9 ms·

Software companies want to shove AI everywhere because it's the shiny new thing. Hardware companies love it because they can finally have a way to fight the "it

Software companies want to shove AI everywhere because it's the shiny new thing. Hardware companies love it because they can finally have a way to fight the "it's good enough for email and browsing" argument to sell us more hardware.

ActionHank 2y ago
And yet, weirdly, MS have chosen to just make it their entire personality at this point. There has, for a number of years, been a move away from Windows to macOS and Linux for devs. I suspect this will start to accelerate because people don't want tools that are obnoxiously omnipresent. Carpenters have various ways to keep their most used tools at hand, but you don't see them wearing a charm bracelet of every tool they need.
- sebazzz 2y ago
  It seems like every product manager (or program manager) or maybe all the way down to staff have got “incorporating AI” as some kind of KPI - on which your performance is measured.
  - daemin 2y ago
    It's as if it's the company's mission.
- ausbah 2y ago
  i heard through the grapevine msft had laid off a number of PMs due to anticipating copilot increasing their daily productivity
  - ActionHank 2y ago
    There is a hoard of people who "work in tech" that don't work in tech. These are people who are missing valuable business insights or who are working on novel solutions and include many developers. Those are the ones who will struggle with relevance going forward. Equally, large corporations are at significant risk if the productivity of a single person increases further. If you look at the game industry, indie games are running circles around the AAA games, but this is limited to exceptional individuals or teams. Make more people individually exceptional and it's going to be real hard for big companies to eat.
- disqard 2y ago
  I love this visual -- carpenters carrying all of their tools around everywhere, gratuitously, obnoxiously, continuously :D
Nickersf 2y ago
A shiny new tool to extract data from users and convert that into $
joblemblem 2y ago
> because it's the shiny new thing I wish it were that simple, but I feel for this to be true then consumers would need to want it. In reality it gives them plausible deniability for increased surveillance, control, and extracting more value from customers without their consent.
- ed_elliott_asc 2y ago
  I thought it was more about the share price and showing how you were staying relevant
  - chongli 2y ago
    It's all of the above plus the faint hope that people will actually use the AI features and come to depend on them for some reason!
- aplusbi 2y ago
  Remember, the product is the stock and the customers are the shareholders. And oh boy do the customers want AI.
- squigz 2y ago
  Does the audience here on HN really think that consumers don't want this technology?
llm_nerd 2y ago
They're shoving AI everywhere because it's extraordinarily powerful and truly differentiating. Being jaded and cynical about it doesn't change that reality. Obviously there will be winners and losers and it will shake out -- personally I can't imagine using notepad for more than pasting arbitrary text and it seems like the least features is the best -- but bonafide text tools without AI in 2024 are crippling.
- NamTaf 2y ago
  You’re right that it is certainly differentiating for me, but not in a good way.
- croes 2y ago
  If AI is so powerful why don’t we see a massive productivity spike around the globe? It may be convenient but more than once just replaced the time I needed to write my code by time fine tuning the prompt because the AI didn’t quite got what I wanted. On top of that I must review foreign code. That’s harder than code I already know. And on top of that the end result lacks the feeling of accomplishment in solving a problem because it wasn’t me who wrote it. I‘m degraded to some kind customer of the AI. Assembly line workers are said to be alienated from the product they produce, I guess the same will happen for AI users.
  - llm_nerd 2y ago
    >If AI is so powerful why don’t we see a massive productivity spike around the globe? We overestimate the short term effects and underestimate the long term effects (Amara's law). We're currently in the trough of disillusionment where people are running around saying that AI failed, was overblown, etc, while people like me are working with corporations to completely change how they operate, to an outrageous efficiency boost. Our world is going to look very different in a decade. >It may be convenient but more than once just replaced the time I needed to write my code by time fine tuning the prompt because the AI didn’t quite got what I wanted Most software developers spend very little of their time actually "coding", and most of their time investigating, understanding, comparing, and so on. I have never used AI for "production" code -- I never copy/paste something into my code -- but dozens of times a day I do use it to get rough outlines, investigate libraries and their use, and most importantly to get heuristics on paths to take in the code I do write. It has proven absolutely invaluable to me and I can't imagine not having it as an accelerator now.

ActionHank 2y ago

And yet, weirdly, MS have chosen to just make it their entire personality at this point. There has, for a number of years, been a move away from Windows to macOS and Linux for devs. I suspect this will start to accelerate because people don't want tools that are obnoxiously omnipresent. Carpenters have various ways to keep their most used tools at hand, but you don't see them wearing a charm bracelet of every tool they need.

sebazzz 2y ago
It seems like every product manager (or program manager) or maybe all the way down to staff have got “incorporating AI” as some kind of KPI - on which your performance is measured.
- daemin 2y ago
  It's as if it's the company's mission.
ausbah 2y ago
i heard through the grapevine msft had laid off a number of PMs due to anticipating copilot increasing their daily productivity
- ActionHank 2y ago
  There is a hoard of people who "work in tech" that don't work in tech. These are people who are missing valuable business insights or who are working on novel solutions and include many developers. Those are the ones who will struggle with relevance going forward. Equally, large corporations are at significant risk if the productivity of a single person increases further. If you look at the game industry, indie games are running circles around the AAA games, but this is limited to exceptional individuals or teams. Make more people individually exceptional and it's going to be real hard for big companies to eat.
disqard 2y ago
I love this visual -- carpenters carrying all of their tools around everywhere, gratuitously, obnoxiously, continuously :D

Nickersf 2y ago

A shiny new tool to extract data from users and convert that into $

joblemblem 2y ago

> because it's the shiny new thing I wish it were that simple, but I feel for this to be true then consumers would need to want it. In reality it gives them plausible deniability for increased surveillance, control, and extracting more value from customers without their consent.

ed_elliott_asc 2y ago
I thought it was more about the share price and showing how you were staying relevant
- chongli 2y ago
  It's all of the above plus the faint hope that people will actually use the AI features and come to depend on them for some reason!
aplusbi 2y ago
Remember, the product is the stock and the customers are the shareholders. And oh boy do the customers want AI.
squigz 2y ago
Does the audience here on HN really think that consumers don't want this technology?

llm_nerd 2y ago

They're shoving AI everywhere because it's extraordinarily powerful and truly differentiating. Being jaded and cynical about it doesn't change that reality. Obviously there will be winners and losers and it will shake out -- personally I can't imagine using notepad for more than pasting arbitrary text and it seems like the least features is the best -- but bonafide text tools without AI in 2024 are crippling.

NamTaf 2y ago
You’re right that it is certainly differentiating for me, but not in a good way.
croes 2y ago
If AI is so powerful why don’t we see a massive productivity spike around the globe? It may be convenient but more than once just replaced the time I needed to write my code by time fine tuning the prompt because the AI didn’t quite got what I wanted. On top of that I must review foreign code. That’s harder than code I already know. And on top of that the end result lacks the feeling of accomplishment in solving a problem because it wasn’t me who wrote it. I‘m degraded to some kind customer of the AI. Assembly line workers are said to be alienated from the product they produce, I guess the same will happen for AI users.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  >If AI is so powerful why don’t we see a massive productivity spike around the globe? We overestimate the short term effects and underestimate the long term effects (Amara's law). We're currently in the trough of disillusionment where people are running around saying that AI failed, was overblown, etc, while people like me are working with corporations to completely change how they operate, to an outrageous efficiency boost. Our world is going to look very different in a decade. >It may be convenient but more than once just replaced the time I needed to write my code by time fine tuning the prompt because the AI didn’t quite got what I wanted Most software developers spend very little of their time actually "coding", and most of their time investigating, understanding, comparing, and so on. I have never used AI for "production" code -- I never copy/paste something into my code -- but dozens of times a day I do use it to get rough outlines, investigate libraries and their use, and most importantly to get heuristics on paths to take in the code I do write. It has proven absolutely invaluable to me and I can't imagine not having it as an accelerator now.