Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I don't care how well your "AI" works
771–780 of 808 posts
Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#772Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the dilemma isn’t whether to “resist” or “acquiesce”, but rather whether to frame technological change as an inherently adversarial and zero sum struggle, versus looking for opportunities to leverage those technologies for greater productivity, comfort, prosperity, etc. Stop pushing against the idea of change. It’s going to happen, and keep happening, forever. Work with it. And by any metric, the average citize…
Your profile: Former staff software engineer at big tech co, now focused on my SaaS app, which is solo, bootstrapped, and profitable. Yep. Makes sense. > And by any metric Can you cite one? Just curious. I enjoy when people challenge the idea that the advancement of tech doesn't always result in a better world for all because I grew up in Detroit, where a bunch of car companies decided that automation was better than…
The fact that you’d even ask me to share a metric of how someone from a century or two is worse off tells me all I need to know about whether you’re able to engage in good faith here. Ditto for the low effort ad hominem attack you opened with.
But by all means, carry on with your tilting at the windmills of change.
Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#773Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the dilemma isn’t whether to “resist” or “acquiesce”, but rather whether to frame technological change as an inherently adversarial and zero sum struggle, versus looking for opportunities to leverage those technologies for greater productivity, comfort, prosperity, etc. Stop pushing against the idea of change. It’s going to happen, and keep happening, forever. Work with it. And by any metric, the average citize…
> and this probably won’t be any different It's just exhausting to read the 1000th post of people saying "If we replace jobs with AI, we will all be having happy times instead of doing boring work." It's like reading a Kindergartner's idea of how the world works. People need to pay for food. If they are replaced, companies are not going to make up jobs just so they can hire people. They are under no responsibility or…
Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#774Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#775Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#776Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 would…
Such overt contempt for pretty much everyone directly involved in the economic transaction. But not the investors, of course.
Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#777> 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"…
Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#778Earlier quoted context omitted.
Capitalism is bad. I'm not ignorant to this fact that it helped us for quite a long time but it also created climate change. Overpopulation. We are still stuck on planet earth, have not figured out the reason for live or the origin of the universe. I would prefer a world were we think about using all the resources earth provides sustainable and how to use them the most efficient way for the max amount of human beings…
You would need to demonstrate that some other system would have given us all the things you want while avoiding every problem you cite, while not introducing other comparable or worse problems.
Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#779Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which human? LLMs are better than the average developer. In fact I estimate the SOTA models are well over the 90% percentile.
You both are cracking me up. Yes, LLMs are better than the average developer at writing code. But writing code is, like, 30% of what developers do.
In many companies, product development is very cyclic - new products and enhancement/modernization cycles come and result in months, maybe years, of intense development (architecture, design, maybe prototyping before coding) but then there may be many months of "downtime" before the next major development cycle, where coding gives way to ongoing support, tuning, bug triaging, etc.
Maybe in some large companies there are highly compartmentalized roles like business analyst, systems architect, developers, perhaps "coders" as a separate or junior category (I have never worked anyplace where "coders" was a thing, although some people seem to insist that it still is). My experience, of a lifetime of software development, mostly at smaller companies, is that "software developers" are expected to do all of the above as well as production support, documentation, mentoring, new technology evaluation, etc, etc. The boss wants to give you a high level assignment, and get back a product. At one company I worked it was literally "build us an EKG machine at this price point", which might be a bit of an extreme example.
The other thing a human software developer does during any "downtime" is self-initiated projects such as creating tools and infrastructure, automation, self-learning, refactoring, etc, and in my experience these self-initiated efforts can be just as, if not more, important to the overall productivity, and output quality, of the team as that of the product development cycles.
LLMs primary use is coding, although they can also be of use for conversational brainstorming about design, tooling, etc. If you are "vibe coding" (just ask the LLM to do it, and cross your fingers) then the LLM is also doing in effect doing architecture, design, tool selection etc.
Notwithstanding agents, which the AI companies proudly state may run for hours before messing up, LLMs are not autonomous entities that can replace developers and be handed high level assignments and will do what it takes (incl. communication with all stake holders, etc) to get the job done. They will not run in the background "taking care of the business" when you are not prompting them.
Re: I don't care how well your "AI" works
#780Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you seen the latest AI slop in game design lately, destroying human creativity? Have you seen how this tech is being used to control narratives to subjugate populations to the will of authoritarian governments? This shit is real. We are slowly sliding into a world where every aspect of our lives are going to be dictated by people in power with tools that can shape the future by manipulating what people think abo…
Have you seen the latest AI slop in game design lately, destroying human creativity? This just in: 90% of everything is crap. AI does not, cannot, and will not change that. Have you seen how this tech is being used to control narratives to subjugate populations to the will of authoritarian governments? Can't say as I have. The only authoritarians in this thread are the ones telling us what we should and should not be…
Use a search engine. Such a disingenuous take. AI is demonstrably being used to flood the web with slop faster than humans ever could. Now 99% of everything will be crap, just like your takes.