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Everyone in Seattle hates AI

jonready.com

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Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#981

Post by coolThingsFirst »

mips_avatar wrote: post #678
decimalenough wrote: post #253

While everybody else is ranting about AI, I'll rant about something else: trip planning apps. There have been literally thousands of attempts at this and AFAICT precisely zero have ever gotten any traction. There are two intractable problems in this space. 1) A third party app simply cannot compete with Google Maps on coverage, accuracy and being up to date. Yes, there are APIs you can use to access this, but they're…

That’s why I built all my geo infrastructure from scratch from osm, there’s still some issues but for AI location grounding it outperforms google places for $300/mo

Google has monopoly of places API, I tried foursquare and their public dataset and got tons of wrong locations of the places. It even got the location of the Eiffel tower wrong.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#982

Post by WorldMaker »

tinodb wrote: post #974
WorldMaker wrote: post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the conflicting point you missed is that "right tool for the job" also implies "right tool". If you don't think that probabilistic output counts as "query response" then LLMs are the "wrong tool" for any text query engine. If a database engine returned the right answer only X% of the time, you would say the database engine is faulty and find another. LLMs are probabilistic algorithms that by their very nature…

For lots of jobs of “text querying” they do good enough of a job to be on par with humans (which are not infallible either). And there are applications where you don’t have/wouldn’t pay another human, and the job that an AI does for mere cents is good enough most of the times. Like doing an analysis on a legacy codebase. I’ll read and verify, but running that “query” then saved me a lot of time. Not everything needs…

I agree, they can be "practical tools for the job", that's where I ended my comment. The disagreement seems to be that "practical tool for the job" is the same as "right tool for the job". A hammer can be a practical tool for the job of screwing a nail into a wall (once, at least) but few would call it the right tool for that job. An LLM can be a practical tool for a text query (at least as a first pass, at least with review and a grain of sand), but if you need reliability or repeatability or the ability to send results directly to a customer without a human in the loop it may not be the right tool for the job.

There's obviously a value in practical tools, deterministic or not. It's just worth making the distinction that a practical tool is not always fit for purpose as the "right" tool if you really are seeking the (most) right tool for the job.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#983

Post by poutrathor »

please rework your color gradient text on the landing page of Wanderfugl. On dark mode it is rendered as a rectangle of gradient. My dark mode is handled by Dark Reader the firefox addon. It breaks the flow of presentation.

Also, at the bottom, the beta is opened but it closes the November 15th, so it's close and open at the same time :) (else it's November 2026?)

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#984

Post by throw234234234 »

sunaookami wrote: post #704
nateglims wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of tech, I think the opinion is generally negative. AI has lost a lot the narrative due to things like energy prices and layoffs.

ChatGPT is one of the most used websites in the world and it's used by the most normal people in the world, in what way is the opinion "generally negative"?

A big reason is relative advantage. The "I have to use it because its there now and everyone else is, but I would rather no one have to use it at all" argument.

Lets say I'm a small business and I want to produce a new logo for some marketing material. In the past I would of paid someone either via a platform or some local business to do it. That would of just been the cost of business.

Now since there is a lower cost technology, and I know my competition is using it, I should use it too else all else equal I'm losing margin compared to my competition.

It's happening in software development too. Its the reason they say "if you don't use AI you will be taken over by someone who does". It may be true; but that person may of wished the AI genie was never let out of the bottle.

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#985

Post by gizzlon »

mips_avatar wrote: post #128
par wrote: post #86

I think reading the room is required here. You and your friend can both be right at the same time. You want to build an AI-enabled app, and indeed there's plenty of opportunity for it I'm sure. And your friend can hate what it's done to their job stability and the industry. Also, totally unrelated, but is the meaning or etymology behind the app name Wanderfugl? I initially read it as Wanderfungl.

It's wandering bird in Norwegian

no..?

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#986

Post by kouru225 »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #752

Someone wrote on HN the (IMO) main reason why people do not accept AI. AI is about centralisation of power So basically, only a few companies that hold on the large models will have all the knowledge required to do things, and will lend you your computer collecting monthly fees. Also see https://be-clippy.com/ for more arguments (like Adobe moving to cloud to teach their model on your work). For me AI is just a natur…

Karpathy recently did an interview where he says that the future of AI is 1b models and I honestly believe him. The small models are getting better and better, and it’s going to end up decentralizing power moreso than anything else

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#987

Post by kouru225 »

latexr wrote: post #786
p0w3n3d wrote: post #752

Someone wrote on HN the (IMO) main reason why people do not accept AI. AI is about centralisation of power So basically, only a few companies that hold on the large models will have all the knowledge required to do things, and will lend you your computer collecting monthly fees. Also see https://be-clippy.com/ for more arguments (like Adobe moving to cloud to teach their model on your work). For me AI is just a natur…

> This enhances my work. However other people seem to feel threatened. I wish people would stop spreading this as if it were the main reason. It’s a weak argument and disconnected from reality, like those people who think the only ones who dislike cryptocurrencies are the ones who didn’t become rich from it. There are plenty of reasons to be against the current crop of AI that have nothing to do with employment. The…

Ngl I feel like most people only accept these criticisms of AI because they’re against AI to begin with. If you look at the claims, they fall apart pretty quickly. The environment issue is negligible and has less to do with AI than just computing in general, the consolidation of resources assumes that larger more expensive AI models will outcompete smaller local models and that’s not necessarily happening, the spread of misinformation doesn’t seem to have accelerated at all since AI came about (probably because we were already at peak misinformation and AI can’t add much more), the decay in critical thinking is far overblown if not outright manipulated data.

About the only problem here is the increase of surveillance and you can avoid that by running your own models, which are getting better and better by the day. The fact that people are so willing to accept these criticisms without much scrutiny is really just indicative of prior bias

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#988

Post by valbaca »

sph wrote: post #778
mips_avatar wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best of luck with this transition. I had a really hard time when I left Microsoft. It’s took longer than I expected to feel better but I do now.

Jesus, is it actually a thing to grieve after leaving a job? (doesn't sound like you were laid off)

Yes, absolutely

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#989

Post by [deleted] »

whoamiopa wrote: post #189

Very new ex-MSFT here. I couldn’t relate more with your friend. That’s exactly what happened. I left Microsoft about 5 weeks ago and it’s been really hard to detox from that culture. AI pushed down everywhere. Sometimes shitty-AI that needed to be proved at all cost because it should live up to the hype. I was in one of such AI-orgs and even there several teams felt the pressure from SLT and a culture drift to a dysf…

[deleted]

Re: Everyone in Seattle hates AI

#990

Post by alexeischiopu »

knollimar wrote: post #147
0_____0 wrote: post #70

My 2¢... LLMs are kind of amazing for structured text output like code. I have a completely different experience using LLMs for assistance writing code (as a relative novice) than I do in literally every other avenue of life. Electricl engineering? Garbage. Construction projects? Useless. But code is code everywhere, and the immense amount of training data available in the form of working code and tutorials, design a…

I'm experimenting with the gemini 3 and will do opus 4.5 soon, but I've seen huge jumps doing EE for construction over the last batch of models. I'm working on a harness but I think it can do some basic revit layouts with coaxing (which with a good harness should be really useful!) Let me know what you've experienced. Not many construction EE on HN.

EE on HN and from construction!

I use to draft in AutoCad and Revit before switching to software.

Saw your comment around using Gemini. I’d love to chat with you. I started building something for the build side of the electrical world, but eventually want to make the jump to the design side of the house.

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