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The Majority AI View

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Re: The Majority AI View

#31

Post by Martin_Silenus »

charcircuit wrote: post #19

The hype is justified. Nowadays I rarely write code directly anymore. I don't have to navigate around the codebase to trace data flow. I don't have to find mistakes causing a deadlock. The way I do my job compared to a year ago is completely different and I'm accomplishing more in the same amount of time. This isn't even including my usage in my personal life for education. I'm skeptical the majority of tech experts…

> I'm skeptical the majority of tech experts are struggling to find the utility of them.

Looks like we did not read the same article.

Re: The Majority AI View

#32

Post by conorcleary »

lucyjojo wrote: post #30
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not any different from programmers clamoring en masse to switch to the latest cool framework or fashionable coding trend.

but programmers do not switch "en-masse". that's a HN bubble.

Bootstrap and HTML5 had fanfare and cool gfx on launch so people on-boarded themselves real quick

Re: The Majority AI View

#33

Post by conorcleary »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #16
mmmpetrichor wrote: post #5

I've found it very weird observing how CEOs across many companies behave as if they're part of some hivemind. When to do layoffs, how to implement office policies, and now pushing AI in the same way as if they have no brain of their own. It's very offputting. I can't tell if its collusion or whether maybe capitalism has its own goals that are pursued in lockstep by its creepy agents. I think the end goal is definitel…

> CEOs across many companies behave as if they're part of some hivemind. This hivemind is called Blackrock.

Aladdin, even.

Re: The Majority AI View

#34

Post by the_other »

chartered_stack wrote: post #12

I think this piece makes a fair and important point about LLM hype and the need to treat it as a normal technology rather than a cult movement. The over-the-top marketing and constant “AI will change everything” drumbeat can definitely obscures the more grounded, practical ways it can be used day-to-day. That said, every major technology wave has needed a similar level of push, hype, and momentum to reach mass adopti…

That mass adoption has brought in the normalisation of automated surveillance, attention farming and arguably lowered peoples’ tolerance to “the other”. I’m currently not convinced it’s a net positive. Perhaps things would have gone better if the adoption had been slower.

Re: The Majority AI View

#35

Post by basch »

crote wrote: post #21
chartered_stack wrote: post #12

I think this piece makes a fair and important point about LLM hype and the need to treat it as a normal technology rather than a cult movement. The over-the-top marketing and constant “AI will change everything” drumbeat can definitely obscures the more grounded, practical ways it can be used day-to-day. That said, every major technology wave has needed a similar level of push, hype, and momentum to reach mass adopti…

> every major technology wave has needed a similar level of push, hype, and momentum to reach mass adoption People were standing in line for the first iPhone. Gmail had a waiting list. Tesla sold EVs far faster than they could make them. On the other hand, I now literally have AI icons blinking in several apps, begging to be used. This isn't a regular marketing push of a brand-new product, it is companies desperately…

Part of the reason for the blinking icon begging to be used is because AI chat is a new interface being grafted onto existing products. It's difficult to get people to make the habit of using a different interface to a familiar product. That's why google can get people to use AI by injecting the response above the results. But facebook messenger for example throws a metaai icon in the lower right corner because they cant figure out a natural way to create discovery that isnt intrusive, and is able to silently hijack some existing muscle memory.

Re: The Majority AI View

#36

Post by drweevil »

A major part of the anti-social aspect of the AI hype is that it is profoundly anti-democratic.

Resource consumption—power, land, water—-are discussed as if we weren’t in the midst of a climate emergency that affects us all, nor are competing needs for those resources ever considered. The financing of those data centers is starting to look a lot like the derivative mess of ‘08. Companies are counting on receiving unwitting subsidies from regular power users. Etc. (Here in West Virginia, for example, we have lost our democratic right to regulate how local lands are used, so that we’re now powerless to stop land and water theft.) And if we ever dare to change this discourse we are told how important it is to “win the AI race with China!”, as if this were some real existential threat.

Meanwhile we’re expected to adopt a tech that, they tell us, will replace us. What’s not to like? /s

Re: The Majority AI View

#37

Post by charcircuit »

Martin_Silenus wrote: post #31
charcircuit wrote: post #19

The hype is justified. Nowadays I rarely write code directly anymore. I don't have to navigate around the codebase to trace data flow. I don't have to find mistakes causing a deadlock. The way I do my job compared to a year ago is completely different and I'm accomplishing more in the same amount of time. This isn't even including my usage in my personal life for education. I'm skeptical the majority of tech experts…

> I'm skeptical the majority of tech experts are struggling to find the utility of them. Looks like we did not read the same article.

>very difficult to focus on legitimate uses

What does this sentence mean to you?

Re: The Majority AI View

#38

Post by username223 »

lucyjojo wrote: post #30
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not any different from programmers clamoring en masse to switch to the latest cool framework or fashionable coding trend.

but programmers do not switch "en-masse". that's a HN bubble.

"Programmers" exist on a (not always "the") spectrum. At one extreme, there are frontend developers changing JS/Ruby frameworks every few months. New stuff is fun to play with. At the other, there's there's Tony Hoare's quip that "I don't know what the language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know it will be called Fortran." (https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/scientific-computing...). In 2025, quite a few of the numerical routines powering LLMs are built on top of BLAS, LAPACK, and other frightening FORTRAN IV code that shouts at you using very short words like SGEMM and DGESV. It's a big tent; get comfortable.

Re: The Majority AI View

#39

Post by username223 »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #22

> People worry that not being seen as mindless, uncritical AI cheerleaders will be a career-limiting move in the current environment of enforced conformity within tech Yes. I am seeing this right now, but it's not just enough to join the chanting around the altar, you've got to be seen enthusiastically using AI as much as possible and it's turned the contributions of some of the most productive high level developers…

> it's hard to mentally model code you didn't write.

Back when I learned to code, I was told never to copy-and-paste, even from my own code. It wasn't that it wouldn't save time, but that typing the stuff would force me to think about and understand it.

Throwing slop at walls and yelling "why error?! fix!!" if it doesn't work is good enough until it isn't, at which point it fails very badly, and no one has the knowledge to fix it.

Re: The Majority AI View

#40

Post by tim333 »

mmmpetrichor wrote: post #5

I've found it very weird observing how CEOs across many companies behave as if they're part of some hivemind. When to do layoffs, how to implement office policies, and now pushing AI in the same way as if they have no brain of their own. It's very offputting. I can't tell if its collusion or whether maybe capitalism has its own goals that are pursued in lockstep by its creepy agents. I think the end goal is definitel…

Hypothesis - your average CEO is a normal person without much more insight than you or I but they don't want to look dumb and so go along with whatever the trend is.
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