We used to lay the bricks, now we design the pyramids.
Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
821–830 of 1001 posts
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#822> How do I feel, about all the code I wrote that was ingested by LLMs? I feel great to be part of that, because I see this as a continuation of what I tried to do all my life: democratizing code, systems, knowledge. I don't see it as democratic or democratising. TBH the knowledge is stored in three giga companies that used sometimes almost non-lawful (if not lawful?) methods to gain it, scraping it off the gpl projec…
"democratizing" as in " I steal everybody's shit, make most content creators go bankrupt, then put it all in an LLM behind a paywall. " Privatization of all human knowledge--past, present, & future. They own both parties, so it's not like anyone is going to vote their way out of this one--unless one considers guillotines a form of voting.
Yeah I'm also with GP saying
>> I don't see it as democratic or democratising. TBH the knowledge is stored in three giga companies
It can appear democratic while access is allowed, but if it can be revoked at any moment for any reason (it is private companies, after all, that own the AI playgrounds), then the illusion will shatter.
What is more, excessive reliance on AI creates skill deficit rather than skill surplus, and promotes dependence on AI. Wizards that are nothing without their magic wands, in a way.
This may not stand out today, but give it half or one decade, when the next generation won't have a pre-AI skillet to fall back to, and the seams will become all too apparent.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#823I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…
> non-trivial coding tasks I’ve come back to the idea LLMs are super search engines. If you ask it a narrow, specific question, with one answer, you may well get the answer. For the “non-trivial” questions, there always will be multiple answers, and you’ll get from the LLM all of these depending on the precise words you use to prompt it. You won’t get the best answer, and in a complex scenario requiring highly recurs…
They don't even really do that IME. If I ask Claude or ChatGPT to generate terraform for non-trivial but by no means obscure or highly unusual setups, they almost invariably hallucinate part of the answer even if a documented solution exists that isn't even that difficult. Maybe vibe coding JavaScript is that much better, or I'm just hopeless at prompting, but I feel a few dozen lines of fairly straightforward terraform config shouldn't require elaborate prompt setups, or I can just save some brain cycles by writing it myself.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#824Thanks for reading / commenting this post. Initially it seemed like I received a bunch of very negative comments, now I read most of the thread, and there are very good points, articulated with sensibility. Thank you. I wanted to provide some more context that is not part of the blog post. Since somebody may believe I don't enjoy / love the act of writing code. 1. I care a lot about programming, I love creating somet…
This is by far the best summary of the state of affairs, or rather, the most sensible perspective that one should have on the state of affairs, that I've read so far.
Especially point 3 hits the nail on the head.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#825I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…
You can definitely use AI for non-trivial tasks.
It's not just about better prompting, but using better tools. Tools that will turn a bad prompt into a good prompt.
For example there is the plan mode for Cursor. Or just ask the AI: "make a plan to do this task", then you review the plan before asking it to implement. Configure the AI to ask you clarification questions instead of assuming things.
It's still evolving pretty quickly, so it's worth staying up to date with that.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#826Thanks for reading / commenting this post. Initially it seemed like I received a bunch of very negative comments, now I read most of the thread, and there are very good points, articulated with sensibility. Thank you. I wanted to provide some more context that is not part of the blog post. Since somebody may believe I don't enjoy / love the act of writing code. 1. I care a lot about programming, I love creating somet…
That's really interesting, but i'm wondering if this is as rational as it looks. > we are going to be kinda of obsolete in what defined us, as a profession: the ability to write code Is it a fact, really? I don't think "writing code" is a defining factor, maybe it's a prerequisite, as being able to write words hardly defines "a novelist". Anyway, prompt writing skills might become obsolete quite soon. So the main que…
I don't think our profession was writing code to begin with (and this may be a bit uuhh. rewriting history?); what we do is take an idea, requirements, an end goal and make it reality. Often times that involves writing code, but that's only one aspect of the software developer's job.
Analogy time because comment sections love analogies. A carpenter can hammer nails, screw screws, make holes, saw wood to size. If they then use machines to make that work easier, do they stop being carpenters?
It's good if not essential to be able to write code. It's more important to know what to write and when. Best thing to do at this point is to stop attaching one's self-worth with the ability to write code. That's like a novelist (more analogies) who praises their ability to type at 100wpm. The 50 shades books proved you don't need to either touch type (the first book was mostly written on a blackberry apparently) or be good at writing to be successful, lol.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#827Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Other people are just less picky than I am I think this is part of it. When coding style has been established among a team, or within an app, there are a lot of extra hoops to jump through, just to get it to look The Right Way, with no detectable benefit to the user. If you put those choices aside and simply say: does it accomplish the goal per the spec (and is safe and scalable[0]), then you can get away with a lo…
> with no detectable benefit to the user Except the fact that the idioms and patterns used means that I can jump in and understand any part of the codebase, as I know it will be wired up and work the same as any other part.
I think here “to the user” is referring to the end user, not the programmer (the user of the coding style). There is a comprehension benefit for the team working on the code, but there is no direct¹ benefit to the end user.
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[1] The indirect benefits of there possibly being a faster release cadence and/or fewer bugs, could also be for many other reasons.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#828Thanks for reading / commenting this post. Initially it seemed like I received a bunch of very negative comments, now I read most of the thread, and there are very good points, articulated with sensibility. Thank you. I wanted to provide some more context that is not part of the blog post. Since somebody may believe I don't enjoy / love the act of writing code. 1. I care a lot about programming, I love creating somet…
I still really, really, really struggle to see how humans are going to maintain and validate the programs written by LLMs if we no longer know (intimately) how to program. Any thoughts?
Same how we do it now - look at the end result, test it. Testers never went away.
Besides, your comment goes by the assumption that we no longer know (intimately) how to program - is that true? I don't know C or assembly or whatever very well, but I'm still a valuable worker because I know other things.
I mean it could be partially true - but it's like having years of access to Google to quickly find just what I need, meaning I never learned how to read e.g. books on software development or scientific paper end to end. Never felt like I needed to have that skill, but it's a skill that a preceding generation did have.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#829> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…
> I think there is a section of programmer who actually do like the actual typing of letters, numbers and special characters into a computer... This sounds like an alien trying and failing to describe why people like creating things. No, the typing of characters in a keyboard has no special meaning, neither does dragging a brush across a canvas or pulling thread through fabric. It's the primitive desire to create som…
Do you enjoy the process of creating a solution more than the actual solution?
This is the main difference why people argue against LLMs in programming.
I'm in the "I want to solve a problem" end of the spectrum. Many others are in the "I want the code to be elegant, maintanable and beautifully crafted - oh, yeah, the problem might be solved too" end.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#830Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, but: There's been a notable jump over the course of the last few months, to where I'd say it's inevitable. For a while I was holding out for them to hit a ceiling where we'd look back and laugh at the idea they'd ever replace human coders. Now, it seems much more like a matter of time. Ultimately I think over the next two years or so, Anthropic and OpenAI will evolve their product from "coding assistant" to "…
> Ultimately I think over the next two years or so, Anthropic and OpenAI will evolve their product from "coding assistant" to "engineering team replacement" The way I see it, there will always be a layer in the corporate organization where someone has to interact with the machine. The transitioning layer from humans to AIs. This is true no matter how high up the hierarchy you replace the humans, be it the engineers l…
That reminds me of the time where 3GL languages arrived and bosses claimed they no longer needed developers, because anyone could write code in those English-like languages.
Then when mouse-based tools like Visual Basic arrived, same story, no need for developers because anyone can write programs by clicking!
Now bosses think that with AI anyone will be able to create software, but the truth is that you'll still need software engineers to use those tools.
Will we need less people? Maybe. But in the past 40 years we have been increasing the developers productivity so many times, and yet we still need more and more developers because the needs have grown faster.