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Everyone: telling me how great AI is. No one: making anything great with AI. Sourcegraph: an AI company, routinely promoting their LLM-optimism blogposts to H

Everyone: telling me how great AI is. No one: making anything great with AI. Sourcegraph: an AI company, routinely promoting their LLM-optimism blogposts to HN, perpetuating the hype cycle their business model depends on.

null_name 2y ago
This sapling is twice as large as it was a week ago, which was twice again as large as it was the week before. Why, at this rate, it'll be bigger than the whole world in but a month.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  I remembered the dialogue from the movie Snatch: T: What's happening with this sausages, Charlie? C: 2 minutes, Turkish. -- 5 Minutes later --- T: How long for the sausages? C: 5 minutes, Turkish. T: It was 2 minutes, 5 minutes ago. I don't know why I remembered it. Is it AI, or self driving cars, or both. Huh.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    Don't forget the electric air taxis!
    - edoceo 2y ago
      Drone-bot delivering my new dishwasher-top-rack-rails today; waiting 4 days for a human; SMH
      - DonHopkins 2y ago
        Where's my TacoCopter??! https://tacocopter.com/ https://tacocopter.com/
  - fragmede 2y ago
    self driving cars are here, just unevenly distributed. Waymo operates in several cities already, providing millions of rides to people. Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      Waymo operates in tiny parts of several cities when you look at the maps. They didn't finish the first 90% when you look from that perspective. Waymo provides a tech demonstrator in a closed circuit, and you can pay to ride their demonstrators in select areas of select cities. It's not half bad, let's be honest, but having these limits puts them to a point very far from "self driving cars are here". Even Tesla isn't there with their camera only subsystems and "if you crash you keep both pieces" policy. It's another tech demonstrator you can buy. If we accept your point that "self driving cars are here", we should accept that Fusion energy is a solved problem because WEST tokamak held plasma for 22 minutes, electric propulsion is a solved problem since we have electric trains for a long time, and Hyperloop is fully operational because I have scale model in my backyard which carries thousands of ants every day.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        People open their phone, order a car, take a ride from an arbitrary point within the geofenced area, to another arbitrary point inside that area. Within that area. they're handling real life conditions. dogs and children running into the street, bicyclists, moving trucks blocking streets, construction. Other cars. Maybe that's not enough for you, but that's not a carefully staged tech demo with a car driving a loop around a fixed track at Disneyland that's gonna break the moment it has to deviate beyond what you're allowed to touch. Unless you think Waymo is paying all the drivers in LA drivers to drive different around their cars, I guess. If the tokomak was energy positive for those 22 minutes, there was more than one of them, and they were running it multiple times a day then I would say it is. But it's not. I'm not sure why you have this need to lump them together. Fusion is quite a different problem, with yet to be solved materials science problems and control systems issues. I'm not claiming that fusion's here, and also I don't think quantum computers are gonna be here anytime soon.
throwaway173738 2y ago
Oh good. When I saw the graph I started wondering what I was being sold.
jcgrillo 2y ago
> We’re talking about each developer gradually boosting their productivity by a multiplier of ~5x by Q4 2025 (allowing for ramp-up time), for an additional amortized cost of only maybe $50k/year the first year. Who wouldn’t go for that deal? OK, I'll take the other side of that bet. If in Q4 '25 devs using cursor or whatever are 5x as productive as me using emacs, I'll give this AI stuff another chance. But I'm pretty sure it won't happen.
- victorbjorklund 2y ago
  You should probably compare the same dev using AI vs not using AI. Otherwise you can use that argument for anything. Notepad is a better IDE than emacs if we compare a really good dev using notepad vs a shitty dev using emacs.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    Ok, if I notice other devs suddenly getting 5x as productive I'll give it a try, but so far no such effect has been demonstrated. It seems like a pretty straightforward research question, and you'd think if there was any demonstrable effect the companies selling these things would use such research to market their products. So where is it?
    - fragmede 2y ago
      There's a dead body lying there but you won't believe they're actually dead until someone creates a video reenactment of the killer stabbing them and shoves that video in your face? Speaking of videos, https://youtu.be/opi1s_5Dm-c https://youtu.be/opi1s_5Dm-c is probably below your level and it's kinda long.
      - jcgrillo 2y ago
        I don't get it. What is the dead body thing about?
        2y ago
rocmcd 2y ago
This is the true litmus test IMO. If LLMs are so great and make everyone so productive, then where are the results? Where are all of the amazing products being released that otherwise would have required 10x the investment? Shouldn't there be _anything_ we can point to that shows that the "productivity needle" is being moved?
- Timber-6539 2y ago
  The demo is the work. Social media views is where the productivity is being moved. And VCs are paying for this ball to keep rolling hoping to eventually cash out big some day. AI is an irrational market at the moment and this is not going to change anytime soon.
- ramigb 2y ago
  I don't think it makes everyone so productive, tbh! If you really know what you are doing and are willing to burn tokens, it will really take your work to the next level—provided you don’t work with a niche product or language that the models weren’t trained on. If I may use an analogy, it's like what sampling is for music producers. The sample is out there—it’s already a beautiful sample, full of strings and keys, a glorious 8-bar loop. Anyone can grab it, but not every producer can sell it or turn it into a hit. In the end, every hype train has some truth to it. I highly suggest you give it a shot, if you haven't already. I’m glad I did—it really helped me a lot, and I am (unfortunately, financially) hooked on it.
  - pluto_modadic 2y ago
    then find a "great" artist willing to cosign that they made something using that AI, vs their own talents.
- Kiro 2y ago
  What are you on about? It's happening everywhere, in all companies. It's literally impossible to miss and how to handle the massive increase in code output is becoming a well-known problem. I think it's interesting how the naysayers claim that it's not happening, yet simultaneously worry about the large amount of low-quality code being produced.
Kiro 2y ago
It's the opposite. Most people are not are boasting about their productivity improvements but it's everywhere. Unless you work at a company where you're not allowed to use these tools it should be impossible to miss. Even the most hardcore naysayers I know are now using AI tools. The new discourse is whether the massive increase in code output leads to issues or not (I think it does), but claiming it doesn't happen is not a serious take anymore.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
donotjoinsour 2y ago
[dead]

null_name 2y ago

This sapling is twice as large as it was a week ago, which was twice again as large as it was the week before. Why, at this rate, it'll be bigger than the whole world in but a month.

bayindirh 2y ago
I remembered the dialogue from the movie Snatch: T: What's happening with this sausages, Charlie? C: 2 minutes, Turkish. -- 5 Minutes later --- T: How long for the sausages? C: 5 minutes, Turkish. T: It was 2 minutes, 5 minutes ago. I don't know why I remembered it. Is it AI, or self driving cars, or both. Huh.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  Don't forget the electric air taxis!
  - edoceo 2y ago
    Drone-bot delivering my new dishwasher-top-rack-rails today; waiting 4 days for a human; SMH
    - DonHopkins 2y ago
      Where's my TacoCopter??! https://tacocopter.com/ https://tacocopter.com/
- fragmede 2y ago
  self driving cars are here, just unevenly distributed. Waymo operates in several cities already, providing millions of rides to people. Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    Waymo operates in tiny parts of several cities when you look at the maps. They didn't finish the first 90% when you look from that perspective. Waymo provides a tech demonstrator in a closed circuit, and you can pay to ride their demonstrators in select areas of select cities. It's not half bad, let's be honest, but having these limits puts them to a point very far from "self driving cars are here". Even Tesla isn't there with their camera only subsystems and "if you crash you keep both pieces" policy. It's another tech demonstrator you can buy. If we accept your point that "self driving cars are here", we should accept that Fusion energy is a solved problem because WEST tokamak held plasma for 22 minutes, electric propulsion is a solved problem since we have electric trains for a long time, and Hyperloop is fully operational because I have scale model in my backyard which carries thousands of ants every day.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      People open their phone, order a car, take a ride from an arbitrary point within the geofenced area, to another arbitrary point inside that area. Within that area. they're handling real life conditions. dogs and children running into the street, bicyclists, moving trucks blocking streets, construction. Other cars. Maybe that's not enough for you, but that's not a carefully staged tech demo with a car driving a loop around a fixed track at Disneyland that's gonna break the moment it has to deviate beyond what you're allowed to touch. Unless you think Waymo is paying all the drivers in LA drivers to drive different around their cars, I guess. If the tokomak was energy positive for those 22 minutes, there was more than one of them, and they were running it multiple times a day then I would say it is. But it's not. I'm not sure why you have this need to lump them together. Fusion is quite a different problem, with yet to be solved materials science problems and control systems issues. I'm not claiming that fusion's here, and also I don't think quantum computers are gonna be here anytime soon.

throwaway173738 2y ago

Oh good. When I saw the graph I started wondering what I was being sold.

jcgrillo 2y ago

> We’re talking about each developer gradually boosting their productivity by a multiplier of ~5x by Q4 2025 (allowing for ramp-up time), for an additional amortized cost of only maybe $50k/year the first year. Who wouldn’t go for that deal? OK, I'll take the other side of that bet. If in Q4 '25 devs using cursor or whatever are 5x as productive as me using emacs, I'll give this AI stuff another chance. But I'm pretty sure it won't happen.

victorbjorklund 2y ago
You should probably compare the same dev using AI vs not using AI. Otherwise you can use that argument for anything. Notepad is a better IDE than emacs if we compare a really good dev using notepad vs a shitty dev using emacs.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  Ok, if I notice other devs suddenly getting 5x as productive I'll give it a try, but so far no such effect has been demonstrated. It seems like a pretty straightforward research question, and you'd think if there was any demonstrable effect the companies selling these things would use such research to market their products. So where is it?
  - fragmede 2y ago
    There's a dead body lying there but you won't believe they're actually dead until someone creates a video reenactment of the killer stabbing them and shoves that video in your face? Speaking of videos, https://youtu.be/opi1s_5Dm-c https://youtu.be/opi1s_5Dm-c is probably below your level and it's kinda long.
    - jcgrillo 2y ago
      I don't get it. What is the dead body thing about?
      - 2y ago

rocmcd 2y ago

This is the true litmus test IMO. If LLMs are so great and make everyone so productive, then where are the results? Where are all of the amazing products being released that otherwise would have required 10x the investment? Shouldn't there be _anything_ we can point to that shows that the "productivity needle" is being moved?

Timber-6539 2y ago
The demo is the work. Social media views is where the productivity is being moved. And VCs are paying for this ball to keep rolling hoping to eventually cash out big some day. AI is an irrational market at the moment and this is not going to change anytime soon.
ramigb 2y ago
I don't think it makes everyone so productive, tbh! If you really know what you are doing and are willing to burn tokens, it will really take your work to the next level—provided you don’t work with a niche product or language that the models weren’t trained on. If I may use an analogy, it's like what sampling is for music producers. The sample is out there—it’s already a beautiful sample, full of strings and keys, a glorious 8-bar loop. Anyone can grab it, but not every producer can sell it or turn it into a hit. In the end, every hype train has some truth to it. I highly suggest you give it a shot, if you haven't already. I’m glad I did—it really helped me a lot, and I am (unfortunately, financially) hooked on it.
- pluto_modadic 2y ago
  then find a "great" artist willing to cosign that they made something using that AI, vs their own talents.
Kiro 2y ago
What are you on about? It's happening everywhere, in all companies. It's literally impossible to miss and how to handle the massive increase in code output is becoming a well-known problem. I think it's interesting how the naysayers claim that it's not happening, yet simultaneously worry about the large amount of low-quality code being produced.

Kiro 2y ago

It's the opposite. Most people are not are boasting about their productivity improvements but it's everywhere. Unless you work at a company where you're not allowed to use these tools it should be impossible to miss. Even the most hardcore naysayers I know are now using AI tools. The new discourse is whether the massive increase in code output leads to issues or not (I think it does), but claiming it doesn't happen is not a serious take anymore.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

donotjoinsour 2y ago

[dead]