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Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

antirez.com

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Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#441

Post by _ea1k »

systemf_omega wrote: post #8

What I don't understand about this whole "get on board the AI train or get left behind" narrative, what advantage does an early adopter have for AI tools? The way I see it, I can just start using AI once they get good enough for my type of work. Until then I'm continuing to learn instead of letting my brain atrophy.

I thought this way for a while. I still do to a certain degree, but I'm starting to see the wisdom in hurrying off into the change.

The most advanced tooling today looks nothing like the tooling for writing software 3 years ago. We've got multi-agent orchestration with built in task and issue tracking, context management, and subagents now. There's a steep learning curve!

I'm not saying that everyone has to do it, as the tools are so nascent, but I think it is worthwhile to at least start understanding what the state of the art will look like in 12-24 months.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#442

Post by jakeydus »

dist-epoch wrote: post #83
cmiles8 wrote: post #6

The “anti-AU hype” phrase oversimplifies what’s playing out at the moment. On the tech side, while things are a bit rough around the edges still the tech is very useful and isn’t going away. I honestly don’t see much disagreement there. The concern mostly comes from the business side… that for all the usefulness on the tech there is no clearly viable path that financially supports everything that’s going on. It’s a n…

People said the exact same thing about (numbers from memory, might be off): - when Google paid $1 bil for YouTube - when Facebook paid $1 bil for Instagram - when Facebook paid $1 bil for WhatsApp The same thing - these 3 companies make no money, and have no path to making money, and that the price paid was crazy and decoupled from any economics. Yet now, in hindsight, they look like brilliant business decisions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias?wprov=sfti1

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#443

Post by cratermoon »

jt2190 wrote: post #285
phicoh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I see is not so much in how you generate the code. It is about how to maintain the code. If you check in the AI generated code unchanged then do you start changing that code by hand later? Do you trust that in the future AI can fix bugs in your code. Or do you clean up the AI generated code first?

LLMs remove the familiarity of “I wrote this and deeply understand this”. In other words, everything is “legacy code” now ;-) For those who are less experienced with the constant surprises that legacy code bases can provide, LLMs are deeply unsettling.

I think it was Cory Doctorow who compared AI-generated code to asbestos. Back in its day, asbestos was in everything, because of how useful it seemed. Fast forward decades and now asbestos abatement is a hugely expensive and time-consuming requirement for any remodeling or teardown project. Lead paint has some of the same history.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#444

Post by jstummbillig »

csmpltn wrote: post #414
simonw wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty common position: "I don't worry about getting left behind - it will only take a few weeks to catch up again". I don't think that's true. I'm really good at getting great results out of coding agents and LLMs. I've also been using LLMs for code on an almost daily basis since ChatGPT's release on November 30th 2022. That's more than three years ago now. Meanwhile I see a constant flow of complaints fro…

So where’s all of this cutting edge amazing and flawless stuff you’ve built in a weekend that everybody else couldn’t because they were too dumb or slow or clueless?

I find it increasingly confusing that some people seem to believe, that other people not subjecting themselves to this continued interrogation, gives any credence to their position.

People seem to believe that there is a burden of proof. There is not. What do I care if you are on board?

I don't know what could change your mind, but of course the answer is "nothing" as long as you aer not open to it. Just look around. There is so much stuff, from so many credible people in all domains. If you can't find anything that is convincing or at least interesting to you, you are simply not looking.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#445

Post by silcoon »

I perfectly agree with antirez about the importance of AI and the benefit for coders. In the last month we saw a big jump and we all are in the middle of the biggest technological revolution since the internet. He summarised the benefits, but omitted the rest.

Why we don't have to be anti-AI? Why in his opinion is just "HYPE"? I didn't find any answer in his post. He doesn't analyse the cons of AI and explain why some people might be anti-AI. He skipped the hard part and wrote a mild article that re-publish the narrative that is already getting spread on every social media.

Edit for clarification: I don't consider anti-AI the people that think LLMs don't work, they are wrong. I consider anti-AI people that are worried how this technology will impact society in so many ways that are hard to predict, including the future of software engineering.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#446

Post by jakeydus »

deadbabe wrote: post #298
roncesvalles wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. AI is minimally useful for coding something that you couldn't have been able to code yourself, given enough time, without explicitly investing time in generic learning not specific to that codebase or particular task. Although calling AI "just autocomplete" is almost a slur now, it really is just that in the sense that you need to A) have a decent mental picture of what you want, and, B) recognize a correct…

You could have another LLM tell you which is the correct output.

And when the whole world is covered in datacenters, how will we continue to scale?

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#448

Post by llmslave3 »

antirez wrote: post #126
vmaurin wrote: post #85

> facts are facts, and AI is going to change programming forever Show me these "facts"

If you can't see this by working with Claude Code for a few weeks, I don't want to go into bigger efforts than writing a blog post to convince you. It's not a mission, mine. I just want to communicate with the part of people that are open enough to challenge their ideas and are willing to touch with their hands what is happening. Also, if you tried and failed, it means that either for your domain AI is not good enoug…

Why do you care so much to write a blog post? Like if it's such a big advantage, why not stay quiet and exploit it? Why not make Anti-AI blog posts to gain even more of an advantage?

One of the big red flags I see around the pro-AI side is this constant desire to promote the technology. At least the anti-ai side is reactionary.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#449

Post by fsflover »

nephihaha wrote: post #427
fsflover wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shallow dismissals are against HN Guidelines, https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The term "shallow" is entirely subjective here. I have edited the comment accordingly because of your reaction.

Thanks for expanding the comment. For downvoters, the original comment was "Universal Basic Income is not the panacea it's claimed to be."

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#450

Post by jacquesm »

embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

> For me, I initially got into programming because I wanted to ruin other people's websites, then I figured out I needed to know how to build websites first, then I found it more fun to create and share what I've done with others, and they tell me what they think of it.

Talk about a good thing coming from bad intentions! Congratulations on shaking that demon.

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