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>Maybe I’m in the minority. I’m definitely extremely impressed with GPT4, but coding to me was never really the point of software development. You're not the m

>Maybe I’m in the minority. I’m definitely extremely impressed with GPT4, but coding to me was never really the point of software development. You're not the minority. You're the majority. The majority can't look reality in the face and see the end. They lie to themselves. >While GPT4 is incredible, it fails OFTEN. And it fails in ways that aren’t very clear. And it fails harder when there’s clearly not enough training resources on the subject matter. Everyone and I mean everyone knows that if fails often. Use some common sense here. Why was the article written despite the fact that Everyone knows what you know? Because of the trendline. What AI was yesterday versus what it is today heralds what it will be tomorrow and every tomorrow AI will be failing less and less and less until it doesn't fail at all. >But even hypothetically if it was 20x better, wouldn’t that be a good thing? There’s so much of the world that would be better off if GOOD software was cheaper and easier to make. Ever the optimist. The reality is we don't know if it's good or bad. It can be both or it can weigh heavily in one direction. Most likely it will be both given the fact that our entire careers can nearly be replaced. >Idk where I’m going with this but if coding is something you genuinely enjoy, AI isn’t stopping anyone from doing their hobby. I don’t really see it going away any time soon, and even if it is going away it just never really seemed like the point of software engineering Sure. AI isn't going to end hobbies. It's going to end careers and ways of life. Hobbies will most likely survive.

chalcolithic 3y ago
I'm used to HN being sensible, and seeing your comment being downvoted makes me wonder what's happening? What's the reason for that optimism?
- corethree 3y ago
  Human nature. https://radiolab.org/podcast/91618-lying-to-ourselves https://radiolab.org/podcast/91618-lying-to-ourselves I know this is a rando podcast and you most likely won't listen to it. But it's totally worth it, just 10 minutes. It's about the science of how and why we lie to ourselves.
  - epcoa 3y ago
    Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Your trendline argument in DOA. “Use some common sense here.” As you are proving, it’s not very common.
    - corethree 3y ago
      Everytime you take an action you do so in anticipation of a predicted future. How did you predict that future? Using the past. Does your action always anticipate the correct future? No. There's no way we can "know" the future. We can only do the best possible prediction. And that is literally how all humans walk through life. We use the best possible predictor of the future to predict it. Right now the best possible predictor of the future points to one where AI will improve. That is a highly valid and highly likely outcome. It's literally part of what common sense is at a very fundamental level here. Your argument here is just wrong on every level. It's more akin to wishful thinking and deliberate self blindness or lying to oneself. When your career, when your mastery over programming, when your intelligence which you held in high regard along with your career is threatened to be toppled as a useless and replaceable skill. Of course you lie to yourself. Of course you blind yourself to the raw reality of what is most likely to occur. I mean the most realistic answer is that it's a probability. AI taking over may occur, it may not. That's a more neutral scientific answer. But this is not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing people trying to bend the narrative into one where there's no problem and nothing to worry about. When these people talk about AI they can't remain neutral. They always have to turn the conversation into something personal and bend the conversation towards their own skillet relative to AI. Why? Because that is the fundamental thing that is driving their viewpoint. Their own personal role in society relative to AI. The truly neutral party views the whole situation impartially without bringing his own personal situation into the conversation. The parent is not a neutral party and he's acting cliche. The pattern is classic and repeated over and over again by multitudes of people, especially programmers who hold their career and intelligence in high regard. Don't believe me? Ask yourself. Are you proud of your career? Do you think of yourself as intelligent and good at programming? If so you fit the bill of what I described above. A biased person can never see his own bias but if I predict classic symptoms of bias without prompt maybe, just maybe he can move out of the zone of denial. But most likely this won't happen.
- girvo 3y ago
  HN’s culture has changed somewhat and downvotes are now used more often to signal disagreement, sadly. But also “use common sense” and “but the trendline” are only partially compelling arguments as presented if you already believe what is being argued. They’re not compelling enough to those who aren’t convinced yet
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - corethree 3y ago
    The trendline is the only argument. What other predictor of the future is there? Given the available information there is no condition where one would bet against the trendline. Common sense is basically trendline following. It's the basis of our existence. You get out of bed without worrying about whether or not there is no ground under your feet because the trendline points to a reality where the ground is always there. The basis of AI tomorrow being better than today is common sense. chatGPT has improved since inception. Are we predicting improvement will suddenly stop? That AI technology will degrade? Such predictions as stated before, go against common sense. The big question here isn't about the future of AI. The future is as stated previously predictable by common sense. The big question here is why are so many people abandoning common sense?
    - RugnirViking 3y ago
      > What other predictor of the future is there? Typically, experts actually thinking about how technology works, on a deep level, does a pretty good job. Consider for example moore's law. A trendline everyone in the know knew couldn't continue long before it eventually failed. It wasn't a case of "well there are always some naysayers, they're right sometimes", it was anyone with any reasonable experience in building chips knew that each innovation is more hard won than the last, with physical barriers looming. Is AI like that? inevitably. There are invisible physical barriers to all fields and all technologies. The only way to find them is to try. But the discussion here is essentially hypothesising where and when they will show up. We may well be able to run an AGI. Using current techniques, it will need to be trained on a vastly more powerful compute stack than gpt4. Its difficult to impart to you just how big their current one is. They are going to have to mobilise non-trivial segments of entire industries and supply chains just to be big enough for gpt5. There will also be neat tricks that will be found to reduce requirements. But eventually, some wall will be hit, gains will slow. The bet is whether we get to AGI or whatever before then
shrimpx 3y ago
I appreciate your position but I want to push back against this type of rhetorical defense of stuff that has no basis in evidence or reasonable expectation. This sentiment parrots Sam Altman's and Musk's insistence that "AI" is super-powerful and dangerous, which is baseless rhetoric.

chalcolithic 3y ago

I'm used to HN being sensible, and seeing your comment being downvoted makes me wonder what's happening? What's the reason for that optimism?

corethree 3y ago
Human nature. https://radiolab.org/podcast/91618-lying-to-ourselves https://radiolab.org/podcast/91618-lying-to-ourselves I know this is a rando podcast and you most likely won't listen to it. But it's totally worth it, just 10 minutes. It's about the science of how and why we lie to ourselves.
- epcoa 3y ago
  Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Your trendline argument in DOA. “Use some common sense here.” As you are proving, it’s not very common.
  - corethree 3y ago
    Everytime you take an action you do so in anticipation of a predicted future. How did you predict that future? Using the past. Does your action always anticipate the correct future? No. There's no way we can "know" the future. We can only do the best possible prediction. And that is literally how all humans walk through life. We use the best possible predictor of the future to predict it. Right now the best possible predictor of the future points to one where AI will improve. That is a highly valid and highly likely outcome. It's literally part of what common sense is at a very fundamental level here. Your argument here is just wrong on every level. It's more akin to wishful thinking and deliberate self blindness or lying to oneself. When your career, when your mastery over programming, when your intelligence which you held in high regard along with your career is threatened to be toppled as a useless and replaceable skill. Of course you lie to yourself. Of course you blind yourself to the raw reality of what is most likely to occur. I mean the most realistic answer is that it's a probability. AI taking over may occur, it may not. That's a more neutral scientific answer. But this is not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing people trying to bend the narrative into one where there's no problem and nothing to worry about. When these people talk about AI they can't remain neutral. They always have to turn the conversation into something personal and bend the conversation towards their own skillet relative to AI. Why? Because that is the fundamental thing that is driving their viewpoint. Their own personal role in society relative to AI. The truly neutral party views the whole situation impartially without bringing his own personal situation into the conversation. The parent is not a neutral party and he's acting cliche. The pattern is classic and repeated over and over again by multitudes of people, especially programmers who hold their career and intelligence in high regard. Don't believe me? Ask yourself. Are you proud of your career? Do you think of yourself as intelligent and good at programming? If so you fit the bill of what I described above. A biased person can never see his own bias but if I predict classic symptoms of bias without prompt maybe, just maybe he can move out of the zone of denial. But most likely this won't happen.
girvo 3y ago
HN’s culture has changed somewhat and downvotes are now used more often to signal disagreement, sadly. But also “use common sense” and “but the trendline” are only partially compelling arguments as presented if you already believe what is being argued. They’re not compelling enough to those who aren’t convinced yet
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- corethree 3y ago
  The trendline is the only argument. What other predictor of the future is there? Given the available information there is no condition where one would bet against the trendline. Common sense is basically trendline following. It's the basis of our existence. You get out of bed without worrying about whether or not there is no ground under your feet because the trendline points to a reality where the ground is always there. The basis of AI tomorrow being better than today is common sense. chatGPT has improved since inception. Are we predicting improvement will suddenly stop? That AI technology will degrade? Such predictions as stated before, go against common sense. The big question here isn't about the future of AI. The future is as stated previously predictable by common sense. The big question here is why are so many people abandoning common sense?
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    > What other predictor of the future is there? Typically, experts actually thinking about how technology works, on a deep level, does a pretty good job. Consider for example moore's law. A trendline everyone in the know knew couldn't continue long before it eventually failed. It wasn't a case of "well there are always some naysayers, they're right sometimes", it was anyone with any reasonable experience in building chips knew that each innovation is more hard won than the last, with physical barriers looming. Is AI like that? inevitably. There are invisible physical barriers to all fields and all technologies. The only way to find them is to try. But the discussion here is essentially hypothesising where and when they will show up. We may well be able to run an AGI. Using current techniques, it will need to be trained on a vastly more powerful compute stack than gpt4. Its difficult to impart to you just how big their current one is. They are going to have to mobilise non-trivial segments of entire industries and supply chains just to be big enough for gpt5. There will also be neat tricks that will be found to reduce requirements. But eventually, some wall will be hit, gains will slow. The bet is whether we get to AGI or whatever before then

shrimpx 3y ago

I appreciate your position but I want to push back against this type of rhetorical defense of stuff that has no basis in evidence or reasonable expectation. This sentiment parrots Sam Altman's and Musk's insistence that "AI" is super-powerful and dangerous, which is baseless rhetoric.