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No Skill. No Taste

blog.kinglycrow.com

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Re: No Skill. No Taste

#41

Post by cjonas »

embedding-shape wrote: post #27
cjonas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's easier to clone someone else's "good taste" by just mimic'ing their formula / ripping of their exact implementation of a feature/ui. The gap between "first to get it right" and "everyone else catches up" could become non-existent in software. You'd need to continuously innovate (I think to some degree, this has always been the case, but it's the tempo that has changing). > Why is it easy to copy? I think…

> Because it's easier to clone someone else's "good taste" by just mimic'ing their formula / ripping of their exact implementation of a feature/ui. But then you've only copied one of their choices made by their good taste, not actually copied their taste. If a new situation arises, you won't be able to make the same choice as they would. Basically, it doesn't generalize.

I get that, but you can just "pin" to someone else's taste and they can effectively never get ahead for more than a few minutes.

I think (and hope) this won't be as big a problem in the arts because "authenticity" matters to most people, but I for the software industry it feels very disruptive (assuming the models continue to improve and are accessible).

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#42

Post by raddan »

ryandrake wrote: post #23
BoredPositron wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taste is not something you can define as factotum it changes over time, over location and culture.

It's kind of useless if it can't be defined. Let's say I'm a software developer, and my product is criticized for "lacking taste." What can I possibly do to correct this, if we can't even agree on a definition? Let alone agree on what actions can be taken to "add taste" to the product.

While in general engineers should define things, so that we can be clear about what we mean, there are plenty of things that are difficult to define that way. Love, happiness, satisfaction, for instance. You might argue "well those are emotions so they don't count" but you don't need to go far to find some more. What is the "perception of red"? What is the sensation of temperature (thermoception) or my sensation of my body in space (priprioception)? The sensations of these things are difficult to define--even if we have good explanations for how the physical world induces them--but they are experienced nearly universally by humans and we most people don't feel the need to define them to find them to be useful ideas.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#43

Post by bluefirebrand »

ossa-ma wrote: post #11

Yes, a positive from this is those with authenticity and taste will shine. Self-expression will be a form of resistance and we'll see a lot less homogenisation across things like writing, ui/ux, animation, individual websites, blogs. Who knows maybe the old, scattered, personable, decentralised internet will come back - things like MySpace, geocities, sites like this (a lost art): https://www.cameronsworld.net/ Also…

Why would anyone bother creating or publishing anything new on the internet now that we know that AI companies are just waiting to hoover it up, without compensation, to enrich their models?

Seeing how predatory these companies are in their scraping and then continuing to publish where they can scrape is the absolute height of stupidity

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#44

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #23
BoredPositron wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taste is not something you can define as factotum it changes over time, over location and culture.

It's kind of useless if it can't be defined. Let's say I'm a software developer, and my product is criticized for "lacking taste." What can I possibly do to correct this, if we can't even agree on a definition? Let alone agree on what actions can be taken to "add taste" to the product.

[deleted]

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#45

Post by mlapeter »

oytis wrote: post #20
mlapeter wrote: post #12

Not sure if you'd consider this a counterpoint or just proving your point, but in the sea of AI slop there's also a real chance for people to create things that they couldn't before - my 7 year old is now able to nerd out and create games using claude even though he's just barely learned to read: https://www.kidhubb.com/play/meteor-dodge-solarscout64 It's not the prettiest but he's able to iterate on it and basically…

But... why? How is prompting an LLM "nerding out"? Before it was "it's not the prettiest, but the kid did it himself", which is cool and educational and just cute. Now it's "it's not the prettiest, and also the kid didn't really do it". Why? Just what for?

Why did people used to make geocities pages back in the day? Kids like to express themselves and being able to make simple games and share them with friends is fun for them. So far it's helping him learn to read (he reads and edits his voice transcriptions before submitting), and teaching him basics like bugs, game mechanics, etc. He iterates on it and adds/ removes things. He probably did several dozen iterations over 2-3 hours.

Posting it publicly is also helping him learn about people - we talked about how no matter what some percent of people won't like it and may even say it's stupid, but that will always happen and it's still worth creating things anyway.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#46

Post by benrbray »

raincole wrote: post #13
roywiggins wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Darren Aronofsky https://www.decodingeverything.com/darren-aronofsky-ai-slop-... (Also, this website when Show HNs with slop READMEs get to the front page and nobody seems to notice that it's written in grating Claudese.)

> READMEs get to the front page and nobody seems to notice that it's written in grating Claudese Or you know, it's just not that important whether the README is written by Claude or not. Generally speaking people don't use a service/library for the author's ability to write excellent proses.

Presentation matters. Good documentation is evidence of a library that has been carefully thought through. Slop in the readme suggests slop in the code.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#47

Post by lubesGordi »

I don't know man. I'm writing a flashcard app, and I like it. It makes me happy and it works the way I want. Exactly how I want. BC I could never get into quizlet. Whatever. Maybe others will like it, maybe not, I don't care.

Taste is subjective. Having 1 million todo apps, great. Maybe someone I know will find one they like and tell me about it. Maybe I'll find one that doesn't suck. Maybe I'll just make my own.

One thing I won't do though, is complain about how there's now 1 million todo apps that aren't up to my standards. Everyone being able to make their own apps however they want is a beautiful thing.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#48

Post by cgriswald »

ossa-ma wrote: post #11

Yes, a positive from this is those with authenticity and taste will shine. Self-expression will be a form of resistance and we'll see a lot less homogenisation across things like writing, ui/ux, animation, individual websites, blogs. Who knows maybe the old, scattered, personable, decentralised internet will come back - things like MySpace, geocities, sites like this (a lost art): https://www.cameronsworld.net/ Also…

I use LLMs in my fiction writing; and before the wolves come out to shred me to pieces: The LLM never gets to see my writing and doesn't do any of the writing for me. I use LLMs in other ways.

One of the first uses I discovered was to have it identify my own blandness. I'll give it a general scenario from my writing and ask it for ten resolutions to that scenario. If my own resolution appears, I realize at best my resolution is bland and at worst cliche.

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#49

Post by cjonas »

embedding-shape wrote: post #40
cjonas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, I don't feel this is actually the case in world of music and art, at least as an individual consumer. I would argue the industry & economy rewards it though. In software it feels different though. If you build an awesome app and want to charge for it, what stops me from just pointing "Claude Epic 2.5" at it and making a pixel perfect replica?

> If you build an awesome app and want to charge for it, what stops me from just pointing "Claude Epic 2.5" at it and making a pixel perfect replica? It's the same argument people used to use against open sourcing your code for a SaaS: "If I can just clone the repository and run the service myself, why is there a hosted product?" There is so much more going on though, from how you run something, to how you can react…

I would say almost all of these companies do have part of their stack as private IP, but regardless that's a good point...

Hope your right! I imagine the truth will fall somewhere in between our difference in opinion

Re: No Skill. No Taste

#50

Post by ianbutler »

mlapeter wrote: post #12

Not sure if you'd consider this a counterpoint or just proving your point, but in the sea of AI slop there's also a real chance for people to create things that they couldn't before - my 7 year old is now able to nerd out and create games using claude even though he's just barely learned to read: https://www.kidhubb.com/play/meteor-dodge-solarscout64 It's not the prettiest but he's able to iterate on it and basically…

When I wrote this blog post, something like this was in my mind as the type of scenario where I view it as a net positive. I don't have a problem with people building things they want for themselves, the problem starts when people try to share something to the rest of us without having understood why anyone would want to see it first.

I am extremely excited that your kid is able to do this, and even you sharing it now here isn't like "my child's game is the best game ever look at me" it's thoughtful commentary on the post I've written.

Even if you had shared a separate post on HN proper like "LLMs are enabling my child to build earlier and become involved in tech" or something that would have had thought behind it on why its interesting to other people, in considering other people you're acting in good faith.

My overall point isn't that LLMs generating apps are bad it's that we should consider why what I'm showing to someone else would matter to them in the first place, which you did here :)

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