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AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

rickmanelius.com

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Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#391

Post by noisy_boy »

trip-zip wrote: post #165
corndoge wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fighting the ocean is futile

So is completely eliminating litter, but I still pick it up when I pass it.

Everybody generally agrees on what is garbage. Lot of senior management doesn't think AI is garbage or even if they privately think so, they don't say that openly. Falling in line, peer pressure, not wanting to come across as anti-AI luddite etc. All those issues affect the individual contributors too + the added challenge of perception in front of those who decide the bonus and lately, continued employment.

In this fucked up job market, it is easier said than done.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#392

Post by simoncion »

supermatt wrote: post #367
Planktonne wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are you disagreeing with them all Yes. I think an LLM can be useful for trivial or functional tasks, but for expressing complex positions, it's worse than useless. It's absolutely valid to dismiss LLM-generated prose, and people who who think they're doing 'assisted authorship' tend to be mistaken. I'm not saying you are incapable of thought; I'm saying that you've abdicated that by transmitting through an LLM.

> Yes Well you are of course entitled to disagree. > I'm not saying you are incapable of thought; I'm saying that you've abdicated that by transmitting through an LLM. What you actually said was that I "didn't put any meaningful thought into it". Thats the INPUT, not OUTPUT. Anyway. I think we're as far as we are going to get with this "discussion". Have a good evening!

> What you actually said was that I "didn't put any meaningful thought into it".

What he literally said was [0][1]

  You submitted thoughtless pap; of course it didn't get any traction.
  ...
  > What was thoughtless about it?
  
  You didn't put any meaningful thought into it.
> Thats the INPUT, not OUTPUT.

You didn't submit the input, you submitted the output. In actual fact, Planktonne asserted that the input that you did not publish would have been much more strongly preferred to the output that you did publish: [2]

  I would a thousand times rather read your stream of consciousness, even though I disagree with it, than the bland pulp of the LLM output. In every way that matters, it's stronger and communicating far more.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337154>

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337218>

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49338082>

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#393

Post by hrk5 »

LPisGood wrote: post #56

My coworkers continue to dump hundreds of lines of AI documentation in every PR and every other line of code has between one and ten lines of AI generated comments, talking about the real unlock and how things are byte for byte identical on the load bearing path or how the acceptance ladder is misleading. Features are coming out and metrics are improving, but we’re basically in a post readability code base, with the…

I think at this point all the info added by AI which certainly would be too much to read for every PR, it just serves the purpose of context for the next action. Which it could be good or bad depending on how big of a window of context you are working on

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#394

Post by abustamam »

ryandrake wrote: post #385
_--__--__ wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is awful. Every codebase becomes a graveyard of references to ideas or behaviors that were barely considered. It's probably also a compounding source of context poisoning when a minority of the comments/documentation are about how the current code actually works.

It also likes to spew references to documents that are not, and never have been, in the repo. So if you're not careful you'l have comments all over your codebase saying things like: foo() - Perform foo action as documented in PRIVATE_INTERNAL.doc

I found this as well, but I found it usually refers to a scratch file it made and purposely did not commit (either by my decision or its). Not that this makes it better, but at least it makes the AI world make a bit more sense to me

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#396

Post by abustamam »

noisy_boy wrote: post #391
trip-zip wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is completely eliminating litter, but I still pick it up when I pass it.

Everybody generally agrees on what is garbage. Lot of senior management doesn't think AI is garbage or even if they privately think so, they don't say that openly. Falling in line, peer pressure, not wanting to come across as anti-AI luddite etc. All those issues affect the individual contributors too + the added challenge of perception in front of those who decide the bonus and lately, continued employment. In this…

I feel like the chain kinda goes all the way to the top, to the level of shareholders. My boss needs to give his boss the perception that the engineering team is firing on all cylinders and has high velocity, so that he can sell that story to shareholders who could easily invest in another "AI-native" company and make more money because they're growing like crazy.

I feel like it's all just perception and how companies can sell their stories to investors or potential acquirers, and everything else can be punted and dealt with later when we get acquired or when share prices are a zillion dollars etc.

It's a race to the bottom, for sure.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#397

Post by qarl2 »

wpietri wrote: post #383
qarl2 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dearest dude - You called my wife bizarre. Then you said "TECHNICALLY, I didn't call your WIFE bizarre I called her ACTIONS bizarre." I would ask you to stop talking to me, but it seems unlikely to work. So. You have a nice day, now.

You're the one who decided to imagine that a reasonable discussion comment was an attack on your wife. You're also the one who started out calling things bizarre. As somebody not involved in this discussion, to me it looks like drama-seeking behavior.

I do think that the anti-AI mentality around here is bizarre.

I do not think that forwarding a listing from Google is bizarre.

These seem like reasonable positions to me.

I am very sorry if my voicing these beliefs makes you uncomfortable.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#398

Post by theptip »

LPisGood wrote: post #56

My coworkers continue to dump hundreds of lines of AI documentation in every PR and every other line of code has between one and ten lines of AI generated comments, talking about the real unlock and how things are byte for byte identical on the load bearing path or how the acceptance ladder is misleading. Features are coming out and metrics are improving, but we’re basically in a post readability code base, with the…

I have my agent write up a summary of the diffs that land each day in my org. If there is something you interesting I’ll ask for an html explainer with code pointers and scan the code in parallel.

I wouldn’t say “post reading code” but it’s definitely trending in that direction.

I’d rather the agents put jumbo verbose descriptions in the PR description than in code comments TBH.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#399

Post by mannanj »

wpietri wrote: post #379
stronglikedan wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter. You'll come off as the baddie. It's the foreseeable future. Best just to learn how to interpret AI generated shit, or learn how to run it through AI and have it translate it to a more concise format without all the buzzwords. It'll take getting used to, but it'll save your career.

You don't have to come across as the baddie. There are plenty of neutral ways to start the conversation. E.g., "I notice that there's a lot more generated comments lately. How much are people finding those useful?" If you really want to save your career, learning how to have real conversations is a vital skill.

Have you worked in corporate recently or at a particularly toxic one?

Asking because when I was at capital one, certain comments or questions about topics like this, would actually get you noticed negatively by your manager and being disruptive to what leadership wants hurts your career.

In fact being the one to ask and point out questions like yours ultimately got me PIP'ed and removed from the company. So, like, yeah, being vulnerable and the first one to tell the truth is risky. That's why the bystander effect can happen and in politics or risky situations silence is a common response, and why we don't have more courageous people doing the right thing - because the risk is higher on the person speaking up and the rewards aren't disproportionately in their favor (but are evenly distributed though, so its not favorable for you as I learned from a game theory perspective to voice up / defend certain stances).

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#400

Post by Calazon »

ModernMech wrote: post #86
gortok wrote: post #36

The part that astonishes me is that in the year of our common era two thousand twenty-six that it's not universally offensive and reviling to post an AI-generated response to another person. If I'm reading something on the internet, I'm either reading it to learn, or I'm reading it to be persuaded. If I wanted the LLM to teach me (thank you, no), I would ask an LLM. I'm reading your website/newsletter/email because I…

I went to a farm opening this weekend. A guy was there with fliers with about the barn renovation he completed, products they used, how the process went. 100% LLM output. How would you talk to your LLM about something like that? If he gave you that flier, would you scoff and trash it talking about how you can't be bothered to read it if he didn't write it? Or would you look it over?

Is there something in particular I'm trying to glean from that information? If so I might look it over, or snap a photo and ask my own LLM about it.

If not, I would politely keep my mouth shut, then pocket the flier to trash later, and on the way home I would complain about it to my wife.

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