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The Leverage Paradox in AI

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Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#41

Post by furyofantares »

pluto_modadic wrote: post #35

Ghibli images are not "cows", they're /an artists style/, and a particular shop that has expressly asked that you *not copy their work*, because it cheapens what humans do.

Maybe you already don't find cows beautiful and so didn't appreciate the metaphor. Here's another take: Driving the road to Hana on Maui, I think you drive by like 50 waterfalls. We were in awe for the first dozen, but by the 50th, it was just another waterfall. Or seeing nonstop bald eagles in Alaska, by the time you leave, they're like pigeons.

The point being made exactly that something beautiful has being cheapened.

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#42

Post by interstice »

becomevocal wrote: post #25

> Generative AI gives us incredible first drafts to work with, but few people want to put in the additional effort it requires to make work that people love and > So make your stuff stand out. It doesn't have to be "better." It just has to be different. equals... craft? Isn't that what has always mattered a great deal

I wouldn't say everything that gets hugely popular has a ton of craft behind it, to me craft is about skill, but a badly drawn webcomic (random example) can still be very popular if it has something other point of difference.

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#43

Post by jplusequalt »

sdesol wrote: post #13
cortesoft wrote: post #10

Do people really try to one-shot their AI tasks? I have just started using AI to code, and I found the process very similar to regular coding… you give a detailed task, then you iterate by finding specific issues and giving the AI detailed instructions on how to fix the issues. It works great, but I can’t imagine skipping the refinement process.

> Do people really try to one-shot their AI tasks? Yes. I almost always end with "Do not generate any code unless it can help in our discussions as this is the design stage" I would say, 95% of my code for https://github.com/gitsense/chat in the last 6 months were AI generated, and I would say 80% were one shots. It is important to note that I can easily get into the 30+ messages of back and forth before any code is…

Do you feel as if your ability to code is atrophying?

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#44

Post by BrenBarn »

> New technologies give us greater leverage to do more tasks better. But because this leverage is usually introduced into competitive environments, the result is that we end up having to work just as hard as before (if not harder) to remain competitive and keep up with the joneses.

More flour more water. More water more flour.

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#45

Post by sdesol »

jplusequalt wrote: post #43
sdesol wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people really try to one-shot their AI tasks? Yes. I almost always end with "Do not generate any code unless it can help in our discussions as this is the design stage" I would say, 95% of my code for https://github.com/gitsense/chat in the last 6 months were AI generated, and I would say 80% were one shots. It is important to note that I can easily get into the 30+ messages of back and forth before any code is…

Do you feel as if your ability to code is atrophying?

Not even remotely since the 5% that I need to write is usually quite complex. I do think my writing proficiency will decrease though. However my debugging and problem solving skills should increase.

Having said all of that, I do believe AI will have a very negative affect on developers where the challenge is skill and not time. AI is implementing things that I can do if given enough time. I am literraly implementing things in months that would have taken me a year or more.

My AI search is nontrivial but it only took two months to write. I should also note the 5% that I needed to implement was the difference between throw away code and a usuable search engine.

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#46

Post by conartist6 »

esafak wrote: post #31
conartist6 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that can be. There is no exponential return on "investing" in using AI real good. Investing in your understanding and skill, on the other hand, has nearly limitless returns.

I did not speak of "exponential" returns, but it is now feasible for one person to compete with a team, or a small team with a big one, due to co-ordination costs and the difficulty of assembling the right people.

What?? That isn't a complete idea. It has always been possible for a small team to compete with a big one.

As someone on a very small team competing with a very big one I don't have time for anything that can't bring exponential returns. I have no time for LLMs.

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#47

Post by satisfice »

oceanplexian wrote: post #24
satisfice wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can say that something works. Lots of things look like they work even though they harbor severe and elusive bugs.

It's so bizarre to me seeing these comments as a professional software engineer. Like, you do realize that at least 80% of the code written in large companies like Microsoft, Amazon, etc was slop long before AI was ever invented right? The stuff you get to see in open source, papers, academia- that's a very small curated 1% of the actual glue code written by an overworked engineer at 1am that holds literally everythi…

Why is it bizarre? I’m a tester with 38 years in the business. I’ve seen pretty much every kind of project and technology.

I was testing at Microsoft on the week that Windows 2000 shipped, showing them that Photoshop can completely freeze Windows (which is bad, and something they needed to know about).

The creed of a tester begins with faith in existence of trouble. This does not mean we believe anything is perfectible— it means we think it is necessary to be vigilant.

AI commits errors in a way and to a degree that should alarm any reasonable engineer. But more to the point: it tends to alienate engineers from their work so that they are less able to behave responsibly. I think testing is more important than ever, because AI is a Gatling gun of risk.

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#48

Post by esafak »

conartist6 wrote: post #46
esafak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not speak of "exponential" returns, but it is now feasible for one person to compete with a team, or a small team with a big one, due to co-ordination costs and the difficulty of assembling the right people.

What?? That isn't a complete idea. It has always been possible for a small team to compete with a big one. As someone on a very small team competing with a very big one I don't have time for anything that can't bring exponential returns. I have no time for LLMs.

What even is an exponential return? You need to be more precise with your terms.

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#49

Post by conartist6 »

esafak wrote: post #48
conartist6 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?? That isn't a complete idea. It has always been possible for a small team to compete with a big one. As someone on a very small team competing with a very big one I don't have time for anything that can't bring exponential returns. I have no time for LLMs.

What even is an exponential return? You need to be more precise with your terms.

An investment in a person has superlinear returns: with time the human student becomes the teacher. Each person you teach might teach two more people, with the overall trend following exponential growth deriving from the value of the initial investment in a single person.

LLMs promise to speed you up right now in direct proportion to the amount you pay for tokens while sacrificing your own growth potential. You'd have to be a cynic to do it -- you'd have to believe that your own ideas aren't even worth investing in over the long term

Re: The Leverage Paradox in AI

#50

Post by 1718627440 »

patrickhogan1 wrote: post #22

People dislike the word slop because it sounds harsh. But what’s unique today becomes slop tomorrow, AI or not. Art has meaning. Old buildings feel special because they’re rare. If there were a thousand Golden Gate Bridges, the first wouldn’t stand out, as much. Online, reproduction is trivial. With AI, reproducing items in the physical world will get cheaper.

> Old buildings feel special because they’re rare.

No. When you have a city full of old houses all from the same era, maybe even by the same architect, the new building still looks ugly. The old house looks beautiful, even when you have hundreds copies next to it.

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