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I became a computer programmer because I want the computer to do things. I’m not a programmer because I wanted to program. Thus AI is incredibly exciting to me because it makes it easier to make computers do things.
I became a programmer because I like to write code. Having an llm write code for me is like building a robot that eats cake.
The effort is up to you on your own time. I have an e-bike and a regular bike. The regular bike gets way more use because I prefer the satisfaction I get from it. Also, speaking as someone that uses LLMs every day, they take effort! They cannot spin straw into gold. The terrible work I see coming from AI is usually from someone who doesn’t realize that.
Be careful that you aren't optimizing your life in response to someone else's marketing campaign.
Following Karl Popper's thinking on this topic, I'd say that our problems define us, and when we solve our problems we often discover new and interesting children problems demanding attention. “The best thing that can happen to a human being us to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.” — Karl Popper
> To conclude, I think that there is only one way to science—or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part—unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem, or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting though perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.
https://archive.org/details/realismaimofscie0000popp/page/8/...
Edit: if I heed the content of the paragraphs just before this quote, maybe I should prefer the rewritten version.
Maybe this is a neurodivergent thing, but I have, as long as I can remember, always had the following progression in my mind: "What are you doing? No, that's this situation's name, what is this really?" and I'd continue a few times seeking the "larger problem, the more basic problem being solved" that whatever I was doing "really is". That "basic problem" was "communicating" far more frequently than I expected, and t…
> If our efforts, in part, define us, then our efforts have intrinsic value. By definition this is instrumental value rather than intrinsic value.
If they fail at this, they will be ejected from the middle class, and their children will not be properly educated, therefore never beginning the middle class journey. If you're born poor, it's easy to stay poor all your life; if you're born rich, it's easy to stay rich all your life; the middle class is the class that has to reproduce itself every generation and sustain itself by constant service and sublimation of their desires and dreams. That's why they're simultaneously overpaid and overtaxed - just to keep them caged and desperate, a layoff away from a family annihilation. Loyal to death.
Fear of Falling by Barbara Ehrenreich is a good book about this.
This essay is pompous. Just say: I'm afraid my job is going to leave me, and it makes me feel insecure. Maybe sympathize a little when all of the storefronts on Main Street in some small town are empty after the dog food plant got obsoleted by Chinese imports, instead of telling them they should learn to code like you and to move to where the jobs are.
I think of it from another angle. AI is reaching an energy limit. Companies are way overvalued and in a race to spend most of their gains on AI and that may end badly. Governments are on edge and conflict is brewing. All of that and unknown unknowns can put a stop on the amazing stream of affordable AI we have now. I am using the models as fast as possible to build things I find meaningful and to learn as much as possible. Having unlimited help with any idea that I come up with is incredible. It’s akin to infinite VC funding, but you don’t owe equity or a cent back. The world is now what your cerebellum can come up with. And what you know about the needs of people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me it is both. I love certain kinds of programming, and don't enjoy other kinds. I'm naturally very good at some kinds, and not good at other kinds, despite putting in enormous effort. I guess ideally I'd get a job that is perfectly aligned with this profile (a work in progress!), but AI allows me to deal with the reality I have now in a much more pleasant and productive way.
Careful with the productivity claims, there's plenty of research showing that perspective is usually a distortion of some kind. Which makes sense, you have someone at your shoulder constantly reassuring you and bubbling ideas; I can see how it feels productive. Many report feeling more stressed, because the spaces where they used to think are no longer there.
I saw 1 study which suggested this.[1] Were there more?
I found the flaw.
Effort is the process of converting energy into value (the state of something being effortless in the future). It's not the efforts themselves that have intrinsic value, but the work ethic that drove the effort in the first place.