4 ms·

> But I will never "open" another piece of software, now that it's all grist for the LLM code generator industry. This is an interesting, albeit offtopic, disc

by sph 2y ago

> But I will never "open" another piece of software, now that it's all grist for the LLM code generator industry. This is an interesting, albeit offtopic, discussion. My last few projects are still stored as private repos because I do not want them to be gobbled up by LLMs for junior, expendable and cheaper devs to replace me, especially when I am exploring novel problem-spaces. In fact, I do not care to be convinced otherwise, I am ideologically speaking completely opposed to any form of LLM or "AI". I daydream of a niche, nerdy network of nerds, outside the world wide web, to share my stuff with humans. Until then, I am not sure whether my projects should be open-source. The ones that will benefit the most are the idiotic machines and their operators. Should we resurrect Gopher for a few months, until they catch up?

csdvrx 2y ago
Your perspective is very strange, as I want to be replaced by cheaper devs - or ideally, even machines, which would free us humans to work on other problems that machine can't work on yet. > In fact, I do not care to be convinced otherwise, I am ideologically speaking completely opposed to any form of LLM or "AI". Then could you try to convince me of your argument? I don't see tech problems as worse or better than other problems like growing food, which we were fortunate to solve with industrialized farming and other technological breakthroughs like the Haber–Bosch process Explain me why I should join your daydream!
- sph 2y ago
  > which would free us humans to work on other problems We have heard this refrain since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    And it’s been true. I don’t have to break my back toiling the earth to grow crop. Nor risk other kinds of life changing injuries working in factories, down the mines, etc. Instead, I’ve got a comfortable job which requires using my brain. Which is an opportunity that someone from my social class wouldn’t have been granted even just 100 years ago.
    - sph 2y ago
      We were talking about machines freeing time so we can do other things, do not move the goalposts to fit your argument. Yes, I do not have to break my back 5 hours a day in the field, I only have to sit in an office 8 hours, and 2 hours commute a day. Also make sure you check your Slack notifications at home. [1] I hope you enjoy your couple hours in the weekend to read philosophy and paint landscapes. 1: in fact I don't waste all my time working like most, but that makes me unhireable to 99% of companies that just want to squeeze every productive minute out of me.
      - ncruces 2y ago
        Let's all go back to doing the laundry by hand. Because life was better back then.
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        > We were talking about machines freeing time so we can do other things, do not move the goalposts to fit your argument. That’s a very uncharitable comment given “time” wasn’t mentioned once in either your comment nor the GPs. You might have read their comment as meaning “less work” (time) but for me it reads that they’re talking about “different and more interesting work”. Both interpretations are valid. I get a sense from your rant that you’re massively overworked. I do sympathise with you there, I honestly do. But that’s got nothing to do with AI.
    - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
      The biggest use of professional AIs will offset the majority of big brain jobs, possibly leaving the majority of jobs left for humans to do being physical back-breaking labor at some point before long.
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        We’ve long since proven that machines are better for back-breaking labor. I also disagree that AI will offset the majority of big brain jobs. What’s actually happening is AI is offsetting the majority of narrowly defined queries. The more open ended problems require an actual understanding of problem solving rather than a really clever text prediction engine. Some examples to illustrate my point: If you wanted to build a mobile app, you’d need to first: - understand the problem you’re trying to solve (is it a game? A medical app? A productivity app? Etc) - choose a frontend stack - create a design language - create wireframes - decide where to host the backend stack (eg self hosted? Or public cloud? If so, which?) - decide which cloud services to use (if public cloud) - decide on how to approach IaC - decide on the backend stack - decide on how to implement your CI/CD pipelines (or even if you want continuous delivery) - understand what privacy and security concerns you have and identify what risks you’re willing to accept - define testing strategy’s - define release cadences And so on and so forth. Writing the code is often actually the easiest part of software development because we already understand the problem by that point. The rest of the work is figuring out all questions that need to be answered — and I don’t even mean answering the questions, I mean understanding what questions to ask. AI can’t do that. GenAI requires human input and much of software development is actually figuring out what those inputs should be rather than generating that output. So that’s what I mean by “big brain jobs”. It’s not writing code, because that’s easy. It’s understanding and defining those requirements to begin with.
pizzafeelsright 2y ago
I long for your confidence in your own ingenuity. If you think private repos on third party systems are hidden from training I suppose you have more trust in expendable developers working to maximize training. At this point I am fairly convinced that software development is solved. The reality has not been understood by most as typing syntax is now a trivial task best left to AI.
- sph 2y ago
  I have been migrating my private repos to a private Gitea instance of my own. I am well aware that anything on Github is used to train Copilot. > At this point I am fairly convinced that software development is solved. Writing code is 20% of software development, which is why I am still in demand even if I refuse to use LLM software. But employers and recruiters are not rational, and will soon rather hire cheap, expendable "monkeys on a typewriter" than experienced engineers.
- imtringued 2y ago
  I wasted at least an hour today on waiting to anti virus software to let my software start. No amount of AI will overcome the slowness of antivirus software. Also, about software development being "solved". I beg to differ. Sakana AI failed to reliably produce working CUDA kernels and that was in a domain where the task was explicitly specified as pytorch code, so it was, in a way, just a glorified syntax typing demonstration.
hu3 2y ago
> My last few projects are still stored as private repos because I do not want them to be gobbled up by LLMs for junior, expendable and cheaper devs to replace me, especially when I am exploring novel problem-spaces. I'll try to be gentle, pardon me in advance. 1) Your problem space is probably not novel enough to warrant such preciousness. 2) "Junior, expendable and cheaper devs" don't compete with Senior+ because they don't know how to even ask the right questions. And they don't possess enough soft skills to navigate hard projects. 3) But let's suppose that you do indeed have IP that's more valuable to humanity than the CRUD crap we are paid to spit out on a daily basis: We will all die, and it can happen anytime now, why risk having your contribution die with you? Even if you setup posterous access to other people, there's risk no one cares enough to dig your code. Heck, this is what PhDs are about, pushing humanity knowledge ceiling just a bit higher. And even those that do, barely get enough attention. 4) Fighting AI is like trying to boil the ocean. We won't make a difference.
pona-a 2y ago
Gemini was looking quite nice the last time I've been there.
immibis 2y ago
I hate to break it to you, that Github is still looking at your private repos.

by sph 2y ago

csdvrx 2y ago

Your perspective is very strange, as I want to be replaced by cheaper devs - or ideally, even machines, which would free us humans to work on other problems that machine can't work on yet. > In fact, I do not care to be convinced otherwise, I am ideologically speaking completely opposed to any form of LLM or "AI". Then could you try to convince me of your argument? I don't see tech problems as worse or better than other problems like growing food, which we were fortunate to solve with industrialized farming and other technological breakthroughs like the Haber–Bosch process Explain me why I should join your daydream!

sph 2y ago
> which would free us humans to work on other problems We have heard this refrain since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  And it’s been true. I don’t have to break my back toiling the earth to grow crop. Nor risk other kinds of life changing injuries working in factories, down the mines, etc. Instead, I’ve got a comfortable job which requires using my brain. Which is an opportunity that someone from my social class wouldn’t have been granted even just 100 years ago.
  - sph 2y ago
    We were talking about machines freeing time so we can do other things, do not move the goalposts to fit your argument. Yes, I do not have to break my back 5 hours a day in the field, I only have to sit in an office 8 hours, and 2 hours commute a day. Also make sure you check your Slack notifications at home. [1] I hope you enjoy your couple hours in the weekend to read philosophy and paint landscapes. 1: in fact I don't waste all my time working like most, but that makes me unhireable to 99% of companies that just want to squeeze every productive minute out of me.
    - ncruces 2y ago
      Let's all go back to doing the laundry by hand. Because life was better back then.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      > We were talking about machines freeing time so we can do other things, do not move the goalposts to fit your argument. That’s a very uncharitable comment given “time” wasn’t mentioned once in either your comment nor the GPs. You might have read their comment as meaning “less work” (time) but for me it reads that they’re talking about “different and more interesting work”. Both interpretations are valid. I get a sense from your rant that you’re massively overworked. I do sympathise with you there, I honestly do. But that’s got nothing to do with AI.
  - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
    The biggest use of professional AIs will offset the majority of big brain jobs, possibly leaving the majority of jobs left for humans to do being physical back-breaking labor at some point before long.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      We’ve long since proven that machines are better for back-breaking labor. I also disagree that AI will offset the majority of big brain jobs. What’s actually happening is AI is offsetting the majority of narrowly defined queries. The more open ended problems require an actual understanding of problem solving rather than a really clever text prediction engine. Some examples to illustrate my point: If you wanted to build a mobile app, you’d need to first: - understand the problem you’re trying to solve (is it a game? A medical app? A productivity app? Etc) - choose a frontend stack - create a design language - create wireframes - decide where to host the backend stack (eg self hosted? Or public cloud? If so, which?) - decide which cloud services to use (if public cloud) - decide on how to approach IaC - decide on the backend stack - decide on how to implement your CI/CD pipelines (or even if you want continuous delivery) - understand what privacy and security concerns you have and identify what risks you’re willing to accept - define testing strategy’s - define release cadences And so on and so forth. Writing the code is often actually the easiest part of software development because we already understand the problem by that point. The rest of the work is figuring out all questions that need to be answered — and I don’t even mean answering the questions, I mean understanding what questions to ask. AI can’t do that. GenAI requires human input and much of software development is actually figuring out what those inputs should be rather than generating that output. So that’s what I mean by “big brain jobs”. It’s not writing code, because that’s easy. It’s understanding and defining those requirements to begin with.

pizzafeelsright 2y ago

I long for your confidence in your own ingenuity. If you think private repos on third party systems are hidden from training I suppose you have more trust in expendable developers working to maximize training. At this point I am fairly convinced that software development is solved. The reality has not been understood by most as typing syntax is now a trivial task best left to AI.

sph 2y ago
I have been migrating my private repos to a private Gitea instance of my own. I am well aware that anything on Github is used to train Copilot. > At this point I am fairly convinced that software development is solved. Writing code is 20% of software development, which is why I am still in demand even if I refuse to use LLM software. But employers and recruiters are not rational, and will soon rather hire cheap, expendable "monkeys on a typewriter" than experienced engineers.
imtringued 2y ago
I wasted at least an hour today on waiting to anti virus software to let my software start. No amount of AI will overcome the slowness of antivirus software. Also, about software development being "solved". I beg to differ. Sakana AI failed to reliably produce working CUDA kernels and that was in a domain where the task was explicitly specified as pytorch code, so it was, in a way, just a glorified syntax typing demonstration.

hu3 2y ago

> My last few projects are still stored as private repos because I do not want them to be gobbled up by LLMs for junior, expendable and cheaper devs to replace me, especially when I am exploring novel problem-spaces. I'll try to be gentle, pardon me in advance. 1) Your problem space is probably not novel enough to warrant such preciousness. 2) "Junior, expendable and cheaper devs" don't compete with Senior+ because they don't know how to even ask the right questions. And they don't possess enough soft skills to navigate hard projects. 3) But let's suppose that you do indeed have IP that's more valuable to humanity than the CRUD crap we are paid to spit out on a daily basis: We will all die, and it can happen anytime now, why risk having your contribution die with you? Even if you setup posterous access to other people, there's risk no one cares enough to dig your code. Heck, this is what PhDs are about, pushing humanity knowledge ceiling just a bit higher. And even those that do, barely get enough attention. 4) Fighting AI is like trying to boil the ocean. We won't make a difference.

pona-a 2y ago

Gemini was looking quite nice the last time I've been there.

immibis 2y ago

I hate to break it to you, that Github is still looking at your private repos.