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AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

simonwillison.net

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Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#41

Post by co_king_3 »

fhd2 wrote: post #6
bilekas wrote: post #3

> I've had conversations with people recently who are losing sleep because they're finding building yet another feature with "just one more prompt" irresistible. This is actually a really good point that I have kind of noticed when using AI for side project, so being on my own time. The allure of thinking "Oh I wonder how it will perform with this feature request if I give it this amount of info". Can't say I would p…

What kills me personally is that I'm constantly 80% there, but the remaining 20% can be just insurmountable. It's really like gambling: Just one more round and it'll be useful, OK, not quite, just one more, for hours.

If you think it's getting 80% right on its own, you're a victim of Anthropic and OpenAI's propaganda.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#42

Post by trash_cat »

My two cents that this is part of the learning curve. With collective experience this type of work will be more understood, shared and explored. It is intense in the beginning because we are still discovering how to work with it. I think the other part being that this is a non-deterministic tool which does increase some cognitive load.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#43

Post by pousada »

falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

> percentage of good, well planned, consistent and coherent software is going to approach zero

So everything stays exactly the same?

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#45

Post by zsoltkacsandi »

falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

Completely agree. There is a common misunderstanding/misconception in product development, that more features = better product.

I’ve never seen a product/project manager questioning themselves: does this feature add any value? Should we remove it?

In agile methodologies we measure the output of the developers. But we don’t care about that the output carries any meaningful value to the end user/business.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#46

Post by rtrav »

altmanaltman wrote: post #30
localhoster wrote: post #19

TBH, I have found AI addictive, you use it for the first time, and its incredible. You get a nice kick of dopamine. This kick of dopamine, is decreasing with every win you get. What once felt incredible, is just another prompt today. Those things don't excite you any more. Plus, the fact that you no longer exercise your brain at work any more. Plus, the constant feeling of FOMO. It deflates you, faster.

If what once felt incredible is just another prompt today, what is incredible today? Addictive personalities usually double down to get a bigger dopamine kick - that's why they stay addicted. So I don't think you truly found it addictive in the conventional sense of the term. Also excercising the brain has been optional in software for quite a while tbh.

Apart from the addicts, AI also helps the liars, marketeers and bloggers. You can outsource the lies to the AI.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#47

Post by yieldcrv »

wiseowise wrote: post #33
yieldcrv wrote: post #21

this matches my experience it's good that people so quickly see it as impulsive and addicting, as opposed to the slow creep of doomscrolling and algorithm feeds

Hopefully it will be like an Ebola virus, so that everyone will see how deadly it is instead of like smoking where you die of cancer 40 years down the line.

I think I'll have a happier medium when I get additional inputs set up, such as just talking to a CLI running my full code base on a VPS, but through my phone and airpods, only when it needs help

at least I won't be vegetating at a laptop, or shirking other possible responsibilities to get back to a laptop

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#48

Post by mentalgear »

I'm also coming to the conclusion that LLMs have basically the same value as when I tried them out with GPT-3 : good for semantic search / debugging. Bad for generation as you constantly have to check it, correct it, and the parts you trust it to get "right" are often those that are biting you afterwards - or if right introduce gaps in your own knowledge that make you slowly inefficient in your "generation controller" role.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#49

Post by co_king_3 »

mrtksn wrote: post #8

Computer languages were the lathe for shaping the machines to make them do whatever we want, AI is a CNC. Another abstraction layer for making machines do whatever we want them to do.

AI is one of those early-2000s SUVs that gets 8 miles to the gallon and has a TV screen in the back of every seat.

It's about presenting externally as a "bad ass" while:

A) Constantly drowning out every moment of your life with low quality background noise.

B) Aggressively polluting the environment and depleting our natural resources for no reason beyond pure arrogance.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#50

Post by Chance-Device »

pousada wrote: post #43
falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

> percentage of good, well planned, consistent and coherent software is going to approach zero So everything stays exactly the same?

Underrated comment. The reason that everyone complains about code all the time is because most code is bad, and it’s written by humans. I think this can only be a step up. Nailing validation is the trick now.
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