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Engineers who dismiss AI

terriblesoftware.org

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Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#71

Post by squidbeak »

nottorp wrote: post #27

Some engineers don't dismiss LLMs. They dismiss the religion like hype machine. You want to market to engineers, stick to provable statements. And address some of their concerns. With something other than "AI is evolving constantly, all your problems will be solved in 6 months, just keep paying us." Oh by the way, what is the OP trying to sell with these FOMO tactics? Yet another ChatGPT frontend?

Perhaps in that case the critics should bend their ire on the marketing departments, rather than trashing the tech?

Really though, the potential in this tech is unknown at this point. The measures we have suggest there's no slowdown in progress, and it isn't unreasonable for any enthusiast or policy maker to speculate about where it could go, or how we might need to adjust our societies around it.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#72

Post by Havoc »

>that’s a conversation worth having

I'm not even sure there is much room left for one.

There is very little alignment in starting assumptions between most parties in this convo. One guy is coding mission critical stuff, the other is doing throw away projects. One guy depends on coding to put food on table, the other does not. One guy wants to understand every LoC, other is happy to vibe code. One is a junior looking for first job, other is in management in google after being promoted out of engineering. One guy has access to $200/m tech, the other does not. etc etc

We can't even get consensus on tab vs spaces...we're not going to get AI & coding down to consensus or who is "right".

Perhaps a bit a nihilistic & jaded, but I'm very much leaning towards "place your bets & may the odds be ever in your favour".

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#73

Post by nottorp »

jennyholzer2 wrote: post #59
nottorp wrote: post #27

Some engineers don't dismiss LLMs. They dismiss the religion like hype machine. You want to market to engineers, stick to provable statements. And address some of their concerns. With something other than "AI is evolving constantly, all your problems will be solved in 6 months, just keep paying us." Oh by the way, what is the OP trying to sell with these FOMO tactics? Yet another ChatGPT frontend?

[flagged]

Nah, LLMs have fixed search. For now. I use them daily for that.

Fully expect them to include youtube levels of advertising in 1-2 years though. Just to compensate for the results being somewhat not spammy.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#74

Post by Fred27 »

I just don't find it interesting. The only thing less interesting is the constant evangelism about it.

I also find that the actual coding is important. The typing may not be the most ineresting bit, but it's one of the steps that helps refine the architecture I had in my head.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#75

Post by Tripping5292 »

jennyholzer2 wrote: post #57
plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #6

> The engineers refusing to try aren’t protecting themselves; quite the opposite, they’re falling behind. The gap is widening between engineers who’ve integrated these tools and engineers who haven’t. For me, however, there is one issue: how can I utilize AI without degenerating my own abilities? I use AI sparingly because, to be honest, every time I use AI, I feel like I'm getting a little dumber. I fear that excess…

[flagged]

This will not age well

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#76

Post by TimorousBestie »

pwillia7 wrote: post #47

Just normal Luddite things, which attracts those most threatened in their personal identity by the new technology. You see it obviously with the artists and image/video generators too. We did this with Dadaism and Impressionism and photography before this too with art. Ultimately, it's just more abstraction that we have to get used to -- art is stuff people create with their human expression. It is funny to see every…

> Just normal Luddite things, which attracts those most threatened in their personal identity by the new technology.

I feel like “Luddite” is a misunderstood term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

> Malcolm L. Thomas argued in his 1970 history The Luddites that machine-breaking was one of the very few tactics that workers could use to increase pressure on employers, undermine lower-paid competing workers, and create solidarity among workers. "These attacks on machines did not imply any necessary hostility to machinery as such; machinery was just a conveniently exposed target against which an attack could be made." [emph. added] Historian Eric Hobsbawm has called their machine wrecking "collective bargaining by riot", which had been a tactic used in Britain since the Restoration because manufactories were scattered throughout the country, and that made it impractical to hold large-scale strikes. An agricultural variant of Luddism occurred during the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England, centring on breaking threshing machines.

Luddites were closer to “class struggle by other means” than “identity politics.”

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#77

Post by jennyholzer2 »

amrocha wrote: post #44
yunwal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that any additional overhead caused by the separate AI chat is saved 20x over by basically never having to use a browser to look at documentation and S/O while coding.

And studies find that that 20x is actually a 0.8x

0.1x

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#78

Post by nottorp »

squidbeak wrote: post #71
nottorp wrote: post #27

Some engineers don't dismiss LLMs. They dismiss the religion like hype machine. You want to market to engineers, stick to provable statements. And address some of their concerns. With something other than "AI is evolving constantly, all your problems will be solved in 6 months, just keep paying us." Oh by the way, what is the OP trying to sell with these FOMO tactics? Yet another ChatGPT frontend?

Perhaps in that case the critics should bend their ire on the marketing departments, rather than trashing the tech? Really though, the potential in this tech is unknown at this point. The measures we have suggest there's no slowdown in progress, and it isn't unreasonable for any enthusiast or policy maker to speculate about where it could go, or how we might need to adjust our societies around it.

> it isn't unreasonable for any enthusiast or policy maker to speculate about where it could go

What is posted to HN daily is beyond speculation. I suppose a psychologist has a term for what it is, I don't.

Edit: well, guess what? I asked an "AI":

Psychological Drivers of AI Hype:

  Term                   | Driver                | Resulting Behavior

  -----------------------|-----------------------|------------------------------

  ELIZA Effect           | Symbolic projection   | Treating a script like a person.

  Automation Bias        | Cognitive offloading  | Trusting AI over your own eyes.

  Techno-Optimism        | Confirmation bias     | Ignoring risks for "progress."

  Interface Familiarity  | Fluency heuristic     | Friendly UI = "Smart" system.
By the way, the text formatting is done by the "AI" as well. Asked it to make the table look like a table on HN specifically.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#79

Post by mysterydip »

michaellee8 wrote: post #36
baq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t and that’s the new normal. We’re probably the only generation which was given an opportunity to get properly good at coding. No such luxury will be available in a few years optimistically; pessimistically it’s been taken away with GPT 5.2 and Opus 4.5.

i think cs students should force themselves to learn the real thing and write the code themselves, at least for their assignments. i have seen that a lot of recent cs grads that has gpt in most of their cs life basically cannot write proper code, with or without ai.

In the same way we make kids learn addition and multiplication even though they have access to calculators

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#80

Post by pwillia7 »

jennyholzer2 wrote: post #65
pwillia7 wrote: post #47

Just normal Luddite things, which attracts those most threatened in their personal identity by the new technology. You see it obviously with the artists and image/video generators too. We did this with Dadaism and Impressionism and photography before this too with art. Ultimately, it's just more abstraction that we have to get used to -- art is stuff people create with their human expression. It is funny to see every…

This guy's knowledge of art history is the Dada wikipedia page and the Banksy movie from 20 years ago. Allow me to repeat myself: AI is for idiots.

gottem Jenny
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