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I miss thinking hard

jernesto.com

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Re: I miss thinking hard

#741

Post by balamatom »

kuerbel wrote: post #548
balamatom wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the AI warning, so I didn't have to read that.

Ah well, I'm neurodivergent and it’s challenging for me to write a comment while remembering that others don’t have access to my thoughts and might interpret things differently. And it's too late to edit it now What I wanted to show is that, clearly different from a camera or other devices, AI can copy originality. OPs comment was pretty original in it's wording, and gpt came pretty close imo. It really wasn't meant…

If AI can copy originality, we should be questioning our concept of originality. Not that it isn't a very suspect concept already. It's something to praise children for (autonomously combining the concepts provided to them) - but I've had the unwisdom of lurking long enough on the pre-LLM noosphere to get a glimpse of what gets done to the real originals since time self-fulfillingly immemorial.

'sides, I'm also neurocute af and feel acutely endangered by stuff that's effectively channeled: expressions which represent coherent agentic thought, yet are not bound to the volition of any individual embodied organism by regular personal accountability. If psychology is any indication, as non-augmented humans we're already not consciously aware of half our driving forces, and that's been trouble enough throughout history. How do you find it at all safe for the environment to broadcast Big Nobody's thoughts towards sentient beings?

AI is the linguistic instrument of those who cast away their capacity for bona fide verbal cognition as a condition of entering the hierarchy. They're a rather dangerous bunch, what with no beans to spill or marbles to lose. Subtle too, "somehow" got all normies working for 'em and usually not even knowing it till it's too late. Tell em I said hi!

Re: I miss thinking hard

#743

Post by caspar »

ericmcer wrote: post #635
fl0ki wrote: post #572

It really bothers me how many comments on this topic (here and elsewhere) draw a false parallel between LLM-based coding as an abstraction and frameworks and compilers as an abstraction. They're not the same thing and it matters. Frameworks and compilers are designed to be leak-proof abstractions. Any way in which they deviate from their abstract promise is a bug that can be found, filed, and permanently fixed. You g…

That is a good point because your brain interacts with them differently as well. If my C compiler sometimes worked and sometimes didn't I would just mash compile like an ape until it started working.

Well, sometimes your compiler will work out how to more efficiently compile a thing (e.g. vectorize a loop), and other times you'll rework some code to an equivalent formulation and suddenly it won't get vectorized because you've tripped some invisible flag that prevents an inlining operation that was crucial to enabling that vectorization, and now that hot path runs at a quarter of the speed it did before.

Technically it's (usually) deterministic for a given input, and you can follow various best practices to increase your odds of triggering the right optimizations.

But practically speaking "will I get the good & fast code for this formulation" is a crap shoot, and something like 99% (99.99%?) of programmers live with that. (you have guidelines and best practices you can follow, kinda like steering agents, but rarely get guarantees)

Maybe in the future the vast majority of programmers put up with a non-deterministic & variable amount of correctness in their programs, similar to how most of us put up with a (in practice) non-deterministic & variable amount of performance in our programs now?

Re: I miss thinking hard

#744

Post by pierredemilly »

This is not my experience with AI at all. The best thing that happened to me as a solo developer in a startup is Copilot in the Github mobile app.

I now spend most of my time at the park, in the subway or just in my bed, thinking about my app, my code, my roadmap, etc.

Since I have outsourced the actual writing and debugging of code to Copilot, I can focus my brain energy on actual thinking. And when I finish thinking, I take out my phone, write a GH issue, assign it to Copilot, and resume my thought process. ~20 minutes later, I check my phone again and read the PR.

In some cases, I just close it because it's not what I had in mind. In most cases, it's very good and starts me thinking again. After some time, I write my review. Rinse and repeat.

And once in a while, I'll sit at my desk to actually test the code, tweak some stuff and deploy.

I have never been this happy as a developer.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#746

Post by maplethorpe »

If vibe coding satisfies your need to build, then you're performing a deception on yourself. I guarantee it's still possible to satisfy one's need to create in the era of AI. Just switch off the autocomplete slot machine.

If your answer to that is "but I'll fall behind! It's not pragmatic to take the slower route!", think about the damage you're inflicting on yourself. You're allowing your neurons to wither while you trick your brain into releasing pleasure chemicals with a simulation of the real activity. Who is really falling behind, here?

Re: I miss thinking hard

#747

Post by gonational »

encyclopedism wrote: post #543
keyle wrote: post #63

I don't get it. I think just as hard, I type less. I specify precisely and I review. If anything, all we've changed is working at a higher level. The product is the same. But these people just keep mixing things up like "wow I got a ferrari now, watch it fly off the road!" Yeah so you got a tools upgrade; it's faster, it's more powerful. Keep it on the road or give up driving! We went from auto completing keywords, t…

I find it interesting, the comments on this post (not just this particular comment per se) and the sheer inability to relate or ATTEMPT to relate to another persons experience or feeling. The post itself articulated a viewpoint and experience, your having a different one does not negate the other. Nor does your perspective mean the other does not exist. I'm dumbfounded at many of the comments. Here are some clipped c…

It's honestly just an example of ego and coping. These people are trading temporary gains in pseudo-productivity for training their replacements and atrophying their skills.

The truth of the matter is that the people who will choose to partake already weren't thinking; otherwise they wouldn't have chosen. This is the same with every bubble or major revolutionary thing that ends up having negative effects in the long run. GLP-1 is another great example of one that is still on the upward arc.

Sheep will always be sheep, and, in my opinion, this is the reason for the changes in hiring and the large scale encouragement of folks that obviously are not smart enough for this career to suddenly join in over the past 10 years.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#748

Post by jatora »

quenix wrote: post #577
jatora wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely nah. I know it feels good to jump into the 'thinker' camp and lump the users of AI into a non-thinker group, but this dichotomy is very poorly suited. Builders/engineers want a great tool to build faster with. Coders want to write code and find elegance in the prose. Both are thinkers.

This just sounds like a boring definitional issue. 'Thinker' is a loaded word. You are advocating for a particular (more inclusive) definition for 'thinker' which clashes with the author's, but his is equally valid. You're both just gesturing at different concepts and suggesting they should be tagged to that word. OP raises a particular way to classify something about personalities, says he finds it quite interesting…

For some reason you're far too forgiving of an extremely forced and self-engrandizing dichotomy. Maybe you just don't notice it.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#749

Post by johnnyanmac »

darkwater wrote: post #350
Terr_ wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That embeds an assumption that the outsourced human workers are incapable of thought, and experience/create zero feedback loops of their own. Frustrated rants about deliverables aside, I don't think that's the case.

No. It just means the harsh reality: what's really soul crushing in outsourced work is having endless meetings to pass down / get back information, having to wait days/weeks/months to get some "deliverable" back on which iterate etc. Yes, outsourced human workers are totally capable of creative thinking that makes sense, but their incentive will always be throughput over quality, since their bosses usually give close…

>If you are outsourcing to an LLM in this case YOU are still in charge of the creative thought.

The meetings will continue regardless. Those meetings aren't purely there for productivity reasons. It's the incentives for middle managers and directors and whatnot.

Its just that all that throughput of an outside team is pushed onto you and 0-3 more engineers. You will optimize accordingly for your job and get something out to satisfy their demands. Likely sacrificing quality in the process. It's not different domesticating the outsourcing.

And that's fpr now. Maybe in decades' time the engineer is extinct and it's simply cheap scriptors who run it.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#750

Post by johnnyanmac »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #705
docmars wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a certain kind of irony in being asked externally to enjoy the rubbish I've been given to eat. It's still rubbish.

You sit at a desk. You get paid in the top 1% globally You have benefits Some hope or dreams for what to do with your future, life after work, retirement. You get to work with other people, overseas. Talk to those contractors sometimes. They are under tremendous pressure. They are mistreated. One wrong move, they're gone. They undergo tremendous prejudices, and soft racism everyday especially by us FTEs. You find out…

>You sit at a desk.

Already long. Got laid off.

>Be the change you want to see in the world.

Easy to say when you're at a desk and not scrounging up pennies to pay rent.

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