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I hate AI side projects

dylancastillo.co

51–60 of 129 posts

Re: I hate AI side projects

#51

The influx if these sorts of posts have largely pushed me out of all my previous "programmer" online spots. I have zero interest in seeing something that Claude emitted that the author could never in a million years have written it themselves. Its baffling to me these people think anyone cares about what their claude prompt output.

Do you choose your food/car/housing/etc based on virtue signalling rather than utility as well?

Re: I hate AI side projects

#52

Blog posts by authors claiming AI has transformed them into godlike engines of productivity: 103728369129 Interviews by celebrities predicting AI will revolutionize the economy: 2837191001747 Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before ChatGPT was introduced: 0

Notion AI is pretty great for both search and writing.

Re: I hate AI side projects

#53
The whole idea of side projects is learning something while building something unique, authentic, and cool. Since AI hype, most side projects -that get published- now are solely built to grab your money one way or another, whoever built it thinks that a 3hrs vibe coded slop will make him millionaire by the end of the year, so you end up with so much garbage.

It’s why I only focus on hardware actual “hacking” projects, more fun to read and follow, and I know it wasn’t vibecoded too.

Re: I hate AI side projects

#55

The influx if these sorts of posts have largely pushed me out of all my previous "programmer" online spots. I have zero interest in seeing something that Claude emitted that the author could never in a million years have written it themselves. Its baffling to me these people think anyone cares about what their claude prompt output.

Do you choose your food/car/housing/etc based on virtue signalling rather than utility as well?

Well i generally look for signals that a place I might eat at knows how to cook. If I walk in and I see rats on the floor and theres no kitchen I probably won't be interested.

I apply the same logic to software.

Re: I hate AI side projects

#57
post #38

Blog posts by authors claiming AI has transformed them into godlike engines of productivity: 103728369129 Interviews by celebrities predicting AI will revolutionize the economy: 2837191001747 Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before ChatGPT was introduced: 0

Google Search has gotten better unless you think AI mode is a downgrade, the alternative of having a wikipedia article, reddit post or random website as the first result is not better technically maybe morally for you but not matter of factually. The average user does less manual filtering.

AI overview though is crap. It almost always gives wrong answers and contradicts things that are in the results.

Re: I hate AI side projects

#58

Blog posts by authors claiming AI has transformed them into godlike engines of productivity: 103728369129 Interviews by celebrities predicting AI will revolutionize the economy: 2837191001747 Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before ChatGPT was introduced: 0

> Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before

I would not know if they have gotten better or worse cause I don’t use them anymore.

Re: I hate AI side projects

#59
post #50

Blog posts by authors claiming AI has transformed them into godlike engines of productivity: 103728369129 Interviews by celebrities predicting AI will revolutionize the economy: 2837191001747 Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before ChatGPT was introduced: 0

- learning: easier - searching: better - photo edit/enhance/filter: easier and acessible - text summarization: better - quick scripts/tools: faster - brainstorming/iterating ideas: faster - generating list of names: faster - rephrasing text: better - researching topics: faster - stackoverflow: i'm finally free. won't be missed by me - coding: debatable but for me LLMs made possible projects that weren't before due to…

Doing things "faster" and "easier" is an interesting way to put it. It places all of the value on one's personal experience of using the AI, and completely ignores the quality of the thing produced. Which explains why most stuff produced by LLMs is throwaway garbage! It only reinforces the parent comment - there is virtually no emphasis on making things "better".

Re: I hate AI side projects

#60
For me at least, the advent of coding AI has just forced me to finally accept a truth that I probably always knew: that I'm an average (at best) software developer, and that I don't have anything truly unique or impressive to contribute to the field. My side projects were always just for myself.

I love computing, and programming. If anything I'm better able to appreciate that now that I no longer care if my work has any impact.

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