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Task Paralysis and AI

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31–40 of 137 posts

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#31
Re: Claude usage limits

There was a comment the other day that explained how to use the new DeepSeek V4 with Claude Code.

I mention because it's roughly fifty times cheaper than Claude, and the quality gap is closing.

Which is the difference between "I don't use it for anything serious because I constantly run into limits" and "I can actually use the thing..."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48002640

It seems "Sonnet-ish" in quality so far, but I haven't tested it much yet.

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#32
post #7
post #5

So the end game for the current generation of AI companies won't be productivity improvements but gambling, just like everything else nowadays. That's why they want to get us all into these massive casinos they call data centers and don't want us to own the slot machines. So what that you have ideas - other people have them too. It's not ideas that build businesses but knowing right people or ability to sell products…

The gambling trope is so tired. AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree, certainly not more than hiring people to do a job can be considered "gambling" (you never know what you're going to get!). It's just paying to get stuff done, which is how it's always been, since the dawn of man.

I don’t like the gambling comparison either. It’s more like smoking or drinking. It’s an addiction you lean on to help you do something- even if that something is just getting through the day.

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#33
post #30
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gambling trope is so tired. AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree, certainly not more than hiring people to do a job can be considered "gambling" (you never know what you're going to get!). It's just paying to get stuff done, which is how it's always been, since the dawn of man.

I'd observe that there are professional gamblers, and there are amateur gamblers. If you know what you're doing, know how to spec a problem space, and can manage the tool competently enough to churn out good results, then everything's fine, and you're maybe being productive or increasing your productivity by some degree. (Professional "Gambler") If you DON'T know what you're doing, and you're just vibe-coding, then I…

I don't know, I can understand "some people might overdo it and get addicted to LLMs". I can't understand "LLMs are slot machines and that's all they're good for" when I use LLMs every day to do tons of actual work.

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#34
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gambling trope is so tired. AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree, certainly not more than hiring people to do a job can be considered "gambling" (you never know what you're going to get!). It's just paying to get stuff done, which is how it's always been, since the dawn of man.

I don’t like the gambling comparison either. It’s more like smoking or drinking. It’s an addiction you lean on to help you do something- even if that something is just getting through the day.

Yeah but those are classified as addictions because they have a harm component (lung cancer, liver disease, societal impact). LLMs aren't going to kill you. If anything, it might be like gaming addiction.

If you've gotten to the point where you'd rather talk to an LLM than socialise, go to work, etc, then yes, you definitely have a problem, same as with a gaming addiction.

Saying "LLMs are slot machines" is like saying "video games are slot machines", and nobody says that, even though it's more true of video games (some are actual slot machines/gacha) than of LLMs.

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#35
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gambling trope is so tired. AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree, certainly not more than hiring people to do a job can be considered "gambling" (you never know what you're going to get!). It's just paying to get stuff done, which is how it's always been, since the dawn of man.

I don’t like the gambling comparison either. It’s more like smoking or drinking. It’s an addiction you lean on to help you do something- even if that something is just getting through the day.

Like the internet!

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#36
Resonates with me.

In a paradoxical way, the amount of stuff you can get done in an hour now is like a firehose -- which we rarely experienced in our earlier life -- which can be overwhelming to my brain. So I subconsciously resist starting a session because I never feel fully rested, calm, and focussed to take all that and process it well.

There are also 10x more "active" projects now -- and prioritization and choosing between them at every moment is still a struggle. The tempation to do the fun and novel thing and avoid important but familar boring chores pops up every step of the way and can derail you for days.

I am still trying to create a system that works -- now using the very tools. Long journey ahead.

EDIT: My experience --

I was paying for both Claude Code as well as ChatGPT Pro ...but was heavily almost exlucively using CC for coding work because it was so good. After CC started hammering the session and weekly quotas lately -- I tentatively srated using Codex and find that it seems equally good and almost indistnguishable for my work, and ocassionally shines by one-shotting some tasks. This helped me stay afloat with just 2x$20 spend per month without feeling held-up for ransom. Also never hit codex limits till now.

Leaving a 5 hour session quota unused towards the end, or worse not even starting a 5 hour session clock, was a source of constant anxiety -- that I am wasting precious quota getting nothing done. I think I am getting over that now.

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#37
post #7
post #5

So the end game for the current generation of AI companies won't be productivity improvements but gambling, just like everything else nowadays. That's why they want to get us all into these massive casinos they call data centers and don't want us to own the slot machines. So what that you have ideas - other people have them too. It's not ideas that build businesses but knowing right people or ability to sell products…

The gambling trope is so tired. AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree, certainly not more than hiring people to do a job can be considered "gambling" (you never know what you're going to get!). It's just paying to get stuff done, which is how it's always been, since the dawn of man.

>AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree

Reading this while I'm prompting for the third time to fix a 100+ line function is amusing, to say the least. I don't care about the definition of "appreciable", but I definitely have to repeat myself to get stuff done, sometimes even to undo things I never told it to touch.

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#38
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gambling trope is so tired. AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree, certainly not more than hiring people to do a job can be considered "gambling" (you never know what you're going to get!). It's just paying to get stuff done, which is how it's always been, since the dawn of man.

>AI development doesn't involve luck to any appreciable degree Reading this while I'm prompting for the third time to fix a 100+ line function is amusing, to say the least. I don't care about the definition of "appreciable", but I definitely have to repeat myself to get stuff done, sometimes even to undo things I never told it to touch.

That sounds like a process problem. LLMs, like any tool, work better if you don't use them in the naive "do this" way. This works well for me:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083267

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#39
Another way to put this is that focus is ultimately what matters, when it comes to actually getting stuff done. Choosing what not to do is often more important than what you actually do.

Since AI tools make it extremely easy to get started, it's really easy to begin half a dozen different projects, feel like you're being productive, but actually accomplish nothing.

This accurately described how I used to utilize AI – and my ChatGPT history is filled with all sorts of grandiose project plans. But lately I've been more and more narrow with what I actually prompt.

This leads me to think that a chatbox is not the best UI for using AI, as it's too open-ended and too prone to give you long, broad answers, rather than hyper-specific ones.

Re: Task Paralysis and AI

#40
Some traits I recognized in many excellent coders i worked with, their drive to optimization, intellectual thirst, critical and creative thinking are attributes i consistently correlated with them being in some sort of neurodivergence spectrum.

Being able to remove the "first step" block is great, but what worries me is that this is coupled with LLMs sycophantic behaviours. My gut feeling is that coupling the feeling of unblocking ones capabilities with dopamine hits with the constant praising over someone abilities is an intro to psychosis and paranoia for them.

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