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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

#511

Post by epolanski »

chrz wrote: post #26

> How do I feel, about all the code I wrote that was ingested by LLMs? I feel great to be part of that, because I see this as a continuation of what I tried to do all my life: democratizing code, systems, knowledge. LLMs are going to help us to write better software, faster, and will allow small teams to have a chance to compete with bigger companies. You might feel great, thats fine, but I dont. And software quality…

> I wouldn't agree that LLMs will help write better software

Your statement makes no sense.

Even if you don't let LLMs author a single line of your code, they can still review it, find edge cases you didn't think about or suggest different approaches.

The fact that AI allows lots of slop, does not negate its overall utility in good informed hands.

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

#512

Post by paulcole »

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…

Who’s saying you can’t enjoy the typing of letters, numbers, and symbols into a computer? The issue is that this is getting to be a less economically valuable activity.

You wouldn’t say, “It’s not that they hate electricity it’s just that they love harpooning whales and dying in the icy North Atlantic.”

You can love it all you want but people won’t pay you to do it like they used to in the good old days.

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

#513

Post by trinsic2 »

If it wasn't for companies gate keeping, buying up all the compute, putting an huge load on our infrastructure, people and government using it to surveil its people I would be more supportive of it. But right now, you got to be insane to be supporting this technology. Its literally being used to do more harm than good. I don't see any end to this. I cannot and will not support a surveillance state in the name of progress.

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

#514

Post by epolanski »

ironman1478 wrote: post #348

I'm not sure what to make of these technologies. I read about people doing all these things with them and it sounds impressive. Then when I use it, it feels like the tool produces junior level code unless I babysit it, then it really can produce what I want. If I have to do all this babysitting, is it really saving me anything other than typing the code? It hasn't felt like it yet and if anything it's scary because I…

Because using AI takes some practice:

- you should document your best practices in a file and point it to the LLM (the standards are @claude or @agent markdown files

- you should manage context (the larger it gets the weaker the output)

- you should use good and clear prompts

- you should generally make it generate a plan with the requirements (business logic changes focused) and then follow and review the implementation plan (I generally produce both in two different markdown files).

- only then you let it code

The last phase, isn't even the most important to be honest, you can do it manually. But I have found that forcing myself through the first two and having AI find information in the codebase, edge cases in the business logic, propose different solutions, evaluate the impact of the changes is a huge productivity multiplier.

Very often I'm not worn out by the coding part, again, I can do it on my own, it's the finding information and connecting the dots the hard one. In that, it excels and I would struggle (mentally) to go back to jumping from file to file while keeping track of my findings in notes to figure out the wheres, whats and whys.

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

#516

Post by CrimsonRain »

Diti wrote: post #462
jstummbillig wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no hard part. The anti-AI position has simply become trite. The idea is that agentic coding does not work. Today, it does work.

It only works for languages and frameworks that are already in the training data (duh). It still is mostly useless when you need to create something from scratch in an unstable language. That, and you can’t also get the amazing results if you’re poor or have bad internet.

That's true for most people too. You are trying too hard.

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

#517

Post by sesm »

epolanski wrote: post #511
chrz wrote: post #26

> How do I feel, about all the code I wrote that was ingested by LLMs? I feel great to be part of that, because I see this as a continuation of what I tried to do all my life: democratizing code, systems, knowledge. LLMs are going to help us to write better software, faster, and will allow small teams to have a chance to compete with bigger companies. You might feel great, thats fine, but I dont. And software quality…

> I wouldn't agree that LLMs will help write better software Your statement makes no sense. Even if you don't let LLMs author a single line of your code, they can still review it, find edge cases you didn't think about or suggest different approaches. The fact that AI allows lots of slop, does not negate its overall utility in good informed hands.

The balance between 'find edge cases' and 'hallucinate non-existing cases and waste your time' may be negative. LLMs are also not free, they cost significant money even today, when they are subsidized by marketing budget.

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

#518

Post by theturtletalks »

antirez wrote: post #333
theturtletalks wrote: post #137

LLMs are breaking open-source monetization. Group 1 is untouched since they were writing code for the sake of writing and they have the reward of that altruism. Group 2 are those that needed their projects to bring in some revenue so they can continue writing open-source. Group 3 are companies that used open-source as a way to get market share from proprietary companies, using it more in a capitalistic way. Overtime,…

Please note that the majority of OSS efforts where already non monetized and deeply exploited. At least, what it is happening has the potential to change the model towards a more correct one. What you see with Tailwind and similar cases, it is not really an open source business model issue, it is a "low barrier to entry" business model issue, since with AI a lot of things can be done without efforts and without purch…

Very true, most of open-source is group 1 and are deeply exploited already. What open-source monetization model do you see as a correct one?

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

#519

Post by epolanski »

sesm wrote: post #517
epolanski wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't agree that LLMs will help write better software Your statement makes no sense. Even if you don't let LLMs author a single line of your code, they can still review it, find edge cases you didn't think about or suggest different approaches. The fact that AI allows lots of slop, does not negate its overall utility in good informed hands.

The balance between 'find edge cases' and 'hallucinate non-existing cases and waste your time' may be negative. LLMs are also not free, they cost significant money even today, when they are subsidized by marketing budget.

Even an hallucinated non-existing case (which isn't the norm in my experience) is still food for thought.

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

#520

Post by simonw »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #515

AI is going to put a hold on the development of new programming languages for sure, since they won't be in the training set. Great news if you know the current generation of languages, you won't need to learn a new one for quite some time.

I think it may play out in the opposite direction.

If you're developing a new programming language today, one of the assets you need to prepare is a short (~10,000 token or less) LLM-friendly guide to your language, plus a bunch of examples that coding agents can search through and crib from.

Done well, I expect this could accelerate the adoption of your new language - as users can start prompting their coding agents to build with it before they've even finished reading the tutorial themselves.

Your disadvantage will be that LLMs won't recommend your language when people ask "what could I build this in", but people discovered new languages via word-of-month before LLMs came along and I expect that to continue, especially if your language has something genuinely new and interesting to offer.

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