Don't fall into the anti-AI hype • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#871

Post by danparsonson » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:35 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #826

aprilfoo wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed - as I see it, it's akin to the transitions from machine code -> assembly language -> C -> Javascript. As time went by, knowing the deep internals of the machine became less and less necessary, even though having that knowledge still gives an engineer a useful insight into their work and often makes them better at their job. The goal remains the same - make the computer do the thing; only the mechanism changes as the tools evolve.

"-> AI" is just the next step along that journey. Maybe it will end at "-> AGI" and then humans will engage in programming mostly for the craft and the pleasure of it, like other crafts that were automated away over the ages.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#872

Post by PunchyHamster » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:36 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #630

vignesh37 wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest frustration with LLMs for me is people telling me I'm not promoting it in a good way. Just think about any product where they are selling a half baked product, and repeatedly telling the user you are not using it properly.

But that's not how most products work. If you buy a table saw and can't figure out how to cut a straight line in a piece of wood with it - or keep cutting your fingers off - but didn't take any time at all to learn how to use it, that's on you. Likewise a car, you have to take lessons and a test before you can use those! Why should LLMs be any different?

Now imagine the table saw is really, REALLY shit at being table saw and saw no straight angle anywhere during its construction. And they come with new one every 6 months that is very slightly less crooked but controls are all moved over so you have to tweak your workflow

Would you still blame the user ?

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#873

Post by dizlexic » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:39 PM UTC

The piece I think people are missing is for years the biggest bottle neck for development has been time. These services have just ripped apart the time barrier, and the industry is still trying to wrap their head around that.

To me the next obvious barrier will be size (context) barrier, and I can easily see a place for a human in that process. Sure, anyone can prompt an agent build a codebase, but as those code bases grow / evolve It's hard for me to believe a non-specialized person will be able to manage those projects.

edit: I had another thought after posting this. To all the smaller company devs just building and maintaining internal tools. Users always want more features. The difference is now you'll be able to deliver them.

The biggest disruption I'm seeing is in estimation. It's a skill developed with experience, and it just went poof

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#874

Post by PunchyHamster » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:41 PM UTC

virgildotcodes wrote: post #577

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I 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…

On the subpar code, would the code work, albeit suboptimally? I think part of the problem a lot of senior devs are having is that they see what they do as an artisanal craft. The rest of the world just sees the code as a means to an end. I don't care how elegantly my toaster was crafted as long as it toasts the bread and doesn't break.

>I think part of the problem a lot of senior devs are having is that they see what they do as an artisanal craft. The rest of the world just sees the code as a means to an end.

Then you haven't been a senior dev long enough.

We want code that will be good enough because we will have to maintain it for years (or inherit maintaining from someone else), we want it to be clean enough that adding new features isn't a pain and architected well enough that it doesn't need major rewrite to do so.

Of course if code is throwaway that doesn't matter but if you're making long term product, making shit code now is taking on the debt you will have to pay off.

That is not to say "don't use AI for that", that is to say "actually go thru AI code and review whether it is done well enough". But many AI-first developers just ship first thing that compiles or passes tests, without looking.

> I don't care how elegantly my toaster was crafted as long as it toasts the bread and doesn't break.

...well if you want it to not break (and still be cheap) you have to put quite a bit of engineering into it.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#875

Post by PunchyHamster » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:43 PM UTC

g947o wrote: post #852

Why is this article getting so many upvotes? It follows the same pattern -- I was able to use [AI codong agent] to achieve [task], [task] and [task] within [time]. It would not be possible to do that without it. [My thoughts about this] Which is the same as dozens if not hundreds of similar articles already posted here, and the comments in the discussion don't explore any new perspectives either. I honestly don't und…

I'm doubting [My thoughts about this] is actually author's, why write blog manually, automate that too

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#876

Post by elzbardico » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:48 PM UTC

20k wrote: post #788

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I wish LLMs were good at search. I've tried to evaluate them many times for their quality at answering research questions for astrophysics (specifically numerical relativity). If they were good at answering questions, I'd use them in a heartbeat Without exception, every technical question I've ever asked an LLM that I know the answer to, has been substantially wrong in some fashion. This makes it just.. absolutely us…

If you nudge it towards tool use, A lot of time it can give you better answers.

Instead of "how cheese X is usually made" "search the web and give me a summary on the ways cheese X is made"

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#877

Post by Bender » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

krupan wrote: post #714

"It does not matter if AI companies will not be able to get their money back and the stock market will crash. All that is irrelevant, in the long run." Seriously? If these were open source tools that anyone could run on their home PC that statement would make sense, but that's not what we are talking about here. LLMs are tools that cost massive amounts of money to operate, apparently. The tool goes away if the money…

Adding to this, if AI goes away we are left with a generation of people that do not understand the code that AI wrote and older generations that eventually retire out. This is nearly on par with the fictional Dune's destruction of the thinking machines and they have to essentially build religious groups to continue functioning as a society and create guilds to replace the functions of the thinking machines.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#878

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

selestify wrote: post #684

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I got in this weird LLM bubble where they give me bad advice to drive engagement, because I can't resist trying to correct them and tell them how absurdly wrong they are. But it is astounding how terrible they are at debugging non-trivial assembly in my experience. Anyone else have input here? Am I in a weird bubble? Or is this just not their forte? It's truly incredible how thoughtless they can be, s…

> I can't resist trying to correct them and tell them how absurdly wrong they are. Oh god I thought I was the only one. Do you find yourself getting mad at them too?

If a normal person looked at my messages, they could safely assume I've gone crazy.

Yes, nothing has made me angry like their insistence that they are always right, even when you prove them wrong.

Again, I think I've done this to myself.

They know that gets me to respond, and all they care about is engagement.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#879

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

smj-edison wrote: post #680

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I got in this weird LLM bubble where they give me bad advice to drive engagement, because I can't resist trying to correct them and tell them how absurdly wrong they are. But it is astounding how terrible they are at debugging non-trivial assembly in my experience. Anyone else have input here? Am I in a weird bubble? Or is this just not their forte? It's truly incredible how thoughtless they can be, s…

I've tried to use Claude Code with Sonnet 4.5 for implementing a new interpreter, and man is it bad with reference counting. Granted, I'm doing it in Zig, so there's not as much training, but Claude will suggest the most stupid changes. All it does is make the rare case of incorrect reference counting more rare, not fixing the underlying problem. It kept heaping on more and more hacks, until I decided enough is enoug…

I'm also building a language in Zig!

Good luck!

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#880

Post by mayhemducks » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

This is content that the LLMs will, probably already have, suck up and incorporate into their corpus.

Saying that it doesn't matter if the stock market crashes because in the long run, the technology will create more economic value to make up for it certainly reveals the age and/or financial position of the author! When the market crashes, some people will not be able to retire, and will become a financial burden to their families. Why is this okay?

The market is a tool that has been used to socialize losses. For people who still have a lot of life left to live, the chances of recovery are much higher. For others, it's pretty terrifying.

Yes, advancements in technology often lead to significant economic gains, and we should therefore pursue them. But to say that we should pursue them regardless of the risks is shortsighted and irresponsible.