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

521–530 of 570 posts

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#521

Post by Izkata »

tdeck wrote: post #490
technothrasher wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except that if a student wants to learn without using them My son, who is a freshman at a major university in NYC, when he said to his freshman English professor that he wanted to write his papers without using AI, was told that this was "too advanced for a freshman English class" and that using AI was a requirement.

I don't understand what they think it is they're teaching? Will we teach kids to "read" by taking a photo of their bedtime story and hitting a button next?

I'm afraid you're decades late for something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language

One of the teaching methods is "look at the context, like pictures, and guess what the word is". One example I remember was thinking "pony" is "horse" due to association without being able to sound it out.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#522

Post by ej88 »

RivieraKid wrote: post #485
ej88 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there doesnt seem to be a limit in terms of the ceiling of what companies can do with software, probably the most elastic demand out of any industry ever the swe role is going to change but problem solving systems thinkers with initiative won't go away

That's a possible outcome. Another possibility is that AI will handle all of the thinking and problem solving part. So the market value of thinking will drop. The bottleneck will still be humans, but their input will be (1) doing physical, real-world stuff (2) providing data that the AI doesn't have, e.g. information about a specific problem domain or how does a user interface feel.

assuming no asi, the market value of thinking without accountability trends to zero, the bottleneck will be thinking + accountability, at least for knowledge work

if ai truly solves novel thinking then nothing is a barrier. the physical world is downstream from robotics which is downstream from software. itll be able to persuade nation states to collect data for itself etc etc (insert sci fi ending)

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#523

Post by timacles »

leptons wrote: post #360
amelius wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really not true. There are stories of people who had no background in software engineering who now write entire applications using AI. And I have personally seen this happen.

I've seen people generate a lot of vibeslop with AI, but they didn't actually "Write entire applications using AI". They still have absolutely no clue how it works, so how could they "write entire applications"? They vibed it, but they certainly didn't write any of it, not one bit of it, and they're clueless as to how to extend it, upgrade it, and maintain it so that the AI doesn't make it a bloated monstrosity of AI…

Yeah no way are people developing actual applications. They’re developing one off apps, tools and websites. The amount of robustness a usable application with actual purpose requires is exactly where LLMs fall apart.

I’m not a naysayer by any means and at this point use Llms all day for many purpose. But it is undeniable that the exact moment complexity reaches a certain threshold, LLMs need more and more guidance and specific implementation details to make worthwhile improvements. This same complexity threshold is where real world functionality lives.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#524

Post by nmeagent »

tim333 wrote: post #500
delbronski wrote: post #172

AI is starting to look like a net negative for humanity. I remember the early days of OpenAI. I was super excited about it. There was a new space to uncover and learn about. I was hopeful. Now I have this love/hate relationship with it. Claude Code is amazing. I use it everyday because it makes me so much more efficient at my job. But I also know that by using it I’m contributing to making my job redundant one day. A…

>Does anybody really buy the BS that this will all make the world a better place one day? Yeah - I think there's a lot of cool sci-fi like stuff in the future.

And probably a lot of uncool sci-fi like stuff, e.g. The Machine Stops.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#525

Post by _doctor_love »

keybored wrote: post #481
Rapzid wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keybored is a trending vibe, yeah.

Is anyone else bored of talking about posting with that keybored vibe? Hey, don’t get me wrong!—I’m not some heretic. I love the keybored posting vibe. Lots of sarcasm, complaining about American geopolitical decisions, recommending socialism on some venture capitalist/ hacker forum, absolutely no hint of any Show HN bragging rights or any technical accomplishments whatsover, just lots of complaining in general (but…

u mad bro?

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#526

Post by [deleted] »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #515
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

[deleted]

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#527

Post by _doctor_love »

strangattractor wrote: post #367
_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…

Agreed - another tool in the old tool pouch. I find it fascinating in that it provides insight into the role of language in intelligence. Certainly not AGI but makes ELIZA seem neolithic;) I am amazed at the incredible things it can do - only to turnaround and not be able to do a simple task a child can do. Just like people.

Your handle caught my attention - yes - and for folks studying non-linear and dynamical systems, fascinating how much of prompting is sensitive dependence to initial conditions.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#528

Post by _doctor_love »

RyanOD wrote: post #414
mindcrime wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here I was expecting this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Rl8TpGIP4

And here I was expecting this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0iuMByFjCQ&list=PLEouLkiLHd...

You're all wrong, it's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln2SDExGDCM

;)

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#529

Post by nmeagent »

olivia-banks wrote: post #70
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.

I actually hear about this fairly often. In quite a few of my college classes, there's a large focus on AI (even outside the computer science department). I find it surprising the amount of non-technical people who don't even think to use it, or otherwise haven't interacted with it except when required.

I find it surprising how many non-technical friends and family constantly anthropomorphize LLMs, regularly bringing up instances where they "asked AI" about this or that and it "told them" whatever. I'm tired of trying to explain that they are merely statistical sequence generators, don't have a mind, are occasionally completely out to lunch, and ultimately cannot be trusted. This is usually a losing battle. The sheer bullshit that "AI tells them" is often astonishing or ridiculous, but a lot of the time it's given undue weight and trusted anyway. The future is bleak.

Re: Is anybody else bored of talking about AI?

#530

Post by [deleted] »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #515
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN