about how much an LLM may upset the life path they were in.

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#35

Post by neverartful » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:37 PM UTC

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #6

It's just the start, it's about to steal the joy of everything in life pretty soon.

This is my big fear about pervasive use of AI. I'm afraid that companies, policy makers, regulators, etc. all start letting AI make important decisions without any human understanding of the reasoning behind the decision and the human puppets hiding behind it with no accountability.

I imagine scenarios where AI could be given complete authority to decide who is hired/fired, who gets medical care, who gets food, who gets utilities (water/electricity/natural gas) to their homes, who gets disaster relief, etc. Quite frightening when you think about it. If AI decided to cancel you (and it had this level of authority) your very existence would be in danger.

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#36

Post by deadbabe » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:37 PM UTC

daemin wrote: post #30

deadbabe wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just because people have been so indoctrinated by capitalism that they only find joy if they’re being worked to the bone. They have forgotten the joy of not doing anything productive.

Why learn to paint or draw if generative ML can create a picture for you? Why practice writing if generative ML can create a poem or short story for you? In that regard you're best off just sitting down in front of a screen and consuming content generated by ML. And from the example in the original blog post the author had the generative ML do the fun stuff in solving the problem and all they did was drudge work clea…

You didn’t answer your questions.

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#37

Post by atemerev » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #18

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #6

It's just the start, it's about to steal the joy of everything in life pretty soon.

There's something very "late stage capitalism" about pouring torrents of capital into tools that can replace human ingenuity, artistry and creativity while starving stuff like infrastructure, space travel, etc.

Capitalism is about profit. Infrastructure is financed when it brings profit, and ignored when it stops doing that. E.g. railroad boom and the current state of railroads.

When someone figured that space can bring profit too, we got some developments in space travel as well.

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#38

Post by miningape » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #29

deadbabe wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just because people have been so indoctrinated by capitalism that they only find joy if they’re being worked to the bone. They have forgotten the joy of not doing anything productive.

Strongly disagree. There is an intrinsic pleasure for many people in feeling that they can make a contribution - that their skills, knowledge and ability is valuable and valued

Exactly, that exact drive to feel helpful and needed is why dogs are trainable and men are depressed. It's why the old wolf who can't catch their own food anymore leaves the pack to die alone, cold, and hungry.

That craving is a deeper more primalistic emotion than hunger or thirst for many people (and animals) - boiling it down to "muh capitalism" is just disingenuous.

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#39

Post by deadbabe » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #29

deadbabe wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just because people have been so indoctrinated by capitalism that they only find joy if they’re being worked to the bone. They have forgotten the joy of not doing anything productive.

Strongly disagree. There is an intrinsic pleasure for many people in feeling that they can make a contribution - that their skills, knowledge and ability is valuable and valued

But their contributions are not valued. You can spend a year working on something cool and when you finally show it to the world the most you get is a couple upvotes on Hackernews and people using it for maybe 10-15 minutes and then never again. That’s the reality for many people.

Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming

#40

Post by daemin » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

friggeri wrote: post #27

I've had the absolute opposite experience, AI has brought back a lot of the joy of programming and building products for me. I've been using Cursor extensively these past few months, for anything ranging from scaffolding to complex UIs. The trick, I've found, is to treat the AI like I would work with a junior engineer, giving in concrete detailed tasks to accomplish, breaking the problem down myself into manageable c…

At least with a Junior Engineer they can learn and grow from your feedback, becoming a more useful member of the team, the generative model on the other hand will not.