I like AI to the extent that it can quickly solve well-worn, what I've taken to calling "embarrassingly solved problems", in your environment, like "make an animation subsystem for my program". A Qt timeline is not hard, but it is tedious, so the AI can do it. And it turns out that there are some embarrassingly solved problems, like rudimentary multiplayer games, that look more impressive than they really are when yo…
Everyone in Seattle hates AI
691–700 of 1001 posts
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#692Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've generally found an inverse correlation between "understands AI" and "exuberance for AI". I'm the only person at my current company who has had experience at multiple AI companies (the rest have never worked on it in a production environment, one of our projects is literally something I got paid to deliver customers at another startup), has written professionally about the topic, and worked directly with some big…
Personally, I don't understand how LLMs work. I know some ML math and certainly could learn, and probably will, soon. But my opinions about what LLMs can do are based on... what LLMs can do. What I can see them doing. With my eyes. The right answer to the question "What can LLMs do?" is... looking... at what LLMs can do.
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#693Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does feel like without a compelling AI product Microsoft isn't super differentiated. Maybe Satya is right that scale is a differentiation, but I don't think people are as trapped in an AI ecosystem as they were in Azure.
Lol. You don't think that Microsoft has _a_ compelling AI product? The new version of 365 Copilot is objectively compelling, even if it is a work in progress. And Github Copilot is also objectively compelling.
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#694People are fed up and burned out from being forced to try useless AI tools by non-technical leaders who do not understand how LLM works nor understand how they suck, and now resent anything related to AI. But for AI companies there is a perverse incentive to push AI on people until it finally works, because the winner of the AI arms race won't be the company that waits until they have a perfect, polished product.
I have myself had "fun" trying to discuss LLMs with non technical people, and met a complete wall trying to explain why LLMs aren't useful for programming - at least not yet. I argue the code is often of low quality, very unmaintainable, and usually not useful outside quick experimentation. They refuse to believe it, even though they do hit a wall with their vibe-coded project after a few months when claude stops generating miracles any more - they lack the experience with code to understand they are hitting maintainability issues. Combine that with how every "wow!" LLM example is actually just the LLM regurgitating a very common thing to write tutorials about, and people tend to over-estimate its abilities.
I use claude multiple times a week because even though LLM-generated code is trash I am open to try new tools, but my general experience is that Claude is unable to do anything well that I can't have my non-technical partner do. It has given me a sort of superiority complex where I immediately disregard the opinion of any developer who thinks its a wondertool, because clearly they don't have high standards for the work they were already doing.
I think most developers with any skill to their name agree. Looking at how Microsoft developers are handling the forced AI, they do seem desperate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44050152 even though they respond with the most "cope" answers I've ever read when confronted about how poorly it is going.
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#695Very new ex-MSFT here. I couldn’t relate more with your friend. That’s exactly what happened. I left Microsoft about 5 weeks ago and it’s been really hard to detox from that culture. AI pushed down everywhere. Sometimes shitty-AI that needed to be proved at all cost because it should live up to the hype. I was in one of such AI-orgs and even there several teams felt the pressure from SLT and a culture drift to a dysf…
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#696Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and I've even seen unit tests > that mock the actual function > under test. Yup. Ai is so fickle it’ll do anything to accomplish the task. But ai is just a tool it’s all about what you allow it to do. Can’t blame ai really.
If a tool makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot, then it's not a good tool. See C++.
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#697It’s possible that no matter what he asked, the people of Seattle would respond negatively.
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#698Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I don't understand how LLMs work. I know some ML math and certainly could learn, and probably will, soon. But my opinions about what LLMs can do are based on... what LLMs can do. What I can see them doing. With my eyes. The right answer to the question "What can LLMs do?" is... looking... at what LLMs can do.
I'm sure you're already familiar with the ELIZA effect [0], but you should be a bit skeptical of what you are seeing with your eyes, especially when it comes to language. Humans have an incredible weakness to be tricked by language. You should be doubly skeptically ever since RLHF has become standard as the model has literally been optimized to give you answers you find most pleasing. The best way to measure of cours…
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#699Earlier quoted context omitted.
My friends at Google are some of the most negative about the potential of AI to improve software development. I was always surprised by this and assumed internally at Google would be one of the first places to adopt these.
I've generally found an inverse correlation between "understands AI" and "exuberance for AI". I'm the only person at my current company who has had experience at multiple AI companies (the rest have never worked on it in a production environment, one of our projects is literally something I got paid to deliver customers at another startup), has written professionally about the topic, and worked directly with some big…
Few years ago I had this exact observation regarding self driving cars. Non/semi engineers who worked in the tech industry were very bullish about self driving cars, believing every and ETA spewed by Musk, engineers were cautious optimistically or pessimistically depending on their understanding of AI, LiDAR, etc.
Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI
#700Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is, it can be an enormous learning accelerator for new skills, for both adults and genuinely curious kids. The gap between low and high performancer will explode. I can tell you that if I had LLMs I would've finished schooling at least 25% quicker, while learning much more. When I say this on HN some are quick to point out the fallibility of LLMs, ignoring that the huge majority of human teachers are many times mo…
Fallibility isn't the problem. It's probably a net benefit for learning. Promoting dependency is the problem. Replacing effort is the problem. Making self-discipline be a thing only for suckers is the problem.