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AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

chrbutler.com

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Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#441

Post by 01100011 »

lomase wrote: post #201
01100011 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time to jump on the train. I'm a cranky, old, embedded SWE and claude 4.5 is changing how I work. Before that I laughed off LLMs. They were trash. Claude still has issues, but damn, I think if I don't integrate it into my workflow I'll be out of work or relegated to work in QA or devops(where I'd likely be forced to use it). No, it's not going to write all your code for you. Yes your skills are still needed to d…

I am an old SWE and claude 4.5 has not changed a thing on how we work. The teams that have embraced AI in their worlflow have not increased their output compared with they ones that don't use it.

Two things I solidly recommend it for are helper scripts and test code. Writing boilerplate tests is so much easier with it. I recently vibe coded an entire text-ui frontend to perforce, similar to tig for git, and it took about 2 hours. Yeah, I'm not ready to use it for our driver code yet but I would use it to check my work.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#442

Post by oblio »

01100011 wrote: post #441
lomase wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an old SWE and claude 4.5 has not changed a thing on how we work. The teams that have embraced AI in their worlflow have not increased their output compared with they ones that don't use it.

Two things I solidly recommend it for are helper scripts and test code. Writing boilerplate tests is so much easier with it. I recently vibe coded an entire text-ui frontend to perforce, similar to tig for git, and it took about 2 hours. Yeah, I'm not ready to use it for our driver code yet but I would use it to check my work.

What you're doing there with Perforce sounds like procrastination to me.

https://xkcd.com/1205/

Good for you, though.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#443

Post by oblio »

Aeolun wrote: post #184
SoftTalker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a SWE, DBA, SysAdmin, I work up and down the stack as needed. I'm not using LLMs at all. I really haven't tried them. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clear "best practices" to emerge. I am sure that these tools are here to stay but I am also confident they are not in their final form today. I've seen too many hype trains in my career to still be jumping on them at the first stop.

You don’t have to jump on the hype train to get anything out of it. I started using claude code about 4 months back and I find it really hard to imagine developing without now. Sure I’m more of a manager, but the tedious busywork, the most annoying part of programming, is entirely gone. I love it.

> tedious busywork

Can you give some examples, please?

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#445

Post by int_19h »

everdrive wrote: post #270
portanus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t argue that microwaves will be ubiquitous (which they aren’t, but close enough). We argue that microwaves are not an artificial general barbecue, as the makers might wish were true. And we argue that microwaves will indeed never replace your grill as the makers, again, would love you to believe.

Microwaves are pretty terrible, and proof that wide consumer adoption does not really indicate quality or suggest that consumers adopt technology which _should_ exist.

I grew up in a country where microwaves were not a thing. When they suddenly got introduced, it felt like a miracle even just for the ability to quickly heat things up.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#446

Post by int_19h »

tim333 wrote: post #311
d4rkn0d3z wrote: post #289

The list of technologies that have not become a front for consolidation of resources and power appears below:

The printing press and communications technology. Prior to that everything was run by the king who was chosen by God himself.

> Prior to that everything was run by the king who was chosen by God himself.

That was only true for a subset of polities. Not all had kings, and some had elected kings etc.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#447

Post by int_19h »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #268
lm28469 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel people were much more sensible about AI back when their thoughts about it weren't mixed with their antipathy for big tech. Why big tech ? Big corps in general have been fucking us over since the industrial revolution, why do you think it will change now lol ? If half of their promises had materialized we'd be working 3 days a week and retire at 40 already

>Big corps in general have been fucking us over since the industrial revolution And yet your computer, all the food you eat, the medicine that keeps you alive if you get sick, etc is all due to the organizational industrial and productive capacity of large corporations. The existence of large corporations is just a consequence of demand for goods and services and the advantages of scale, and they exist because of the…

The existence of large corporations is a consequence of the ability to accumulate capital without limit and have the state defend that hoard with violence on your behalf.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#448

Post by [deleted] »

franktankbank wrote: post #350
adrian_b wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I have said, meat prepared in this way is the tastiest that I have ever eaten, except if you are one of those who like real meat less than the burned crust of meat. Even for the burned-crust lovers, many microwave ovens have lamps for this purpose, but I cannot say whether the lamps are good at making tasty burned crusts, because I have never used them, since I like more to eat meat than to eat burned crusts. Th…

This convo is hilarious, you rock. I'm not surprised someone was open minded enough to master the art of cooking with a microwave. Also there are different type of fast cooking apparatus that are usually reserved for restaurants but I could imagine they might be up your alley. (I can't right now recall the name of such a device but its similar in function to microwave maybe it is a microwave at its heart?)

[deleted]

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#449

Post by lomase »

stavros wrote: post #232
lomase wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started a project, they fired the previous team, I am possitive they used AI. The app is full of bugs and the client will never hire the old company again. Whoever says is time to move to LLMS is clueless.

"Because one team doesn't know how to use LLMs, I conclude that LLMs are useless."

Can you show any product created by a those imaginary teams using LLMS?

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#450

Post by lomase »

dangus wrote: post #322
wiz21c wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm like you. I'd say my productivity improved by 5-10%: Claude can make surprinsgly good code edits. For these, my subjective feeling is that claude does in 30 min what I'd have dont in one hour. It's a net gain. Now, my job is about communicating, understanding problems, learning, etc. So my overall productivity is not dramatically changing, but for things related to code, it's a net 5-10%

Which is where the AI investment disconnect is scary. AI Companies have invested a crazy amount of money into a small productivity gain for their customers. If AI was replacing developers it wouldn’t cost me $20-100/month to get a subscription.

If I had something that could replace developers I will not sell it.

I will get all the goverment IT contracts and make billions in a few months.

Nobody does it because LLMS are a fucking scam, like crypto, and I am tired of pretending is not.

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