Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

kasava.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 608 posts

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#371

Post by user3939382 »

Galanwe wrote: post #52
oxag3n wrote: post #32

> We're thinking about AI wrong. And this write up is not an exception. Why even bother thinking about AI, when Anthropic and OpenAI CEOs openly tell us what they want (quote from recent Dwarkesh interview) - "Then further down the spectrum, there’s 90% less demand for SWEs, which I think will happen but this is a spectrum." So save thinking and listen to intent - replace 90% of SWEs in near future (6-12 months accor…

I don't think anyone serious believes this. Replacing developers with a less costly alternative is obviously a very market bullish dream, it has existed since as long as I've worked in the field. First it was supposed to be UML generated code by "architects", then it was supposed to be developers from developing countries, then no-code frameworks, etc. AI will be a tool, no more no less. Most likely a good one, but t…

If you gave the LLM your carefully written UML maybe its output would be better lol. That’s what we’re missing, a mashup of the hype cycle tools.

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#372

Post by ForHackernews »

viking123 wrote: post #328
ForHackernews wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree, but counterpoint: Waymo is successfully running robocabs in many cities today.

When does it come to Mumbai?

They're launching in London this year. So... 2035?

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#373

Post by LoganDark »

gaigalas wrote: post #354
LoganDark wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of the space of artificial intelligence is based on a goal of a general reasoning machine comparable to the reasoning of a human. There are many subfields that are less concerned with this, but in practice, artificial intelligence is perceived to have that goal. I am sure the output of current frontier models is convincing enough to outperform the appearance of humans to some. There is still an ongoing outcry fr…

That's not a citation.

It's roughly why I think this way, along with a statement that I don't have objective citations. So sure, it's not a citation. I even said as much, right in the middle there.

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#374

Post by topocite »

emp17344 wrote: post #68
DrewADesign wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amplified means more work done by fewer people. It doesn’t need to replace a single entire functional human being to do things like kill the demand for labor in dev, which in turn, will kill salaries.

This is incorrect. It’s basic economics - technology that boosts productivity results in higher salaries and more jobs.

You obviously haven't thought about economics much at all to say something this simplistic.

There are so many counter examples of this being wrong that it is not even worth bothering.

I love economics, but it is largely a field based around half truths and intellectual fraud. It is actually why it is an interesting subject to study.

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#375

Post by Frieren »

100% exoskeleton is a great analogy.

An exoskeleton is something really cool in movies that has zero reason to be build in reality because there are way more practical approaches.

That is why we have all kind of vehicles, or programmable robot arm that do the job for themselves or if you need a human at the helm one just adds a remote controller with levers and buttons. But making a human shaped gigantic robot with a normal human inside is just impractical for any real commercial use.

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#376

Post by josefrichter »

small_model wrote: post #261
p-e-w wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the amount of work that could be delegated, with equal or better results than those from average human workers, is far higher than currently attempted in most companies. Industries have barely started using the potential of even current-generation AI.

Agreed, and with each passing month the work that 'could' be done increases. I don't write code anymore, for example, (after 20 years of doing so) Opus does that part of the job for me now. I think we have a period where current experienced devs are still in the loop, but that will eventually go away too.

Exactly

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#377

Post by josefrichter »

progx wrote: post #254
josefrichter wrote: post #252

AI most definitely is a coworker already. You do delegate some work for which you previously had to hire humans.

And than you fix the produces shit, got high blood pressure and think "damn it,how I would love to yell at that employee"

Not true at all with frontier models in last ~6 months or so. The frontier models today produce code better than 90% of junior to mid-level human developers.

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#378

Post by koonsolo »

Tade0 wrote: post #310
jatora wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I use these tools and that's my experience.

I think it all depends on the use case and a luck factor.

Sometimes I instruct copilot/claude to do a development (stretching it's capabilities), and it does amazingly well. Mind you that this is front-end development, so probably one of the more ideal use-cases. Bugfixing also goes well a lot of times.

But other times, it really struggles, and in the end I have to write it by hand. This is for more complex or less popular things (In my case React-Three-Fiber with skeleton animations).

So I think experiences can vastly differ, and in my environment very dependent on the case.

One thing is clear: This AI revolution (deep learning) won't replace developers any time soon. And when the next revolution will take place, is anyones guess. I learned neural networks at university around 2000, and it was old technology then.

I view LLM's as "applied information", but not real reasoning.

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#379

Post by incomingpain »

Agentic coding is an exoskeleton. Totally correct.

This new generation we just entered this year, that exoskeleton is now an agency with several coworkers. Who are all as smart as the model you're using, often close to genius.

Not just 1 coworker now. That's the big breakthrough.

Re: AI is not a coworker, it's an exoskeleton

#380

Post by koonsolo »

mossTechnician wrote: post #326
alphazard wrote: post #158

There's an undertone of self-soothing "AI will leverage me, not replace me", which I don't agree with especially in the long run, at least in software. In the end it will be the users sculpting formal systems like playdoh. In the medium run, "AI is not a co-worker" is exactly right. The idea of a co-worker will go away. Human collaboration on software is fundamentally inefficient. We pay huge communication/synchroniz…

Everybody in the world is now a programmer. This is the miracle of artificial intelligence. - Jensen Huang, February 2024 https://www.techradar.com/pro/nvidia-ceo-predicts-the-death-...

The problem I mostly see with non programmers is that they don't really grasp the concept of a consistent system.

A lot of people want X, but they also want Y, while clearly X and Y cannot coexist in the same system.

Post reply on HN