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I don't care how well your "AI" works

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Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#731

Post by [deleted] »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #515
swatcoder wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "devaluation" they mention is just the correction against the absurd ZIRP bump, that lured would-be doctors and lawyers into tech jobs at FAANG and FAANG-alike firms with the promise of upper middle class lifestyles for trivially weaving together API calls and jockeying JIRA tickets. You didn't have to spend years more in grad school, you didn't have to be a diligent engineer. You just had to had to have a knack…

I love this post. It really encapsulates a lot of what my take on the situation is as well. It has just been so blatantly obvious that a lot of people have a very protectionist mindset surrounding AI, and a legitimate fear that they are going to be replaced by it.

[deleted]

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#732

Post by amrocha »

svantana wrote: post #181
amrocha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s been over 1 million people laid off in tech in the past 4 years https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

According to that site, there were more tech layoffs in 2022 than in 2024 or 2025. Doesn't that speak against the "AI is taking tech jobs" hypothesis?

I agree, I think AI taking jobs is all smoke and mirrors by companies trying to gas up their stock prices

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#733

Post by amrocha »

spicyusername wrote: post #119
amrocha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s been over 1 million people laid off in tech in the past 4 years https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

This has more to do with monetary policy than AI, though.

I couldn’t agree more, I think AI is more about taking power away from tech workers who have historically had a lot of power compared to other non unionized workers.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#734

Post by portana77 »

oytis wrote: post #666
easterncalculus wrote: post #244

> I find it particularly disillusioning to realize how deep the LLM brainworm is able to eat itself even into progressive hacker circles. That's the thing, hacker circles didn't always have this 'progressive' luddite mentality. This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. I don't like AI, generally. I am skeptical of corporate influence, I doubt AI 2027 and so-called 'AGI'. I'm certain we'll be "five years away"…

IDK, to me it looks that hacker culture has always been progressive, it's just definition of what is progressive has changed somewhat. But hacker culture always sought to empower an individual (especially a smart, tech-savvy individual) against corporations, and rejection of gen AI seems reasonable in this light. If hacker culture wasn't luddite, it's because of the widespread belief that the new digital technology d…

Why do you have to reject LLMs? Wouldn’t a real hacker grab a local model and fiddle with it? Who are you people?

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#735

Post by newman8r »

idiotsecant wrote: post #476
everdrive wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Somewhere along the lines of "everybody can code," we threw out the values and aesthetics that attracted people in the first place. At some point people started universally accepting the idea that any sort of gatekeeping was a bad thing.I think by now people are starting to realize that this was a flawed idea. (at best, gatekeeping is not a pure negative; it's situational) But, despite coming to realize this I think…

Your point is that the hacker ethos involved ... Fewer people being excited about programming? I don't think we experienced this on the same planet. Web 1.0 was full of weirdos doing cool weird stuff for the pure joy of discovery. That's the ethos we need back, and it's not incompatible with AI. The wrong turn we took was letting business overtake joy. That's a decision we can undo today by opting out of that whole e…

> Web 1.0 was full of weirdos doing cool weird stuff for the pure joy of discovery. That's the ethos we need back, and it's not incompatible with AI.

True. And to some extent, I've seen more 'useless but fun' projects in the last year because they can be done in an afternoon rather than a week. We need more of that.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#736

Post by johnnyanmac »

easterncalculus wrote: post #244

> I find it particularly disillusioning to realize how deep the LLM brainworm is able to eat itself even into progressive hacker circles. That's the thing, hacker circles didn't always have this 'progressive' luddite mentality. This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. I don't like AI, generally. I am skeptical of corporate influence, I doubt AI 2027 and so-called 'AGI'. I'm certain we'll be "five years away"…

>All that said, the actual workday is absolutely filled with busy work that no one really wants to do, and the refusal of a loud minority to engage with that fact is what's leading to this.

And the dangerous part is that we are so hasty to remove that "busy work" that we fail to make sure it's done right. That willful ignorance seems counter to hacker culture which should encourage curiosity and a deeper understanding.

>It's why people can't post a meme, quote, article, whatever could be interpreted (very often, falsely) as AI-generated in a public channel, or ask a chatbot to explain a hand-drawn image without the off chance that they get an earful from one of these 'progressive' people.

In my experience, it's often is Ai generated more often than not. And yes, it is worth calling out. If you can't engage with the public, why do you expect them to engage with you?

It's like being mad about being passed on the current round of a game, all while you clearly have a phone to your ear.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#737

Post by johnnyanmac »

ineedasername wrote: post #520
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. Somewhere along the lines of "everybody can code," we threw out the values and aesthetics that attracted people in the first place. What began as a rejection of externally imposed values devolved into a mouthpiece of the current powers and principalities. This is evidenced by the new set of hacker values being almost purely performative when compared against the old…

"There is a way out: we need to create a culture that values craftmanship and dignifies work done by developers. We need to talk seriously and plainly about the spiritual and existential damage done by LLMs" This is the exact sentiment when said about some other profession or craft, countless people elsewhere and on HN have noted that it's neither productive not wise to be so precious about a task that evolved as a n…

>That is a failure of basic observation. A failure to see the thing you don't like because you don't like and decide not to look. Will you like it if you look?

Maybe we're observing different parts of the elephant. This is my industry right now: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/call-of-duty-blac...

A deca-billion dollar franchise now owned by a trillion dollar tech company... using it to make art that wouldn't pass a junior interview. It's no surprise there's such a strong rejection by the community who's paying attention. Cheaping out on a product a consumer pays $70 + a bunch of microtransactions for clearly shows the company's priorities.

Maybe there are spaces where you find success, but it's very clear that the water is muddying at large. You don't argue against a swamp by saying "but my corner here is clean!".

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#738

Post by johnnyanmac »

ineedasername wrote: post #698
dspillett wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm firmly in the “don't want to use it; if you want to, feel free, but stop nagging me to” camp. Oh, and the “I'm not accepting 'the AI did it' as an excuse for failures” camp. Just like outsourcing to other humans: you chose the tool(s), you are responsible for verifying the output. I got into programming and kicking infrastructure because I'm the sort of sad git who likes the details, and I'm not about to let some…

“Don’t want… “not accepting” Now this, putting aside my thoughts above, i find a compelling argument. You just don’t want to. I think that should go along with a reasonable understanding of what a person is choosing to not use, but I’ll presume you have that. Then? Sure, the frustrating part is to see someone making that choice tell other people that theirs is invalid, especially when we don’t know what the scene wil…

>there are options there are options that involve continuing the “craft” aspects you enjoy

My endgame is not to be beholden to any given corporations' sense of value (because it is rarely in the engineering), so I don't personally care what happens at large. I'll still enjoy the "craft" on my own and figure out the lines where I need to take a disciplined stance and grind it out myself, where I take on a dependency, or where I leave the work to a black box.

But if time comes for collaboration, then we'll work as a team. AKA we'll decide those lines and likely compromise on values to create something larger than the all of us. I doubt my line will ever be "let's just vibecode everything". But it's likely not going to be "use zero AI" unless I have a very disciplined team at hand and no financial stress between any of us.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#739

Post by johnnyanmac »

quantummagic wrote: post #367
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the culture that replaced hacker culture. Somewhere along the lines of "everybody can code," we threw out the values and aesthetics that attracted people in the first place. What began as a rejection of externally imposed values devolved into a mouthpiece of the current powers and principalities. This is evidenced by the new set of hacker values being almost purely performative when compared against the old…

> we need to create a culture that values craftmanship and dignifies work done by developers. Mostly I agree with you. But there's a large group of people who are way too contemptuous of craftsmen using AI. We need to push back against this arrogant attitude. Just as we shouldn't be contemptuous of a woodworking craftsman using a table saw.

> way too contemptuous of craftsmen using AI

We need to find such craftsmen first. A true craftmaan should be able to let the code speak for itself. And ideally they'd be able to teach well enough to have other adapt such a workflow, which inevitably includes constraints and methodologies.

That's the things I don't see enough of in these discussions. We're very afraid to talk about what AI is bad at, as if it's some sort of pampered child we need to keep pleasing. That's not how we attain progress in the craft. Maybe in the stock market, but at that point it's clear what the focus is.

Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works

#740

Post by johnnyanmac »

yawnxyz wrote: post #567
rozap wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now tell the AI to distill a bunch of user goals into a living system which has to evolve over time, integrate with other systems, etc etc. And deliver and support that system I use Claude code every day and it is a slam dunk for situations like the one above, fiddly UIs and the like. Seriously , some of the best money I spend. But it is not good at more abstract stuff. Still a massive time saver for me and does effe…

right, but this is akin to arguing why the table saw also does not do x/y/z — I don't know why we only complain about AI and how it does NOT do everything well yet . Maybe it's expectations set by all the AI companies, idk, but this kind of mentality seems very particular to AI products and nothing else.

well that's the issue. The table saw is a tool, we can very clearly agree it's good at cutting a giant plank of wood but horrible at screwing a bolt in. A carpenter can do both, but not a table saw. We never try to say the table saw IS the carpenter.

All this hype and especially the AGI talks want to treat the AI as an engineer itself. Even an assuredly senior engineer above is saying that it's better than them. So I think it's valid to ask "well can it do [thing a senior engineer does on the daily]" if we're suggesting that it can replace an engineer.

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