371–380 of 656 posts
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That I don't let agents run wild in a production environment?
You let them write code that runs in prod, which is the same thing with extra steps. Unless you review that code carefully, and then we're back to the point about it not saving you any cognitive overhead.
The way I use AI now feels more exhausting than the programming I did for the last 20 years. I pose a problem, then evaluate proposals, then pick the one I think is the "right one"(tm), then see the AI propose a bunch of weird shit, then call it out, refine the proposal until it feels just about right (this is the exhausting part), then let it code the proposal. The coding will then run for 1-5 hours and produce some…
How do you check if what it produced is even the right thing? Models love to go chasing the wrong goal based on a reasonable spec.
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It's true for all automation we do get more comfort. We build systems so that we humans have as little struggle as possible, not realising that struggle is the only reason for existence. By eliminating it, we are erasing ourselves from this world.
This kind of argument flies in the face of the fact that plenty of inherited rich people seem to lead very happy lives. Of course, they do find things to struggle with, but it's much more pleasant to struggle to score 72 at the golf course or to outbid a rival for a piece of contemporary art than to struggle for basic needs.
I can live a happy life without struggling for basic needs and without playing golf all day long. If you strip off every obligation from life, then you exist, not live.
Facing challenges and overcoming obstacles, friends and family is what makes me happy. When you’re rich, most people only care about your money, not the person you are. And I think that’s exactly what a happy life is about.
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Many people by now have probably seen a teammate who used to be a good SWE, now spamming slop code that puts all the real work on the reviewer. That's the "second group."
Tell them no. Thats what I do. I have rejected multiple PRs that were too large and lacked proper design or alignment upfront. With code being so cheap, rejecting it should be just as cheaper. Set cultural standards that devs need to review their code before asking for reviews. Etc etc
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This kind of argument flies in the face of the fact that plenty of inherited rich people seem to lead very happy lives. Of course, they do find things to struggle with, but it's much more pleasant to struggle to score 72 at the golf course or to outbid a rival for a piece of contemporary art than to struggle for basic needs.
I don’t share your idea of a happy life. I can live a happy life without struggling for basic needs and without playing golf all day long. If you strip off every obligation from life, then you exist, not live. Facing challenges and overcoming obstacles, friends and family is what makes me happy. When you’re rich, most people only care about your money, not the person you are. And I think that’s exactly what a happy l…
I can imagine I could be perfectly happy with a life full of challenges of that kind, instead of being forced to work at given scheduled times which often imply I spend less time with my son than I would like, including days I don't feel like it, and including boring tasks (I love my job, but like almost every job, it also has its paperwork, pointless meetings, etc.), knowing I depend on that work to live.
In short, I think we all do need the challenge, the struggle, the successes and the failures, otherwise life would just be boring and pointless. But I don't think we (or at least I) need the obligation component and the high stakes.
What you mention about the rich attracting people focused on money rings true, but it would be moot if AI led us all to lead lives more similar to the rich, which was the point here. (Of course, there's also the issue of whether there is widespread or unequal access to AI, but that's another story...).
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Myopic is inevitable, to some extent. It's very hard to project this stuff. Socrates wrote about what was being lost as philosophy was becoming written rather than oral...and he was right. We can't even understand what was lost. Many methods of learning and thinking became entirely lost. You could say they were redundant, and they were. But... writing largely replaced oral traditions. It didn't just augment them. He…
I'd say that by purging stuff from the brain we are losing thinking itself. Thinking is manipulating ideas and concepts in your head, assembling and linking. The fewer things there is, the more primitive the result. You cannot juggle without object to juggle, connecting the dots result in trivial patterns when you have just a couple of dots.
The idea that there will be less to think about seems a bit short-sighted. Humans are very good at moving to higher levels of abstraction, often with more complexity to deal with, not less.
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I see. Computer Science is not an engineering degree and it is not about programming. That's what Software Engineering degrees are for.
Many of the top schools don't have software/computer engineering degrees, rather people who want to be SWEs get CS degrees.
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Same way everyone gives lip service to reviewing output. I know for a fact that at work most don't, not deeply/properly. You basically can't and hit the volume that's been demanded.
I mean the workplace dynamics are such that nobody really cares unless they find themselves in a position of committing something that could get them fired. Most companies dont treat their workers all that well. Why would you as a worker bother doing everything pristine? Theres no reward for you. The management of the company will fire you the day they see fit anyway. Not to mention companies tend to give higher sala…
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I see. Computer Science is not an engineering degree and it is not about programming. That's what Software Engineering degrees are for.
Most CS programs have software dev in their curricula; I don't think it's wild to expect a CS student to code FizzBuzz.
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"You can’t treat a prompt like source code because it will give you a different output every time you use it" But it seems we are heading there. For simple stuff, if I made a very clear spec - I can be almost sure, that every time I give that prompt to a AI, it will work without error, using the same algorithms. So quality of prompt is more valuable, than the generated code So either way, this is what I focus my thin…
> if I made a very clear spec - I can be almost sure That "almost" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. This is just "make no mistakes" "you're holding it wrong" magical thinking. In every project, there is always a gap between what you think you want and what you actually need. Part of the build process is working that out. You can't write better specs to solve this, because you don't know what it is yet. On top of…
So right now, humans are for sure more reliable. But it is changing. There are things I already trust a LLM more than a random or certain known humans.