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Everyone in Seattle hates AI

jonready.com

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Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#301

Post by venturecruelty »

binary132 wrote: post #164
bccdee wrote: post #41

> Engineers don't try because they think they can't. This article assumes that AI is the centre of the universe, failing to understand that that assumption is exactly what's causing the attitude they're pointing to. There's a dichotomy in the software world between real products (which have customers and use cases and make money by giving people things they need) and hype products (which exist to get investors excite…

Bitcoin is at 93k so I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say blockchain is insubstantive or without value

Beanie Babies were trading pretty well, too, although it wasn't quite "solving sudokus for drugs", so I guess that's why they didn't have as much staying power.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#302

Post by blibble »

mgaunard wrote: post #208
binary132 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is at 93k so I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say blockchain is insubstantive or without value

very little of the trading actually happens on the blockchain, it's only used to move assets between trading venues. The values of bitcoin are: - easy access to trading for everyone, without institutional or national barriers - high leverage to effectively easily borrow a lot of money to trade with - new derivative products that streamline the process and make speculation easier than ever The blockchain plays very li…

I agree with "easy access to trading for everyone, without institutional or national barriers"

how on earth does bitcoin have anything to do with borrowing or derivatives?

in a way that wouldn't also work for beanie babies

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#303

Post by spamizbad »

senordevnyc wrote: post #244
averyvery wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "Engineers don't try" is a frustrating statement. We've all tried generative AI, and there's not that much to it — you put text in, you get text back out. Some models are better at some tasks, some tools are better at finding the right text and connecting it to the right actions, some tools provide a better wrapper around the text-generation process. Certain jobs are very easy for AI to do, others are impossibl…

I’ve been an engineer for 20 years, for myself, small companies, and big tech, and now working for my own saas company. There are many valid critiques of AI, but “there’s not much there” isn’t one of them. To me, any software engineer who tries an LLM, shrugs and says “huh, that’s interesting” and then “gets back to work” is completely failing at their actual job, which is using technology to solve problems. Maybe AI…

> To me, any software engineer who tries an LLM, shrugs and says “huh, that’s interesting” and then “gets back to work” is completely failing at their actual job,

I don't understand why people seem so impatient about AI adoption.

AI is the future, but many AI products aren't fully mature yet. That lack of maturity is probably what is dampening the adoption curve. To unseat incumbent tools and practices you either need to do so seamlessly OR be 5-10x better (Only true for a subset of tasks). In areas where either of these cases apply, you'll see some really impressive AI adoption. In areas where AI's value requires more effort, you'll see far less adoption. This seems perfectly natural to me and isn't some conspiracy - AI needs to be a better product and good products take time.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#304

Post by venturecruelty »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #300
CSMastermind wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friends at Google are some of the most negative about the potential of AI to improve software development. I was always surprised by this and assumed internally at Google would be one of the first places to adopt these.

Google has good engineers. Generally I've noticed the better someone is at coding the more critical they are of AI generated code. Which make sense honestly. It's easier to spot flaws the more expert you are. This doesn't mean they don't use AI gen code, just they are more careful with when an where.

Yes, because they're more likely to understand that the computer isn't this magical black box, and that just because we've made ELIZA marginally better, doesn't mean it's actually good. Anecdata, but the people I've seen be dazzled by AI the most are people with little to no programming experience. They're also the ones most likely to look on computer experts with disdain.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#305

Post by tokioyoyo »

somekyle2 wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, lots of people in SF tech hate AI too. _Most_ people out of tech do. But, enough of the people in tech have their future tied to AI that there are lot of vocal boosters.

It’s one of those “people hate noticing AI-generated stuff, but everyone and their mom is using ChatGPT to make their works easier”. There are a lot of vocal boosters and vocal anti-boosters, but the general population is using it in a Google fashion and move on. Not everyone is thinking about AI-apocalypse every day.

Personally, I’m in-between the opinions. I hate when I’m consuming AI-generated stuff, but can see the use for myself for work or asking bunch of not-so-important questions to get general idea of stuff.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#306

Post by OvidNaso »

skybrian wrote: post #258
binary132 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is at 93k so I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say blockchain is insubstantive or without value

This seems to be almost purely bandwagon value, like preferring Coca-Cola to some other drink. There are other blockchains that are better technically along a bunch of dimensions, but they don't have the mindshare. Bitcoin is probably unkillable. Even if were to crash, it won't be hard to round up enough true believers to boost it up again. But it's technically stagnant.

True, but then so is a lot of "tech". There were certainly, at least equivalent, social applications before and all throughout Facebooks dominance, but like Bitcoin the network effect becomes primary, after a minimum feature set.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#307

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

treis wrote: post #207
pesus wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, tech deserves its bad reputation in SF (and worldwide, really). One look at the dystopian billboards bragging about trying to replace humans with AI should make any sane human angry at what tech has done. Or the rising rents due to an influx of people working on mostly useless AI startups, 90% of which won't be around in 5 years. Or even how poorly many in tech behave in public and how poorly they treat serv…

There's a long list of things that have "replaced" humans all the way back to the ox drawn plow. It's not sane to be angry at any of those steps along the way. GenAI will likely not be any different.

it's plenty sane to be angry when the benefits of those technical innovations are not distributed equally.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#308

Post by adastra22 »

binary132 wrote: post #164
bccdee wrote: post #41

> Engineers don't try because they think they can't. This article assumes that AI is the centre of the universe, failing to understand that that assumption is exactly what's causing the attitude they're pointing to. There's a dichotomy in the software world between real products (which have customers and use cases and make money by giving people things they need) and hype products (which exist to get investors excite…

Bitcoin is at 93k so I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say blockchain is insubstantive or without value

With almost zero fundamentals. That’s the part you are glossing over.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#309

Post by layer8 »

bccdee wrote: post #41

> Engineers don't try because they think they can't. This article assumes that AI is the centre of the universe, failing to understand that that assumption is exactly what's causing the attitude they're pointing to. There's a dichotomy in the software world between real products (which have customers and use cases and make money by giving people things they need) and hype products (which exist to get investors excite…

> So, no. I don't think "engineers don't try because they think they can't." I think engineers KNOW they CAN and resent being asked to look pretty and do nothing of value.

I understood “they think they can’t” to refer to the engineers thinking that management won’t allow them to, not to a lack of confidence in their own abilities.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#310

Post by kentm »

Freak_NL wrote: post #214
hectdev wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it is like that. No one HAS to use AI. But the shared goal is to get a change to the codebase to achieve a desired outcome. Some will outsource a significant part of that to AI, some won't. And its tricky because I'm trying not to appeal to emotion despite being fascinated with how this tool has enabled me to do things in a short amount of time that it would have taken me weeks of grinding to get to and i…

> No one HAS to use AI. Well… That's no longer true, is it? My partner (IT analyst) works for a company owned by a multinational big corporation, and she got told during a meeting with her manager that use of AI is going to become mandatory next year. That's going to be a thing across the board. And have you called a large company for any reason lately? Could be your telco provider, your bank, public transport compan…

> where some LLM will try to parse that, fail miserably, and then shunt you to an actual person.

If you're lucky. I've had LLMs that just repeatedly hang up on me when they obviously hit a dead end.

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