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Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

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Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#71

Post by snapcaster »

rijoja wrote: post #17
janaagaard wrote: post #12

A Danish audio newspaper host / podcaster had the exact apposite conclusion when he used ChatGPT to write the manuscript for one his episodes. He ended up spending as much time as he usually does because he had to fact check everything that the LLM came up with. Spoiler: It made up a lot of stuff despite it being very clear in the prompt, that it should not do so. To him, it was the most fun part, that is writing the…

It's not the exact opposite*, the author said that if you're doing boilerplate _code_ it's probably fine. The thing is that since it can't think, it's absolutely useless when it comes to things that hasn't been done before, because if you are creating something new, the software won't have had any chance to train on what you are doing. So if you are in a situation in which it is a good idea to create a new DSL for yo…

Maybe reconsider assumptions? Maybe DSLs shouldn't be done anymore if they're not able to be utilized by AI agents easily

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#72

Post by briandw »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #61
briandw wrote: post #60

I feel much more confident that I can take on a project in a domain that im not very familiar with. Ive been digging into llvm ir and I had not prior experience with it. ChatGPT is a much better guide to getting started than the documentation, which is very low quality.

Careful - if you’re not familiar with the domain how are you going to spot when the LLM gives you suboptimal or even outright wrong answers?

Just like anything else, stackoverflow, advice from a coworker or expert. If it doesn’t work, it will become clear that it’s not fixing your problem.

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#73

Post by qwertox »

> Meanwhile, I feel like if I tried to offload my work to an LLM, I would both lose context and be violating the do-one-thing-and-do-it-well principle I half-heartedly try to live by.

He should use it as a Stack Overflow on steroids. I assume he uses Stack Overflow without remorse.

I used to have 1y streaks on being on SO, now I'm there around once or twice per week.

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#74

Post by orochimaaru »

My thesis is actually simpler. For the longest time until the Industrial Revolution humans have done uninteresting work for the large part. There was a routine and little else. Intellectuals worked through a very terse knowledge base and it was handed down master to apprentice. Post renaissance and industrial age the amount of known knowledge has exploded, the specializations have exploded. Most of what white collar work is today is managing and searching through this explosion of knowledge and rules. AI (well the LLM part) is mostly targeted towards that - making that automated. That’s all it is. Here is the problem though, it’s for the clueless. Those who are truly clueless fall victim to the hallucinations. Those who have expertise in their field will be able to be more efficient.

AI isn’t replacing innovation or original thought. It is just working off an existing body of knowledge.

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#75

Post by simonw »

javcasas wrote: post #66
briandw wrote: post #60

I feel much more confident that I can take on a project in a domain that im not very familiar with. Ive been digging into llvm ir and I had not prior experience with it. ChatGPT is a much better guide to getting started than the documentation, which is very low quality.

Good luck with that. I have been exploring local AI tools for coding (ollama + aider) with a small stock market simulator (~200 lines of python). First I tried making the AI extract the dataclasses representing events to a separated file. It decided to extract some extra classes, leave behind some others, and delete parts of the code. Then I tried to make it explain one of the actors called LongVol_player_v1, around…

If you are using Ollama that suggests you are using local models - which ones?

My experience is that the hosted frontier models (o3, Gemini 2.5, Claude 4) would handle those problems with ease.

Local models that fit on a laptop are a lot less capable, sadly.

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#76

Post by lxgr »

notachatbot123 wrote: post #21
janaagaard wrote: post #12

A Danish audio newspaper host / podcaster had the exact apposite conclusion when he used ChatGPT to write the manuscript for one his episodes. He ended up spending as much time as he usually does because he had to fact check everything that the LLM came up with. Spoiler: It made up a lot of stuff despite it being very clear in the prompt, that it should not do so. To him, it was the most fun part, that is writing the…

> It made up a lot of stuff despite it being very clear in the prompt, that it should not do so. LLMs are not sentient. They are designed to make stuff up based on probability.

Why would sentience be required for logically sound reasoning (or the reverse, for that matter)?

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#77

Post by CommenterPerson »

Here we go again.

But. "Interesting" is subjective, and there's no good definition for "intelligence", AI has so much associated hype. So we could debate endlessly on HN.

Supposing "interesting" means something like coming up with a new Fast Fourier Transform algorithm. I seriously doubt an LLM could do something there. OTOH AI did do new stuff with protein folding.

So, we can keep debating I guess.

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#78

Post by RugnirViking »

orochimaaru wrote: post #74

My thesis is actually simpler. For the longest time until the Industrial Revolution humans have done uninteresting work for the large part. There was a routine and little else. Intellectuals worked through a very terse knowledge base and it was handed down master to apprentice. Post renaissance and industrial age the amount of known knowledge has exploded, the specializations have exploded. Most of what white collar…

I disagree that ancient work was uninteresting. If you've ever looked at truly old architecture, walls, carvings etc you can see that people really took pride in their work, adding things that absolutely weren't just pure utility. In my mind that's the sign of someone that considers their work interesting.

But in general, in the past there was much less specialization. That means each individual was responsible for a lot more stuff, and likely had a lot more varied work day. The apprentice blacksmith didn't just hammer out nail after nail all day with no breaks. They made all sorts of tools, cutlery, horseshoes. But they also carried water, operated bellows, went to fetch coke etc, sometimes even spending days without actually hammering metal at all - freeing up mental energy and separation to be able to enjoy it when they actually got to do it.

Similarly, farm laborers had massively varied lives. Their daily tasks of a given week or month would look totally different depending on the season, with winter essentially being time off to go fix or make other stuff because you can't do much more than wait to make plants grow faster

People might make the criticism and say "oh but that was only for rich people/government" etc, but look at for example old street lights, bollards etc. Old works tend to be

Specialization allows us to curse ourselves with efficiency, and a curse it is indeed. Now if you're good at hammering nails, nails are all you'll get, morning to night, and rewarded the shittier and cheaper and faster you make your nails, sucking all incentive to do any more than the minimum

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#79

Post by bubblyworld »

javcasas wrote: post #66
briandw wrote: post #60

I feel much more confident that I can take on a project in a domain that im not very familiar with. Ive been digging into llvm ir and I had not prior experience with it. ChatGPT is a much better guide to getting started than the documentation, which is very low quality.

Good luck with that. I have been exploring local AI tools for coding (ollama + aider) with a small stock market simulator (~200 lines of python). First I tried making the AI extract the dataclasses representing events to a separated file. It decided to extract some extra classes, leave behind some others, and delete parts of the code. Then I tried to make it explain one of the actors called LongVol_player_v1, around…

For what it's worth, commercial models are in a completely different league to locally runnable models. If you are really interested in seeing state of the art right now at least give it a whack with opus/gemini/o3 or something of that calibre.

You might still be disappointed but at least you won't have shot your leg off out of the gates!

Re: Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

#80

Post by rorylaitila »

The one thing LLM cannot do currently is read the room. Even if it contains all existing information and can create any requested admixture from its training, that admixture space is infinite. Therefore the curators role is in creating with it the most interesting output. The more nuanced and sophisticated the interesting work, the more role there is for this curation.

I kind of use it that way. The LLM is walking a few feet in front of me, quickly ideating possible paths, allowing me to experiment more quickly. Ultimately I am the decider of what matters.

This reminds me a bit of photography. A photographer will take a lot of pictures. They try a lot of paths. Most of the paths don't actually work out. What you see of their body of work is the paths that worked, that they selected.

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