Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

blog.jakesaunders.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 570 posts

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#511

Post by palata »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #266
palata wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI won't be what acidifies our ocean Tech is what got us where we are. AI allows us to use more energy to produce more of what is currently measurably killing us. > but AGI might save us from it. This is just faith. Some believe that prayers may save us.

"AI energy usage" is a convenient scapegoat not backed by data. Many things are orders of magnitude bigger than AI in the energy usage problem that bring less comparable value.

> "AI energy usage" is a convenient scapegoat not backed by data.

Except it's not what I said.

What I said is that with AI, we do more with more (energy). "Doing more" has repercussions that go further than just the energy used to vibe code.

The reason we are measurably living in a mass extinction (that is happening orders of magnitudes faster than the one that made the dinosaurs disappear) is also the reason the climate is measurably warming (to the point where it will probably kill many of us): we are really good at producing more by using more energy.

It's not one thing (like airplanes, or meat, or whatever you want): it's everywhere. It's the whole race for producing more and more. AI is exactly part of that.

Looking at the direct energy consumption of a technology (here AI) while conveniently ignoring all its indirect impacts and concluding that "I can't understand why people think that tech is part of the problem" shows a big lack of understanding of... well, what will probably kill your kids, most likely theirs.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#512

Post by palata »

remich wrote: post #381
solenoid0937 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AI energy usage" is a convenient scapegoat not backed by data. Many things are orders of magnitude bigger than AI in the energy usage problem that bring less comparable value.

I'm starting to get to the point where I'll only listen to AI energy use critiques if the commentator tells me up front they abstain from all forms of social media, especially video-based social media, first.

Lucky me: I don't use social media at all.

Note that I did not criticise the AI energy. I criticised tech as a whole. Tech is part of the problem (the problem here being "we are killing our only planet").

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#514

Post by kody »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #288
SyneRyder wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think there's a big divide, and those of us who are using AI intensively might just be increasingly "going dark" & distancing ourselves from those "real world" people. It's becoming detrimental being around people who are so actively negative about AI. It feels like being around people who still insist the sun orbits the earth. Those people are actually happier believing what they believe, so why spend an…

> It feels like being around people who still insist the sun orbits the earth. 100% feeling this divide as well. People that deny the benefit of AI in 2026... I can't even engage with them anymore. I just move on with my life. These people are simply not living in reality, it will catch up to them eventually (unfortunately.)

at which point they will learn to write markdown files too.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#515

Post by LogicFailsMe »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #228
_doctor_love wrote: post #153

This might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way. I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experienc…

Spot on, I am having the time of my life with AI, more fun than I've had in decades. But I was in the top 10% of engineering, and top 1% of the bits of engineering I do best, so it's easy for me to use AI to explore more ideas than I could have possibly explored by hand. And if I get replaced, cool bro, my investments are in compute, and compute's just getting started IMO.

Wow, replying to myself here, but also, wow, yes I'm pretty good at something pretty in demand right now. And that didn't happen by chance, and because I was a decade early on that skill, I got all the arrows in my back along with the headstart. We are all created equal, sure, but if I put 100,000+ hours into something that most barely get past 10,000, if I don't end up world class at it, then what was I even doing? I know, I know, hubris, right? Also, didn't have kids so I had the time.

But that said, this will be the 3rd major industry transition of my career. And having survived the past two, you will adapt, or you won't have a job. And that's why, once again, you will ultimately adapt, kicking and screaming if that's what it takes, so why not start early?

AI coding agents are useful already, but they make too many mistakes and they need handholding from expert engineering talent in 2026. Ask me again in 2027. But that's why the best results are coming from the talent right now with the experience to ask the right questions and propose the right tests and fixes as the human in the loop. Otherwise, it's still hallucinatory vibe coding in a loop IMO.

The surprise and disappointment, well not the surprise, is the usual hatred of success that defines humanity. Whatever, downvotes, right?

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#516

Post by kjkjadksj »

metalliqaz wrote: post #292
lukev wrote: post #46

This is bad in tech. But at least we are (relatively) well equipped to deal with it. My partner teaches at a small college. These people are absolutely lost , with administration totally sold on the idea that "AI is the future" while lacking any kind of coherent theory about how to apply it to pedagogy. Administrators are typically uncritically buying into the hype, professors are a mix of compliant and (understandab…

By my understanding, the administrators at small colleges are among the least capable professionals one might find anywhere in the economy.

This is true even at large colleges. Better cut faculty jobs to deal with budget shortfall. Never mind the football program can raise $200m with a dozen phone calls.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#517

Post by kjkjadksj »

xvector wrote: post #423
GeoAtreides wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you might want to brush up on the short and medium consequences of the industrial revolution and the dark satanic mills where children were maimed or where people worked for 12h a day in horrendous conditions. Do you think because 2 dev are now super productive with AI, the company will keep the other average 30 devs? no, of course not, they will fire and pocket the difference. Same for other industries, where AI wil…

> Do you think because 2 dev are now super productive with AI, the company will keep the other average 30 devs? no, of course not, they will fire and pocket the difference Yes, they will keep the other devs that can figure out how to use AI well. Businesses want to grow.

Businesses are competing for the same pie. They can’t all be growing. There aren’t enough clients. There isn’t enough money.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#518

Post by vablings »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #314
kerblang wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those were deterministic rather than stochastic

Exactly. People love to compare LLMs to power tools for carpenters and smiths. But if my miter saw had a 20% chance to produce cuts at a 45 degree angle when I have it set for 90, I would throw it out so fast I would leave Looney Tunes style tracks. A tool which only sometimes does its job is worse than no tool at all.

To be rather pedantic your miter saw probably doesn't cut exactly 90 degrees. Especially if you reset it. LLMS are low accuracy for sure but so are humans. I am not saying AI is going to replace us all in a whole entirety my broader point is that these tools will be another tool that changes the market share of jobs.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#519

Post by kjkjadksj »

nancyminusone wrote: post #38

Among non-programmers, you always hear about some fool that fell in love with an AI girlfriend or whatever, but you never hear about the people who open chatgpt up once, tried some things with it, said to themselves "huh, that's kind of neat" and then lost interest a day or two later, having conceived of no further items to which AI could provide assistance.

There is a reputation going on around I hear in real life conversation that it just doesn’t work, gives incorrect info, gets in the way. Multiple people saying they are forced to use it for work and wish they didn’t, or even worse, coworkers blindly follow it when it is wrong and then they need to be explained that they are misinformed and the llm is wrong. I think the google ai preview really poisoned the well; people cite that one specifically often.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#520

Post by hparadiz »

deadbabe wrote: post #513
hparadiz wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol what a silly assumption

Fuck, another C developer who will just let memory leaks grow uncontrollably is born.

You might wanna learn how to set up constraints for your agents. Every memory map is accounted for with docs pointing to the exact structs, allocations, and usage patterns. It's stuff I was already doing. Now I can do it in a fraction of the time.
Post reply on HN