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I don't care how well your "AI" works

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Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#561

Post by vladms »

Glemkloksdjf wrote: post #466
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. Somewhere along the lines of "everybody can code," we threw out the values and aesthetics that attracted people in the first place. What began as a rejection of externally imposed values devolved into a mouthpiece of the current powers and principalities. This is evidenced by the new set of hacker values being almost purely performative when compared against the old…

We need to change the underlying system. We do not need to do things no one needs. We do not need a million differen webshops, and the next CRUD application. We need a system which allows the earth resources being used as efficient and fair as possible. Then we can again start apprechiating real craftmanship but not for critical things and not because we need to feed ourselves but because we want to do it.

Each time someone says "we" without asking me I find it at least insulting. With this mindset the next step might be to tell me what I need, without considering my opinion.

Yes, the current system seems flawed, but is the best we came up with and is not fixed either, it is slowly evolving.

Yes, some resources are finite (energy from the sun seems quite plenty though), but don't think we will be ever able to define "fair". I would be glad with "do not destroy something completely and irremediably".

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#562

Post by trinsic2 »

ineedasername wrote: post #520
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. Somewhere along the lines of "everybody can code," we threw out the values and aesthetics that attracted people in the first place. What began as a rejection of externally imposed values devolved into a mouthpiece of the current powers and principalities. This is evidenced by the new set of hacker values being almost purely performative when compared against the old…

"There is a way out: we need to create a culture that values craftmanship and dignifies work done by developers. We need to talk seriously and plainly about the spiritual and existential damage done by LLMs" This is the exact sentiment when said about some other profession or craft, countless people elsewhere and on HN have noted that it's neither productive not wise to be so precious about a task that evolved as a n…

Man, there is something true in what he is saying though. Can't you see it? I like the idea of some of this technology. I think its cool you can use natural language to create things. I think there is real potential in using these tools in certain context, but the way in which these tools got introduced, no transparency, how its being used to shape thought, the over-reliance on it and how its use to take away our humanity is a real concern.

If this tech was designed in an open way and not put under paywalls and used to develop models that are being used to take away peoples power, maybe I'd think differently. But right now its being promoted by the worst of the worst, and nobody is talking about that.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#563

Post by miningape »

scld wrote: post #242
abbadadda wrote: post #33

I really enjoyed how your words made me _feel._ They encouraged me to "keep fighting the good fight" when it comes to avoiding social media, et. al. I do Vibe Code occasionally, Claude did a decent job with Terraform and SaltStack recently, but the words ring true in my head about how AI weakens my thinking, especially when it comes to Python or any programming language. Tread carefully indeed. And reading a book doe…

Doesn't Python weaken your thinking about how computers actually work?

It may - but it doesn't weaken your ability to think computationally

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#564

Post by mono442 »

markbnj wrote: post #201

I think the dangers that LLMs pose to the ability of engineers to earn a living is overstated, while at the same time the superpowers that they hand us don't seem to get much discussion. When I was starting out in the 80's I had to prowl dial-up BBSs or order expensive books and manuals to find out how to do something. I once paid IBM $140 for a manual on the VGA interface so I could answer a question. The turn aroun…

I don't agree. LLMs don't have to completly replace software developers, it is enough to reduce the need for them by 30% or so and the salaries will nosedive making this particular career path unattractive.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#565

Post by QuercusMax »

nasmorn wrote: post #474
andai wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 20 years and GPT-4 (the one from early 2023) does it better than me. I'm the guy other programmers I know ask for advice. I think your metaphor might be a little uncharitable :) For straightforward stuff, they can handle it. For stuff that isn't straightforward, they've been trained on pattern matching some nontrivial subset of all human writing. So chances are they'll say, "oh, in this situ…

AI doesn’t program better than me yet. It can do some things better than me and I use it for that but it has no taste and is way too willing to write a ton of code. What is great about it compared to an actual junior is if i find out it did something stupid it will redo the work super fast and without getting sad

Too willing to write a ton of code - this is absolutely one of the things that drives me nuts. I ask it to write me a stub implementation and it goes and makes up all the details of how it works, 99% of which is totally wrong. I tell it to rename a file and add a single header line, and it does that - but throws away everything after line 400. Just unreliable and headache-inducing.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#566

Post by Glemkloksdjf »

trashb wrote: post #212
Glemkloksdjf wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark age was dark. Human rights, female! rights, hunger, thirst, no progress at all, hard lifes. So are you able, realisticly, to stop progress around a whole planet? Tbh. getting an alignment across the planet to slow down or stop AI would be the equivilent of stoping capitalism and actually building a holistic planet for us. I think ai will force the hand of capitalism but i don't think we will be able to create a…

> Dark age was dark. Human rights, female! rights, hunger, thirst, no progress at all, hard lifes. There was progress in the Middle Ages, hence the difference between the early and late Middle Ages. Most information was mouth to mouth instead of written down. "The term employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the era's supposed darkness (ignorance and error) with earlier and later periods of ligh…

We talk about dark ages probalby in a different way.

I talk about a time were we had no proper female rights. Females can only vote around the globe since 1893 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage)

A refrigerator was only common in 1913.

Before all of that, we spend a LOT of time on just surviving.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#567

Post by yawnxyz »

rozap wrote: post #500
andai wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 20 years and GPT-4 (the one from early 2023) does it better than me. I'm the guy other programmers I know ask for advice. I think your metaphor might be a little uncharitable :) For straightforward stuff, they can handle it. For stuff that isn't straightforward, they've been trained on pattern matching some nontrivial subset of all human writing. So chances are they'll say, "oh, in this situ…

Now tell the AI to distill a bunch of user goals into a living system which has to evolve over time, integrate with other systems, etc etc. And deliver and support that system I use Claude code every day and it is a slam dunk for situations like the one above, fiddly UIs and the like. Seriously , some of the best money I spend. But it is not good at more abstract stuff. Still a massive time saver for me and does effe…

right, but this is akin to arguing why the table saw also does not do x/y/z — I don't know why we only complain about AI and how it does NOT do everything well yet.

Maybe it's expectations set by all the AI companies, idk, but this kind of mentality seems very particular to AI products and nothing else.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#568

Post by jpadkins »

Glemkloksdjf wrote: post #466
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. Somewhere along the lines of "everybody can code," we threw out the values and aesthetics that attracted people in the first place. What began as a rejection of externally imposed values devolved into a mouthpiece of the current powers and principalities. This is evidenced by the new set of hacker values being almost purely performative when compared against the old…

We need to change the underlying system. We do not need to do things no one needs. We do not need a million differen webshops, and the next CRUD application. We need a system which allows the earth resources being used as efficient and fair as possible. Then we can again start apprechiating real craftmanship but not for critical things and not because we need to feed ourselves but because we want to do it.

> We need a system which allows the earth resources being used as efficient and fair as possible.

To what goals? Who gets to decide what is fair?

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#569

Post by jimbokun »

thewebguyd wrote: post #462
easterncalculus wrote: post #244

> I find it particularly disillusioning to realize how deep the LLM brainworm is able to eat itself even into progressive hacker circles. That's the thing, hacker circles didn't always have this 'progressive' luddite mentality. This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. I don't like AI, generally. I am skeptical of corporate influence, I doubt AI 2027 and so-called 'AGI'. I'm certain we'll be "five years away"…

> All that said, the actual workday is absolutely filled with busy work that no one really wants to do, and the refusal of a loud minority to engage with that fact is what's leading to this. The attitude and push back from this loud minority has always been weird to me. Ever since I got my hands on my first computer as a kid, I've been outsourcing parts of my brain to computing so that I can focus on more interesting…

The marketing for AI is that it will soon replace THE INTERESTING PARTS too. Because it will be better than humans at everything.

For you, what are “the interesting parts”, and why do you believe in principle a machine won’t do those parts better than you?

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#570

Post by jimbokun »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #490
thewebguyd wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All that said, the actual workday is absolutely filled with busy work that no one really wants to do, and the refusal of a loud minority to engage with that fact is what's leading to this. The attitude and push back from this loud minority has always been weird to me. Ever since I got my hands on my first computer as a kid, I've been outsourcing parts of my brain to computing so that I can focus on more interesting…

> Ever since I got my hands on my first computer as a kid, I've been outsourcing parts of my brain to computing so that I can focus on more interesting things. I no longer have to remember phone numbers, I no longer have to carry a paper notepad, my bookshelf full of reference books that constantly needed to be refreshed became a Google search away instead. Intellisense/code completion meant I didn't have to waste ti…

Like the almost but not quite self driving cars.
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