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Everyone in Seattle hates AI

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Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#721

Post by Antibabelic »

zubiaur wrote: post #464
hexator wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people really do hate AI, it's not entirely about the layoffs. This is a well insulated bubble but you can find tons of anti-AI forums online.

Some people take find their life meaning through craft and work. When that craft is suddenly less scarce, less special, so does that craft-tied meaning. I wonder if these feelings are what scribes and amanuenses felt when the printing press arrived. I do enjoy programming, I like my job and take pride on it, but I actively try for it not to be the life-mean giving activity. I'm a just mercenary of my trade.

They are also the people who are able to see the most clearly how subpar generative-AI output is. When you can't find a single spot without AI slop to rest your eyes on and see it get so much praise, it's natural to take it as a direct insult to your work.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#722

Post by hgomersall »

deaux wrote: post #700
sfink wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't get this line of thinking. Never in my life have I heard the reasoning "replacing effort is the problem" when talking about children who are able to afford 24/7 brilliant private tutors. Having access to that has always been seen as an enormous privilege.

I learnt the most from bad teachers#, but only when motivated. I was forced to go away and really understand things rather than get a sufficient understanding from the teacher. I had to put much more effort in. Teachers don't replace effort, and I see no reasons LLMs will change that. What they do though is reduced the time to finding the relevant content, but I expect at some poorly defined cost.

# The truly good teachers were primarily motivation agents, providing enough content, but doing so in a way that meant I fully engaged.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#723

Post by finaard »

petterroea wrote: post #706
finaard wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There are quite a few things they can do reasonably well - but they mostly are useful for experienced programmers/architecs as a time safer. Working with a LLM for that often reminds me of when I had…

I think there's a lot of reason to what you are saying. The 4-5 amount of time to make the codebase readable resonates. If i really wanted to go 100% LLM as a challenge I think I'd compartmentalize a lot and maybe rely on OpenAPI and other API description languages to reduce the complexity of what the LLM has to deal with when working on its current "compartment" (i.e the frontend or backend). Claude.md also helps a…

> almost every line of code I write usually requires some deliberate though

That's probably the worst case for trying to use a LLM for coding.

A lot of the code it'll produce will be incorrect on the first try - so to avoid sitting through iterations of absolute garbage you want the LLM to be able to compile the code. I typically provide a makefile which compiles the code, and then runs a linter with a strict ruleset and warnings set to error, and allow it to run make without prompting - so the first version I get to see compiles, and doesn't cause lint to have a stroke.

Then I typically make it write tests, and include the tests in the build process - for "hey, add tests to this codebase" the LLM is performing no worse than your average cheap code monkey.

Both with the linter and with the tests you'll still need to check what it's doing, though - just like the cheap code monkey it may disable lint on specific lines of code with comments like "the linter is wrong", or may create stub tests - or even disable tests, and then claim the tests were always failing, and it wasn't due to the new code it wrote.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#724

Post by adastra22 »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #565
adastra22 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one have no idea what you mean by health and safety with respect to AI. Do you have an OSHA concern?

I have an “enabling suicidal ideation” concern for starters. To be honest I’m kind of surprised I need to explain what this means so my guess is you’re just baiting/being opaque, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer your question taken at face value: There have been plenty of high profile incidents in the news over the past year or two, as well as multiple behavioral health studies showing that we ne…

All the Ai companies are taking those concerns seriously though. Every major chat service has guardrails in place that shutdown sessions which appear to be violating such content restrictions.

If your concerns are things like AI psychosis, then I think it is fair to say that the tradeoffs are not yet clear enough to call this. There are benefits and bad consequences for every new technology. Some are a net positive on the balance, others are not. If we outlawed every new technology because someone, somewhere was hurt, nothing would ever be approved for general use.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#725

Post by johnnyanmac »

shepardrtc wrote: post #50

Ok so a few thoughts as a former Seattleite: 1. You were a therapy session for her. Her negativity was about the layoffs. 2. FAANG companies dramatically overhired for years and are using AI as an excuse for layoffs. 3. AI scene in Seattle is pretty good, but as with everywhere else was/is a victim of the AI hype. I see estimates of the hype being dead in a year. AI won't be dead, but throwing money at the whatever U…

>FAANG companies dramatically overhired for years and are using AI as an excuse for layoffs.

Close. We're in a recession and they are using AI as an excuse for another wave of outsourcing.

>I don't think people hate AI, they hate the hype.

I hate the grift. I hate having it forced on me after refusing multiple times. That's pretty much 90% of AI right now.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#726

Post by johnnyanmac »

abustamam wrote: post #656
hexator wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people really do hate AI, it's not entirely about the layoffs. This is a well insulated bubble but you can find tons of anti-AI forums online.

Yeah, as a gamer I get a lot of game news in my feeds. Apparently there's a niche of indie games that claim to be AI-free. [0] And I read a lot of articles about games that seem to love throwing a dig at AI even if it's not really relevant. Personally, I can see why people dislike Gen AI. It takes people's creations without permission. That being said, morality of the creation of AI tooling aside, there are still peo…

>morality of the creation of AI tooling aside,

That's a big aside

>Like, they'd enjoy a song, or an image, or a book, and then suddenly when they find out it's AI suddenly they hate it.

Yes, because for some people its about supporting human creation. Finding out it's part of a grift to take from said humans can be infuriating. People don't want to be a part of that.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#727

Post by johnnyanmac »

sunaookami wrote: post #704
nateglims wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of tech, I think the opinion is generally negative. AI has lost a lot the narrative due to things like energy prices and layoffs.

ChatGPT is one of the most used websites in the world and it's used by the most normal people in the world, in what way is the opinion "generally negative"?

ChatGPT for the common folk is used in the same way PirateBay is. Something can be "popular" and also "bad"

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#728

Post by goatlover »

sunaookami wrote: post #704
nateglims wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of tech, I think the opinion is generally negative. AI has lost a lot the narrative due to things like energy prices and layoffs.

ChatGPT is one of the most used websites in the world and it's used by the most normal people in the world, in what way is the opinion "generally negative"?

We'll see how long that lasts with their their new Ad framework. Probably most normal people are put off by all the other AI being marketed at them. A useful AI website is one thing, AI forced into everything else is quite another. And then they get to hear on the news or from their friends how AI-everything is going to take all the jobs so a few controversial people in tech can become trillionaires.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#729

Post by Freak_NL »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #293
Freak_NL wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product website isn't convincing either. It's only in private beta, and the first example shows 'A scenic walking tour of Venice' as the desired trip. I'll readily believe LLMs will gladly give you some sort of itinerary for walking in Venice, including all highlights people write and post about a lot on social media to show how great their life is. But if you asked anyone knowledgable about travel in that region…

> I'll readily believe LLMs will gladly give you some sort of itinerary for walking in Venice I tried this in Crotone in September. The suggested walking tour was shit. The facts weren't remarkable. The stops were stupid and stupidly laid out. The whole experience was dumb and only redeeming because I was vacationing with a friend who founded on the of the AI companies. > if you asked anyone knowledgable about travel…

> In the region? Because it's a gorgeous city with beautiful architecture, history and festivals?

That would be a great answer to continue from. Would you come for the Biennale specifically? Do you care greatly about sustainability? Would you enjoy yourself more in a different gorgeous city without the mass-tourism problem if that meant you would feel more welcome? Is there a way you can visit Venice without contributing to the issue as much? Off-season perhaps?

Venice is unique, but there are a lot of gorgeous places in the region, from Verona to Trieste.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#730

Post by DrSiemer »

abustamam wrote: post #656
hexator wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people really do hate AI, it's not entirely about the layoffs. This is a well insulated bubble but you can find tons of anti-AI forums online.

Yeah, as a gamer I get a lot of game news in my feeds. Apparently there's a niche of indie games that claim to be AI-free. [0] And I read a lot of articles about games that seem to love throwing a dig at AI even if it's not really relevant. Personally, I can see why people dislike Gen AI. It takes people's creations without permission. That being said, morality of the creation of AI tooling aside, there are still peo…

Most of the people that dislike genAI would have the exact same opinion if all the training data was paid for in full (whatever a fair price would be for what is essentially just reference material)
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