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Cannibalism

b-ark.ca

61–70 of 87 posts

Re: Cannibalism

#61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quitting is an individual action with potential adverse consequences (misery). The political question is why despite productivity in economic terms (which i know is flawed) growing many times over, do we still have to work as much, get paid so little, and have so many unemployed people looking for a job? Looks like without a parasitic capitalist class, we could share resources and work and have people live better liv…

Your job being automated to the point where you no longer proform it has the same adverse consequences. Whether this could work is some economic and societal setup is irrelevant, because that's not the world we live in.

> that's not the world we live in

That's not a definitive conclusion. The world is constantly evolving, we just have to push it in the right direction.

Re: Cannibalism

#62
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quitting is an individual action with potential adverse consequences (misery). The political question is why despite productivity in economic terms (which i know is flawed) growing many times over, do we still have to work as much, get paid so little, and have so many unemployed people looking for a job? Looks like without a parasitic capitalist class, we could share resources and work and have people live better liv…

What are you talking about? The only reason we could work less is because we always gave way to innovation. We don't haul large blocks of ice because "evil capitalists" started making fridges. Or do you want to reinstate ice trade, just because it generated more jobs? Or ban tractors because farming by hand was made by way more people? "Sharing resources" doesn't work. We share way too much just to keep pensioners al…

I'm not advocating for going back to the stone age. But if work was sufficiently shared, we could all work less. A lot of "work" is actually useless in terms of production and social use (see Graeber, Bullshit Jobs).

Re: Cannibalism

#63
post #2

I was with the article - especially the bit about the 10% an LLM loses and how that loss can be de-amplified across eventual meaning, but then... "My first instinct is to laugh and shake my head. One need not look very far to find indignant software developers absolutely certain that their jobs cannot possibly be automated away by the very tools their industry contemporaries are creating to replace them. I suspect yo…

Tech bro lamenting and berating developers how immoral and hypocritical they’re for “laughing” (has this ever happened?) at other professions, while doing the same. Story as old as time.

Article literally says their first instinct was to laugh. I'm not a tech bro, just a guy with a job (for now) and I made it clear from my comment that I have never laughed at tech taking the jobs of others, or made it happen myself. Try reading again.

Re: Cannibalism

#64
post #2

I was with the article - especially the bit about the 10% an LLM loses and how that loss can be de-amplified across eventual meaning, but then... "My first instinct is to laugh and shake my head. One need not look very far to find indignant software developers absolutely certain that their jobs cannot possibly be automated away by the very tools their industry contemporaries are creating to replace them. I suspect yo…

Not the OP but this line really got my attention > I'd love to see an LLM even fractionally capable of some of the things my job entails If you don't mind could you please elaborate on what tasks or knowledge your job requires that you feel an LLM isn't even _fractionally_ capable of? I understand if you said that out of emotion and frustration, but if you're serious I'm intensely and genuinely curious because nowada…

If you want to be in awe of basic support tasks then sure! I frequently need to assist with support tickets, communicate between departments to solve customer queries and sometimes manually fix slop that AI has put in there. No LLM rig can do that for me, nor does anyone want it to.

Re: Cannibalism

#65
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, it brought 16 hour factory shifts. To paraphrase Marx, "And so, the equivalent amount of labour required to produce the goods needed to sustain a worker for a day is, say, 4 hours. But that doesn't mean the selfsame worker can work for no longer that 4 hours! He can be forced to work six, or eight, or twelve hours a day, and whatever additional goods he produces — that's the surplus product, which in this…

It only goes into the factory owner's pocket to the degree that the factory has no competitors (has pricing power) and the factory owners don't work for the factory (i.e. RSUs and the like). Marx is great at building a narrative that generates resentment if you buy his frame. But you don't need to buy his frame, and if you don't, you suffer a lot less resentment. It's no way to live.

That applies to an awful lot of cases though? Especially during Marx' time.

Re: Cannibalism

#66
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? The only reason we could work less is because we always gave way to innovation. We don't haul large blocks of ice because "evil capitalists" started making fridges. Or do you want to reinstate ice trade, just because it generated more jobs? Or ban tractors because farming by hand was made by way more people? "Sharing resources" doesn't work. We share way too much just to keep pensioners al…

I'm not advocating for going back to the stone age. But if work was sufficiently shared, we could all work less. A lot of "work" is actually useless in terms of production and social use (see Graeber, Bullshit Jobs).

Have you ever been in any kind of group project at school? That's not how any of this works.

Re: Cannibalism

#67
post #53
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the interaction surface with a coding agent is the harness anyway, so I'd definitely classify them as tools. Moreover, I don't like the anthropomorphism of calling them beings —and even if I were to follow that narrative, you can absolutely become better at interacting with people by practicing it. Regardless, it sure seems like developers experienced with using coding agents achieve better results than those…

Yes you can learn the harness, that's a tool. But it's not the important part. I am not anthroporphizing them. I am just saying people are a better analogy. > seems like developers experienced with using coding agents achieve better results than those without That doesn't mean there is a skill involved. The same goes with people - you might just be naturally charismatic and get stuff done better with people. Doesn't…

It's absolutely a skill. That you're putting this up as "charisma" simply shows you have not explored agentic engineering.

If you are indeed interested, this is a good beginner: https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-pattern...

Re: Cannibalism

#68
post #27

Are people seriously getting use out of LLMs? Everything they produce is extermely sloppy in my experience, like actually mostly useless. I really dont understand the hype. Its very confusing.

Every time I have actually engaged in conversations with people making the same claim you do, it turned out they did not really invest time into learning how to work with coding agents: They assumed, given that they’re developers, the know how to code, and thus would knew how to steer a coding agent. That is a wrong assumption, however. An agent is an entirely new tool in your toolbox, with no similarity to any of th…

I have unlimited access to every agent, every tool. Ive tried them all, I've built a dozen MCPs and even my own small "harness" Ive done it all, its all very underwhelming.

I hate the "You're holding it wrong" argument.. Because Ive held it every which way possible and its not very impressive.

Re: Cannibalism

#69
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I have actually engaged in conversations with people making the same claim you do, it turned out they did not really invest time into learning how to work with coding agents: They assumed, given that they’re developers, the know how to code, and thus would knew how to steer a coding agent. That is a wrong assumption, however. An agent is an entirely new tool in your toolbox, with no similarity to any of th…

I have unlimited access to every agent, every tool. Ive tried them all, I've built a dozen MCPs and even my own small "harness" Ive done it all, its all very underwhelming. I hate the "You're holding it wrong" argument.. Because Ive held it every which way possible and its not very impressive.

That is not the argument I'm making though, and I'm a bit sad that's the only thing you've got out of my comment. From your username and past conversations, I can tell you're not up for an open debate on the usefulness of this technology, so let's leave it here. I can only reiterate to try and give it some more time, just like you would for every other new skill.

Re: Cannibalism

#70
post #2

I was with the article - especially the bit about the 10% an LLM loses and how that loss can be de-amplified across eventual meaning, but then... "My first instinct is to laugh and shake my head. One need not look very far to find indignant software developers absolutely certain that their jobs cannot possibly be automated away by the very tools their industry contemporaries are creating to replace them. I suspect yo…

Not the OP but this line really got my attention > I'd love to see an LLM even fractionally capable of some of the things my job entails If you don't mind could you please elaborate on what tasks or knowledge your job requires that you feel an LLM isn't even _fractionally_ capable of? I understand if you said that out of emotion and frustration, but if you're serious I'm intensely and genuinely curious because nowada…

Not GP but honestly I don't even spend 10% of my time writing code - even if these tools were perfect code generators that could read my mind (instead of having to prompt) it wouldn't significantly impact my work.
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