Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

No, they're right. Your description is what you get from outsiders who don't understand what they're seeing.

In a creative process, when you really know your tools, you start being able to go from thought to result without really having to think about the tools. The most common example when it comes to computers would be touch-typing - when your muscle memory gets so good you don't think about the keyboard at all anymore, your hands "know" what to do to get your thoughts down. But for those of us with enough experience in the programming languages and editor/IDE we use, the same thing can happen - going from thought to code is nearly effortless, as is reading code, because we don't need to think about the layers in between anymore.

But this only works when those tools are reliable, when we know they'll do exactly what we expect. AI tooling isn't reliable: It introduces two lossy translation layers (thought -> English and English -> code) and a bunch of waiting in the middle that breaks any flow. With faster computers maybe we can eliminate the waiting, but the reliability just isn't there.

This applies to music, painting, all sorts of creative things. Sure there's prep time beforehand with physical creation like painting, but when someone really gets into the flow it's the same: they're not having to think about the tools so much as getting their thoughts into the end result. The tools "disappear".

> Other times, I make music because I like the feeling of turning a knob, and striking keys at just the right moment, and it gives me a feeling of satisfaction.

But I'll bet you're not thinking about "I like turning this knob" at the moment you're doing it, I'll bet you're thinking "Increase the foo" (and if you're like me it's probably more liking knowing that fact without forming the words) and the knob's immediate visceral feedback is where the satisfaction comes from because you're increasing the foo without having to think about how to do it - in part because of how reliable it is.

Well put.

AI obviously brings big benefits into the profession. We just have not seen exactly what they are just yet. How it will unfold.

But personally I feel that a future of not having to churn out yet another crud app is attractive.

It resonates. But as I see it, that kind of ritual I rather devote myself to at home. At work, the more efficient and rapidly we can get stuff dobe, the better.

Drawing and painting is a ritual to me as well. No one pays me for it and I am happy about that.

The reason I am "anti-AI" is not because I think LLMs being bad at what they do, nor because I'm afraid they'll take my job. I use CC to accelerate my own work (it's improved by leaps and bounds though I still find I have to keep it on a short leash because it doesn't always think things through enough). It's also a great research tool (search on steroids). It's excellent at summarizing long documents, editing and proofreading, etc. I use it for all those things. It's useful.

The reason I am anti-AI is because I believe it poses a net-negative to society overall. Not because it is inherently bad, but because of the way it is being infused into society by large corps (and eventually governments). Yes, it makes me, and other developers, more productive. And it can more quickly solve certain problems that were time consuming or laborious to solve. And it might lead to new and greater scientific and technological advances.

But those gains do not outweigh all of the negatives: concentration of power and capital into an increasingly small group, the eventual loss of untold millions of jobs (with, as of yet, not even a shred of indication of what might be replace them), the loss of skills in the next generations who are delegating much of their critical thinking (or thinking period), to ChatGPT; the loss of trust in society now that any believable video can be easily generated; the concentration of power in the the control of information if everyone is getting their info from LLMs instead of the open internet (and ultimately, potentially the death of the open internet); the explosion in energy consumption by data centers which exacerbates rather than mitigates global warming; and plenty more.

AI might allow us to find better technological solutions to world hunger, poverty, mental health, water shortages, climate change, and war. But none of those problems are technological problems; technology only plays a small part. And the really important part is being negatively exacerbated by the "AI arms race". That's why I, who was my whole life a technological optimist, am no longer hopeful for the future. I wish I was.

If you want an example, I just open-sourced a project which includes the prompts and CLAUDE.md: https://github.com/minimaxir/miditui/tree/main/agent_notes