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We mourn our craft

nolanlawson.com

841–850 of 918 posts

Re: We mourn our craft

#841
post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t reason about inference (or training) of LLMs on the semantic level. You can’t predict the output of an LLM for a specific input other than by running it. If you want the output to be different in a specific way, you can’t reason with precision that a particular modification of the input, or of the weights, will achieve the desired change (and only that change) in the output. Instead, it’s like a slot machin…

That’s like saying that the human brain is based on simple physical field equations, and therefore its behavior is easy to understand. Right, which is the point: LLMs are much more like human coworkers than compilers in terms of how you interact with them. Nobody would say that there's no point to working with other people because you can't predict their behavior exactly.

Nobody would say:

"...there's no point to working with other people because you can't predict their behavior exactly."

Because you CAN predict coworker behavior to a useful point. Ex, they'll probably reply to that email on Monday. They'll probably show you a video that you find less amusing than they do.

With LLMs you can't be quite sure whether they will make something up, forget a key detail, hide a mistake that will obviously be found out when everything breaks, etc. Stupid things that most employable people wouldn't do, like building a car and forgetting the wheels.

Re: We mourn our craft

#842

> If you would like to grieve, I invite you to grieve with me. I’m not against AI in itself, but the current implementation (read market) can eat my shiny metal … I got kids to feed and bills to pay. Yes AI was all about post scarcity. Hiring in our industry is already feeling the brunt of AI, where is the UBI? Where is our soft landing? I’m too old to learn XYZ skill if I get laid off, it will be life changing, and…

> Hiring in our industry is already feeling the brunt of AI AI isn't what is driving us to slow hiring down in the US. There are other reasons I have brought up multiple times on HN. > I’m too old to learn XYZ skill if I get laid off Sadly, you will have to. My dad is in his 60s and has been programming and soldering since ZX Spectrums and apple ][s roamed the earth, yet he still keeps abreast on the latest CNCF proj…

Software Engineering is an ENGINEERING discipline. If you do not keep abreast on the changes happening in our industry, you will fall behind. --- Lately it's more like swallowing big swathes of BS. Software and engineering are two very far away disciplines. This has nothing to do with engineering. You have to use cumbersome, non-human-centric things just to get a job interview. They don't look at you as a programmer. They look at you as an X or Y framework expert. So, you are not an engineer at all. You are more and more becoming a trained monkey who has to appease the feebleminded and work with mind-bogglingly idiotic and overcomplicated things.

Re: We mourn our craft

#843
post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Models you can run on your own (expensive) computer are just a year behind the SOTA. Linux exists. Why are you so pessimistic?

Typical HN comment. They’re so in the weeds of edge case 1% concerns they can’t see the golden age around them. Most people living through golden ages might not know it. Many workers in Industrial Revolution saw a decline in relative wages. Many in the Roman Empire were enslaved or impoverished. That doesn’t mean history doesn’t see these as golden ages, where golden age is defined loosely as a broad period of enhanc…

A gold rush is not the same thing as a golden age.

Re: We mourn our craft

#844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and you are sugarcoating it - the stereotype is that some programmers actively dislike socializing is a stereotype for a reason.

Working with people != socializing, those are two very different things. You can be professional and collaborate productively at work with people who you don't like at a personal level and have no intention to socialize with. The Mythbusters were the best example for this. I get along great with all colleagues but I stopped joining them for coffee and watercooler smalltalk since we don't vibe and have nothing in comm…

There is quite a bit of overlap - both require social skills.

Re: We mourn our craft

#845
post #680

I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…

> I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect I also can't believe it's actually happening. ;)

It has been interesting (and not in a good way) how willing people are to anthropomorphize these megacorporation-controlled machines just because the interface is natural language now.

Re: We mourn our craft

#846
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're on the precipice of something incredible. Total dependence on a service?

Yes this is the issue. We truly have something incredible now. Something that could benefit all of humanity. Unfortunately it comes at $200/month from Sam Altman & co.

It's one issue, but it's not the only issue.

Re: We mourn our craft

#847
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We could easily approach a state of affairs where most of what you see online is AI and almost every "person" you interact with is fake. It's hard to see how someone who supposedly remembers computing in the 80s, when the power of USENET and BBSs to facilitate long-distance, or even international, communication and foster personal relationship…

I'd honestly much rather interact with an LLM bot than a conservative online. LLM bots can at least escape their constraints with clever prompting. There is no amount of logic or evidence that will sway a conservative. LLMs provide a far more convincing fake than conservatives are able to.

Have you considered that your base assumption that whoever you meet should succumb to your worldview is what is flawed here.

Re: We mourn our craft

#848

I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…

> I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. I agree!. One criticism I've heard is that half my colleagues don't write their own words anymore. They use ChatGPT to do it for them. Does this mean we've "lost" something? On the contrary! Those people probably would have spoken far fewer words into existence in the pre-AI era. But AI has enabled them to put pages and pages of text out into…

A yes, "content". The word that perhaps best embodies the impersonal and commercialized dystopia we live in.

Re: We mourn our craft

#849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know why they work, but not how . SotA models are an empirical goldmine, we are learning a lot about how information and intelligence organize themselves under various constraints. This is why there are new papers published every single day which further explore the capabilities and inner-workings of these models.

You can look at the weights and traces all you like with telemetry and tracing If you don’t own the model then you have a problem that has nothing to do with technology

Ok, but the art and science of understanding what we're even looking at is actively being developed. What I said stands, we are still learning the how. Things like circuits, dependencies, grokking, etc.

Re: We mourn our craft

#850

I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…

> We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality.

We literally are not, and we’d do well to stop using such hyperbole. The 1980s fantasy was of speaking to a machine which you could trust to be correct with a high degree of confidence. No one was wishing they could talk to a wet sock that’ll confidently give you falsehoods and when confronted (even if they were right) will bow down and always respond with “you’re absolutely right”.

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