301–310 of 404 posts
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It's never been tried before. Capital always required human labor, to be productive. Capital has never closed in on the ability to operate, maintain, defend, and expand itself without human assistance, as it is closing in on that ability now.
It's really not. The capital owners just think it is.
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this is a category error that i specifically called out in my comment.
What is the category of code that does not need quality? You need it to not interact with real world, with people's finances, with people's personal data. Basically it's the code that only exists for PMs to show to investors (in startups) and VPs (in enterprise), but not for real users to rely on.
For example there exist "applications"/"demos" that exist "to show the customer what could be possible if they hire 'us'". These demos just have to survive a, say, intense two-hour marketing pitch and some inconvenient questions/tests that someone in the audience might come up with during these two hours.
In other words: applications for "pitching possibilities" to a potential customer, where everything is allowed to be smoke and mirrors if necessary (once the customer has been convinced with all tricks to hire the respective company for the project, the requirements will completely change anyway ...).
I did some "trad coding" to see how much I'd atrophied, and I was startled at how difficult and unpleasant it was. I was just stuck and frustrated almost the whole time! But I persisted for 7 hours and was able to solve the problem.
Then I remembered, actually it was always like that! At least when doing something unfamiliar. That's just what programming feels like, but I had stopped being used to it because of the instant gratification of the magic "just fix my problem now" button.
In reality had spent 7 hours in "learning mode", where the whole point is that you don't understand yet. (I was moving almost the whole time, but each new situation was also unfamiliar!)
But if I had used AI, it would have eliminated the struggle, and given me the superficial feeling of understanding, like when you skim a textbook and think "yeah I know this part" because you recognize the page. But can you produce it? That's the only question that matters.
I think that's going to become a very important question going forward. Sure, you don't need to produce it right now. But it's mostly not for right now.
Just like you don't "need" to run and lift weights. But what happens if you stop?
I would argue that the split existed before AI and these camps were not the same.
There were always "Quality first" people and "Get the shit done ASAP" people. Former would go for a better considerations, more careful attitude towards dependencies. Latter would write the dirty POC code and move on, add huge 3rd party libs for one small function and so on.
Both have pros and cons. Former are better in envs like Aerospace or Medtech, latter would thrive in product companies and web. The second cathegory are the people who are happy the most about AI and who would usually delegate the whole thing to the agents from start to finish including the review and deployment.
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The real split is between the capital owners, who live on our labour, typically through inheritance of a piece of paper that says they own a percentage of what I make.
Whether the labor theory of value is right or wrong, the "real split" you describe will soon no longer exist. Capital owners will live on the labor of their capital. Non-capital-owners will live on the largesse of capital, or will not live at all. Unless we muster the political will to stop AI development, internationally, until we can be certain of our ability to durably imbue it with the intrinsic desire to keep hu…
It's not the AI you have to convince, it's your government and the people running tech companies. Dario Amodei was cheering for AI to take all programming jobs (along with the others). If that happened, it would be an unmitigated disaster for millions of people. Imagine a student who comes out of a CS major with tons of student debt. How much sympathy does Dario feel for this person? Getting him to STFU would be a good first step.
> the political will to stop AI development
The reason that's not likely is that it's an arms race. You stop AI research here, but how can you trust that China and Russia are doing the same? Unlike nuclear bombs, the potential harms are less tangible.
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I think the real divide is over quality and standards. We all have different thresholds for what is acceptable, and our roles as engineers typically reflect that preference. I can grind on a single piece of code for hours, iterating over and over until I like the way it works, the parameter names, etc. Other people do not see the value in that whatsoever, and something that works is good enough. We both are valuable…
> I think the real divide is over quality and standards. I think there are multiple dimensions that people fall on regarding the issue and it's leading to a divide based on where everyone falls on those dimensions. Quality and standards are probably in there but I think risk-tolerance/aversion could be behind some how you look at quality and standards. If you're high on risk-taking, you might be more likely to forego…
I, for example, would claim to be rather risk-tolerant, but I (typically) don't like AI-generated code.
The solution to the paradox this creates if one considers the model of your post is simple:
- I deeply love highly elegant code, which the AI models do not generate.
- I cannot stand people (and AIs) bullshitting me; this makes me furious. I thus have an insanely low tolerance for conmen (and conwomen and conAIs).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the category of code that does not need quality? You need it to not interact with real world, with people's finances, with people's personal data. Basically it's the code that only exists for PMs to show to investors (in startups) and VPs (in enterprise), but not for real users to rely on.
> What is the category of code that does not need quality? For example there exist "applications"/"demos" that exist "to show the customer what could be possible if they hire 'us'". These demos just have to survive a, say, intense two-hour marketing pitch and some inconvenient questions/tests that someone in the audience might come up with during these two hours. In other words: applications for "pitching possibiliti…
I think we should already get past pretending it's about people who just like typing words on their stupid mechanical keyboards. The real split is whether you like understanding systems and inventing new things or whether you are OK to delegate this part to someone else and are just happy to take credit for their success. With a small note that when someone else is a human, the credit can be justified if you mentored…
The optimal amount of generative AI in the world is zero. There are three possible scenarios, all of them bad: 1. Weaker than expected AI. Great Depression 2.0. Widespread poverty and suffering as the enormous investments already made fail to pay off. 2. AI works as expected. Dystopia. A few trillionaires gain absolute control of the entire world, and everyone else is enslaved or killed. 3. Stronger than excepted AI.…
I think we should already get past pretending it's about people who just like typing words on their stupid mechanical keyboards. The real split is whether you like understanding systems and inventing new things or whether you are OK to delegate this part to someone else and are just happy to take credit for their success. With a small note that when someone else is a human, the credit can be justified if you mentored…
When I build with AI I build things I never would have built before, and in doing so I’m exposed to technologies, designs, tools I wasn’t aware of before. I ask questions about them. Sure I don’t understand the tools as deeply as the person who wasted like 10 hours going down rabbit holes to answer a simple question, but I don’t really see that as particularly valuable.