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Yea. Watch a sci-fi film - nifty gadgets, robots taking care of chores, and widespread spaceflight. Real life is some unreliable chat bots. Then there's the de

Yea. Watch a sci-fi film - nifty gadgets, robots taking care of chores, and widespread spaceflight. Real life is some unreliable chat bots. Then there's the depressing practical stuff. AI being forced down our throats. AI as an excuse lay people off. AI as an excuse for massive data hoarding. AI flooding the internet, making it harder to find good content.

therein 2y ago
I find it extra surprising that people are advocating for transitioning to using AI while their proof of concept looks like this: do { resp = callAI(input); } while (!isOutputSane(resp) && attempts++ < MAX_RETRY)
- jajko 2y ago
  Nobody sane and smart I know is advocating for AI now. All keep saying 'one day', 'soon' etc. Our megacorp very effectively blocked all of this and we don't have anything internal yet, but we are in specific market. And basically all I saw so far was a snake oil from people trying to push it or benefit from it, even here. Trust me bro... well no, show me some hard facts and we can start building trust. Sure assistants are nice but thats about it. Its just too flawed now to be dependable and reliable, it feels like typical 80/20 or 90/10 situation where inexperienced juniors are all over their head how future is now, and seniors just meh and go and do some work.
  - surgical_fire 2y ago
    > All keep saying 'one day', 'soon' etc. The parallels with crypto are amazing. > And basically all I saw so far was a snake oil from people trying to push it or benefit from it, even here. Trust me bro... Cue some dude chiming in on how they are 1000% more productive now and wrote 100 apps in a weekend with Claude, etc. It is very tiresome indeed.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Except this time is quite real for some jobs, maybe programming will take a few more years, but for artistic fields, it is already here. Indie devs now using AI generated assets instead of hiring artists is quite common.
      - surgical_fire 2y ago
        > Except this time is quite real Oh it was very real during crypto hype cycle too. The crypto people were very annoying with it. > Indie devs now using AI generated assets instead of hiring artists is quite common. I would imagine it is fine for some concept art, based on my experimentation with multiple models for Stable Diffusion. For generating actual assets that are consistent? I am highly skeptical. Unless we are talking about bottom of the barrel indie games.
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Consistent enough for it to be an issue. And not only indies, when taking voice actors into consideration. https://www.ign.com/articles/horizon-actor-ashly-burch-says-sonys-ai-aloy-video-left-her-feeling-worried-about-game-performance-as-an-art-form https://www.ign.com/articles/horizon-actor-ashly-burch-says-... Or some well known studios, https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-finally-admits-it-uses-generative-ai-for-some-call-of-duty-black-ops-6-assets-after-backlash-following-ai-slop-zombie-santa-loading-screen https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-finally-admits-it-us...
        surgical_fire 2y ago
        Ah, it is bottom of the barrell AAA stuff instead. I am somehow unimpressed.
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Besides the millions COD gets, more than a few wannabe startup owners on Y Combinator will ever achieve. There are people being affected by those decisions, effectively losing their jobs, and source of income, as unimpressed as you may be.
  - jgilias 2y ago
    Advocate or not, it’s here to stay. And if you’re not adjusting to it, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Last week I did the amount of work that would’ve taken me give or take a month. A significant part of it was writing an API client for a system I needed to use. Pretty run of the mill stuff. Doing this ‘by hand’ just takes time. Go look at the docs, type out your data structures, wire things up for the new call, write tests. With “the robot” once the framework was largely in place, you just paste API docs for the endpoint you need, and it’s done in a minute. With tests and everything. Now, you could argue that this is not “senior level work”. Sure, maybe. But the thing is, you need to use it to learn how to use it effectively, and more importantly to get the intuition about what it can help with best. So this is my thesis now - if you’re a senior who neglects this new tool, you’re going to be out of a job soon-ish.
    - Scarblac 2y ago
      But a solution that takes an OpenAPI spec and generates all of those things from templates would be much more reliably correct than letting an AI do it, and has already existed for years. I think AI is a game changer but not for things that can already be automated rigirously without AI.
      - jgilias 2y ago
        There was no OpenAPI spec. And it wasn’t all it made faster to do.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Eventually only the arquitect will be required, no need for seniors, the offshoring team is the cloud instead of some folks on the other side of the planet. This is the future to prepare, not AI generating a couple of files.
      - jgilias 2y ago
        Maybe. But that future is definitely not yet here. Generating a couple of files though is here. And that compounds. So people who’re still typing those files by hand… yeah.
  - wolfcola 2y ago
    but layoffs are happening _now_, purely based on what people who stand to benefit directly claim AI will do.
- Scarblac 2y ago
  It's actually `letSlightlyDifferentAIJudgeOutputSanity()` rather than `isOutputSane()`, I think.
fjdjshsh 2y ago
>AI as an excuse lay people off. Why do you think the managers/business owners need an excuse to lay people off? If it's legal and economically beneficial to them, they'll fire people. Having AI won't help them as an excuse. In fact, I would say it sounds like a much worse excuse than "the economy is on a rough spot" or something like that
- falkensmaize 2y ago
  Are you serious? The obvious benefit is they get to lay a bunch of people off and pretend it’s because they’re forward thinking innovators instead of poor managers that are having difficulty growing their business. There’s a huge incentive to present this fiction to stockholders, which is the only opinion they care about.
- nukem222 2y ago
  > If it's legal and economically beneficial to them, they'll fire people. More importantly, if they can imagine some economic benefit. Very plausible an executive might think a chatbot is as capable as an engineer when they don't know how to evaluate either.

therein 2y ago

I find it extra surprising that people are advocating for transitioning to using AI while their proof of concept looks like this: do { resp = callAI(input); } while (!isOutputSane(resp) && attempts++ < MAX_RETRY)

jajko 2y ago
Nobody sane and smart I know is advocating for AI now. All keep saying 'one day', 'soon' etc. Our megacorp very effectively blocked all of this and we don't have anything internal yet, but we are in specific market. And basically all I saw so far was a snake oil from people trying to push it or benefit from it, even here. Trust me bro... well no, show me some hard facts and we can start building trust. Sure assistants are nice but thats about it. Its just too flawed now to be dependable and reliable, it feels like typical 80/20 or 90/10 situation where inexperienced juniors are all over their head how future is now, and seniors just meh and go and do some work.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  > All keep saying 'one day', 'soon' etc. The parallels with crypto are amazing. > And basically all I saw so far was a snake oil from people trying to push it or benefit from it, even here. Trust me bro... Cue some dude chiming in on how they are 1000% more productive now and wrote 100 apps in a weekend with Claude, etc. It is very tiresome indeed.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Except this time is quite real for some jobs, maybe programming will take a few more years, but for artistic fields, it is already here. Indie devs now using AI generated assets instead of hiring artists is quite common.
    - surgical_fire 2y ago
      > Except this time is quite real Oh it was very real during crypto hype cycle too. The crypto people were very annoying with it. > Indie devs now using AI generated assets instead of hiring artists is quite common. I would imagine it is fine for some concept art, based on my experimentation with multiple models for Stable Diffusion. For generating actual assets that are consistent? I am highly skeptical. Unless we are talking about bottom of the barrel indie games.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Consistent enough for it to be an issue. And not only indies, when taking voice actors into consideration. https://www.ign.com/articles/horizon-actor-ashly-burch-says-sonys-ai-aloy-video-left-her-feeling-worried-about-game-performance-as-an-art-form https://www.ign.com/articles/horizon-actor-ashly-burch-says-... Or some well known studios, https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-finally-admits-it-uses-generative-ai-for-some-call-of-duty-black-ops-6-assets-after-backlash-following-ai-slop-zombie-santa-loading-screen https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-finally-admits-it-us...
        surgical_fire 2y ago
        Ah, it is bottom of the barrell AAA stuff instead. I am somehow unimpressed.
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Besides the millions COD gets, more than a few wannabe startup owners on Y Combinator will ever achieve. There are people being affected by those decisions, effectively losing their jobs, and source of income, as unimpressed as you may be.
- jgilias 2y ago
  Advocate or not, it’s here to stay. And if you’re not adjusting to it, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Last week I did the amount of work that would’ve taken me give or take a month. A significant part of it was writing an API client for a system I needed to use. Pretty run of the mill stuff. Doing this ‘by hand’ just takes time. Go look at the docs, type out your data structures, wire things up for the new call, write tests. With “the robot” once the framework was largely in place, you just paste API docs for the endpoint you need, and it’s done in a minute. With tests and everything. Now, you could argue that this is not “senior level work”. Sure, maybe. But the thing is, you need to use it to learn how to use it effectively, and more importantly to get the intuition about what it can help with best. So this is my thesis now - if you’re a senior who neglects this new tool, you’re going to be out of a job soon-ish.
  - Scarblac 2y ago
    But a solution that takes an OpenAPI spec and generates all of those things from templates would be much more reliably correct than letting an AI do it, and has already existed for years. I think AI is a game changer but not for things that can already be automated rigirously without AI.
    - jgilias 2y ago
      There was no OpenAPI spec. And it wasn’t all it made faster to do.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Eventually only the arquitect will be required, no need for seniors, the offshoring team is the cloud instead of some folks on the other side of the planet. This is the future to prepare, not AI generating a couple of files.
    - jgilias 2y ago
      Maybe. But that future is definitely not yet here. Generating a couple of files though is here. And that compounds. So people who’re still typing those files by hand… yeah.
- wolfcola 2y ago
  but layoffs are happening _now_, purely based on what people who stand to benefit directly claim AI will do.
Scarblac 2y ago
It's actually `letSlightlyDifferentAIJudgeOutputSanity()` rather than `isOutputSane()`, I think.

fjdjshsh 2y ago

>AI as an excuse lay people off. Why do you think the managers/business owners need an excuse to lay people off? If it's legal and economically beneficial to them, they'll fire people. Having AI won't help them as an excuse. In fact, I would say it sounds like a much worse excuse than "the economy is on a rough spot" or something like that

falkensmaize 2y ago
Are you serious? The obvious benefit is they get to lay a bunch of people off and pretend it’s because they’re forward thinking innovators instead of poor managers that are having difficulty growing their business. There’s a huge incentive to present this fiction to stockholders, which is the only opinion they care about.
nukem222 2y ago
> If it's legal and economically beneficial to them, they'll fire people. More importantly, if they can imagine some economic benefit. Very plausible an executive might think a chatbot is as capable as an engineer when they don't know how to evaluate either.