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AI is a tool. Just like any other tool, there are people who use it poorly, and people who use it well. Yes, we're all tired of the endless parade of people w

AI is a tool. Just like any other tool, there are people who use it poorly, and people who use it well. Yes, we're all tired of the endless parade of people who exaggerate the abilities of (current day) AI and claim it can do more than it can do. But I'm also getting tired of people writing articles that showcase people using AI poorly as if that proves some sort of point about its inherent limitations. Man hits thumb with hammer. Article: "Hammers can't even drive a simple nail!"

OutOfHere 1y ago
> there are people who use it poorly, and people who use it well. Precisely. AI needs appropriate and sufficient guidance to be able to write code that does the job. I make sure my prompts have all of the necessary implementation detail that the AI will need. Without this guidance, the expected result is not a good one.
- spookie 1y ago
  This often doesn't scale well. And coming up with all the necessary context in writing is a bit harder than when programming.
  - OutOfHere 1y ago
    Well, it's where we are now with AI technology. Perhaps a superior future AI will need less of it. For now I give it all that I think it won't reliably figure out on its own.
    - DragonStrength 1y ago
      It's actually where we have always been with software development, which is why so many software professionals think the media narrative is so stupid. Oh, you want to fire your engineers? Easy, just perfectly specify exactly what you want and how it should work! Oh, that's what the engineers are for? Huh!
      - OutOfHere 1y ago
        Yup, but the management, essentially the ones who control the hiring and firing, are more clued into the media narrative, with a bias toward dismissing what engineers think.
- dinfinity 1y ago
  > AI needs appropriate and sufficient guidance to be able to write code that does the job. Note that the example (shitty Microsoft) implementation was not able to properly run tests during its work, not even tests it had written itself. If you have an existing codebase that already has a plenty tests and you ask AI to refactor something whilst giving it the access it needs to run tests, it can already sometimes do a great job all by itself. Good specification and documentation also do a lot, of course, but the iterative approach with feedback if things are actually working as intended is a game changer. Not unsurprisingly also a lot closer to how humans do things.
  - OutOfHere 1y ago
    The iterative approach has one problem -- it is onerous to repeat the lengthy iterative process with a different model, as it will lead to an entirely different conversation. In contrast, when the spec is well-written up-front, it is trivial to switch models to see how the other model implements it differently.
despera 1y ago
A tool can very well be broken thought or simply useless for anything but the most lightweight job (despite all the PR nonsense) They call it a tool and so people leave reviews like any other tool.
croes 1y ago
> Yes, we're all tired of the endless parade of people who exaggerate the abilities of (current day) AI You mean the people who create and sell these AIs. You would blame the hammer or at least the manufacturer if they claimed the hammer can do it al by itself. This is more a your-car-can-drive-without-supervision-but-it-hit-a-another-car case.
- baxtr 1y ago
  I think the difference is that a hammer manufacturer wouldn’t suggest that the hammer will replace the handyman with its next update.
- deadlydose 1y ago
  > You would blame the hammer or at least the manufacturer if they claimed the hammer can do it al by itself. I wouldn't because I'm not stupid and I know what a hammer is and isn't capable of despite any claims to the contrary.
itishappy 1y ago
Improve your efficiency with this double headed hammer! I drove 200 screws in one weekend using this hammer! With hammers like these, who needs nails? Hammers are all you need Hammers deemed harmful
tedunangst 1y ago
What's the best way to insulate myself from the output of people using AI poorly?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- benreesman 1y ago
  It's increasingly a luxury to be a software engineer who is able to avoid some combination of morally reprehensible leadership harming the public, quality craftsmanship in software being in freefall, and ML proficiency being defined downwards to admit terrible uses of ML. AI coding stuff is a massive lever on some tasks and used by experts. But its not self-driving and the capabilities of tge frontier vendor stuff might be trending down, they're certainly not skyrocketing. Any other tool: a compiler, an editor, a shell, even a browser, but I'd say build tools are the best analogy: you have chosen to become proficient or even expert or you haven't and rely on colleagues or communities that provide that expertise. Pick a project or a company: you know if you should be messing around with the build or asking a build person. AI is no diffetent. Claude 4 Opus just went GA and its in power user tune still, they don't have the newb/cost-control defaults dialed in yet and so its really useful and probably will be for a few days until they get the PID controller wired up to whatever a control vector is these days, and then it will tank to useless slop just like 3.7. For a week I'll get a little boost in my ouyput and pay them a grand and be glad I did, and then it will go back to worse than useless. These guys only know one business plan.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
JHer 1y ago
The television, the atom bomb, the cigarette rolling machine, and penicillin are also "just tools". They nevertheless changed our world entirely, for better or worse. If you ascribe the impact of AI to the people using AI, you will be utterly, completely bewildered by what is happening and what is going to happen.
- _se 1y ago
  [flagged]
mplanchard 1y ago
Isn’t this exactly what the article says? It’s the entire thesis of the second half.
nessbot 1y ago
It's not a tool its a SaaS. I own and control my tools. I think a John Deer tractor looses it's "tool" status when you can't control it. Sure there's the local models but those aren't what the vast majority of folks are using or pushing.
- steventruong 1y ago
  This is an incredibly weird view to me. If I borrow a hammer from my neighbor, although I don’t own the hammer, it doesn’t suddenly make the hammer not a tool. Associating a tool with the concept of ownership feels like an odd argument to make.
  - tacheiordache 1y ago
    Now the hammer has mapped your house and knows where all the screws are and is uploading all that to some servers.
  - Kinrany 1y ago
    You don't own the hammer but you control it.
    - collyw 1y ago
      As he says a tool's ownership shouldn't affect it's status of a tool.
      - nessbot 1y ago
        and my comment said "own and control" and later focused on "control".
      - AstralStorm 1y ago
        You do not control the tool either. You cannot manually train it for your case. You cannot tell it to not touch particular parts of your project either. It will stomp over all of the code. You cannot even easily detect this tool has been used except for typical failures. The tool may also leak your secrets to some central database. You cannot tell it to not do that. (If you try either tack of those, it will lie to you that it complied while actually not doing that at all.) When your networking fails, the tool does not work. It's fragile in all cases.
pier25 1y ago
I'd agree with you if AI companies weren't relentlessly overhyping AI.
Jackson__ 1y ago
More like: Man hits thumb with hammer. Hammer companies proclaim Hammers will be able to build entire houses on their own within the next few years [0]. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/podcasts/google-ai-demis-hassabis-hard-fork.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/podcasts/google-ai-demis-...
- pempem 1y ago
  This is a way better version of my comment.
- csallen 1y ago
  Okay, so write an article about how the hammer companies are dumb. Don't write an article about how hammers can't drive nails. Why is this complex?
  - ruraljuror 1y ago
    > Okay, so write an article about how the hammer companies are dumb This is exactly how I interpreted the OP blog post: it is a great example of how companies are (mis)using AI given it's current abilities.
    - csallen 1y ago
      The article is literally titled, "AI can't even fix a simple bug," reinforces the claim that "the technology can’t understand a simple bug" multiple times, and willfully ignores all the good that it can do. Anyone who read this article without having experienced AI coding themselves would be grossly misled. Sure, the article makes other good points, too. But those points could be made without hyperbolic claims about what AI can and can't do, by everyone, not just this author
      - ruraljuror 1y ago
        You missed half of the title.
dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago
> Just like any other tool, there are people who use it poorly, and people who use it well. We are not talking about random folks here but about the largest software company with high stakes in the most popular LLM trying to show off how good it is. Stephen Toub is hardly a newbie either.
ruraljuror 1y ago
AI can be used as a tool, sure, but it is distinct from other technologies in that it is an agent, that is: it has or operates with agency. There are many prominent people out there who are saying that AI will replace SWEs--not just saying that AI will be a tool added to th SWE tool belt. Although it seems like you agree with the conclusion of the article you are criticizing, the context is much more complex than AI is a tool like a hammer.
- -__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
  It is not "an agent" in the sense you are implying here, it does not will, want, plan, none of those words apply meaningfully. It doesn't reason, or think, either. I'll be excited if that changes, but there is absolutely no sign of it changing. I mean, explicitly, the possibility of thinking machines is where it was before this whole thing started - maybe slightly higher, but moreso because a lot of money is being pumped into research. LLMs might still replace some software workers, or lead to some reorganising of tech roles, but for a whole host of reasons, none of which are related to machine sentience. As one example - software quality matters less and less the as users get locked in. If some juniors get replaced by LLMs and code quality plummets causing major headaches and higher workloads for senior devs, as long as sales don't dip, managers will be skipping around happily.
  - ruraljuror 1y ago
    I didn't mean to imply AI was sentient or approaching sentience. Agency seems to be the key distinction between it and other technologies. You can have agency, apparently, without the traits you claim I imply.
    - -__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
      Ah, ok, you must be using agency in some new way I'm not aware of. Can you clarify what exactly you mean then when you say that "AI" (presumably you mean LLMs) has agency, and that this sets it apart from all other technologies? If this agency as you define it makes it different from all other technologies, presumably it must mean something pretty serious.
computerthings 1y ago
[dead]

OutOfHere 1y ago

> there are people who use it poorly, and people who use it well. Precisely. AI needs appropriate and sufficient guidance to be able to write code that does the job. I make sure my prompts have all of the necessary implementation detail that the AI will need. Without this guidance, the expected result is not a good one.

spookie 1y ago
This often doesn't scale well. And coming up with all the necessary context in writing is a bit harder than when programming.
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  Well, it's where we are now with AI technology. Perhaps a superior future AI will need less of it. For now I give it all that I think it won't reliably figure out on its own.
  - DragonStrength 1y ago
    It's actually where we have always been with software development, which is why so many software professionals think the media narrative is so stupid. Oh, you want to fire your engineers? Easy, just perfectly specify exactly what you want and how it should work! Oh, that's what the engineers are for? Huh!
    - OutOfHere 1y ago
      Yup, but the management, essentially the ones who control the hiring and firing, are more clued into the media narrative, with a bias toward dismissing what engineers think.
dinfinity 1y ago
> AI needs appropriate and sufficient guidance to be able to write code that does the job. Note that the example (shitty Microsoft) implementation was not able to properly run tests during its work, not even tests it had written itself. If you have an existing codebase that already has a plenty tests and you ask AI to refactor something whilst giving it the access it needs to run tests, it can already sometimes do a great job all by itself. Good specification and documentation also do a lot, of course, but the iterative approach with feedback if things are actually working as intended is a game changer. Not unsurprisingly also a lot closer to how humans do things.
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  The iterative approach has one problem -- it is onerous to repeat the lengthy iterative process with a different model, as it will lead to an entirely different conversation. In contrast, when the spec is well-written up-front, it is trivial to switch models to see how the other model implements it differently.

despera 1y ago

A tool can very well be broken thought or simply useless for anything but the most lightweight job (despite all the PR nonsense) They call it a tool and so people leave reviews like any other tool.

croes 1y ago

> Yes, we're all tired of the endless parade of people who exaggerate the abilities of (current day) AI You mean the people who create and sell these AIs. You would blame the hammer or at least the manufacturer if they claimed the hammer can do it al by itself. This is more a your-car-can-drive-without-supervision-but-it-hit-a-another-car case.

baxtr 1y ago
I think the difference is that a hammer manufacturer wouldn’t suggest that the hammer will replace the handyman with its next update.
deadlydose 1y ago
> You would blame the hammer or at least the manufacturer if they claimed the hammer can do it al by itself. I wouldn't because I'm not stupid and I know what a hammer is and isn't capable of despite any claims to the contrary.

itishappy 1y ago

Improve your efficiency with this double headed hammer! I drove 200 screws in one weekend using this hammer! With hammers like these, who needs nails? Hammers are all you need Hammers deemed harmful

tedunangst 1y ago

What's the best way to insulate myself from the output of people using AI poorly?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
benreesman 1y ago
It's increasingly a luxury to be a software engineer who is able to avoid some combination of morally reprehensible leadership harming the public, quality craftsmanship in software being in freefall, and ML proficiency being defined downwards to admit terrible uses of ML. AI coding stuff is a massive lever on some tasks and used by experts. But its not self-driving and the capabilities of tge frontier vendor stuff might be trending down, they're certainly not skyrocketing. Any other tool: a compiler, an editor, a shell, even a browser, but I'd say build tools are the best analogy: you have chosen to become proficient or even expert or you haven't and rely on colleagues or communities that provide that expertise. Pick a project or a company: you know if you should be messing around with the build or asking a build person. AI is no diffetent. Claude 4 Opus just went GA and its in power user tune still, they don't have the newb/cost-control defaults dialed in yet and so its really useful and probably will be for a few days until they get the PID controller wired up to whatever a control vector is these days, and then it will tank to useless slop just like 3.7. For a week I'll get a little boost in my ouyput and pay them a grand and be glad I did, and then it will go back to worse than useless. These guys only know one business plan.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

JHer 1y ago

The television, the atom bomb, the cigarette rolling machine, and penicillin are also "just tools". They nevertheless changed our world entirely, for better or worse. If you ascribe the impact of AI to the people using AI, you will be utterly, completely bewildered by what is happening and what is going to happen.

_se 1y ago
[flagged]

mplanchard 1y ago

Isn’t this exactly what the article says? It’s the entire thesis of the second half.

nessbot 1y ago

It's not a tool its a SaaS. I own and control my tools. I think a John Deer tractor looses it's "tool" status when you can't control it. Sure there's the local models but those aren't what the vast majority of folks are using or pushing.

steventruong 1y ago
This is an incredibly weird view to me. If I borrow a hammer from my neighbor, although I don’t own the hammer, it doesn’t suddenly make the hammer not a tool. Associating a tool with the concept of ownership feels like an odd argument to make.
- tacheiordache 1y ago
  Now the hammer has mapped your house and knows where all the screws are and is uploading all that to some servers.
- Kinrany 1y ago
  You don't own the hammer but you control it.
  - collyw 1y ago
    As he says a tool's ownership shouldn't affect it's status of a tool.
    - nessbot 1y ago
      and my comment said "own and control" and later focused on "control".
    - AstralStorm 1y ago
      You do not control the tool either. You cannot manually train it for your case. You cannot tell it to not touch particular parts of your project either. It will stomp over all of the code. You cannot even easily detect this tool has been used except for typical failures. The tool may also leak your secrets to some central database. You cannot tell it to not do that. (If you try either tack of those, it will lie to you that it complied while actually not doing that at all.) When your networking fails, the tool does not work. It's fragile in all cases.

pier25 1y ago

I'd agree with you if AI companies weren't relentlessly overhyping AI.

Jackson__ 1y ago

More like: Man hits thumb with hammer. Hammer companies proclaim Hammers will be able to build entire houses on their own within the next few years [0]. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/podcasts/google-ai-demis-hassabis-hard-fork.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/podcasts/google-ai-demis-...

pempem 1y ago
This is a way better version of my comment.
csallen 1y ago
Okay, so write an article about how the hammer companies are dumb. Don't write an article about how hammers can't drive nails. Why is this complex?
- ruraljuror 1y ago
  > Okay, so write an article about how the hammer companies are dumb This is exactly how I interpreted the OP blog post: it is a great example of how companies are (mis)using AI given it's current abilities.
  - csallen 1y ago
    The article is literally titled, "AI can't even fix a simple bug," reinforces the claim that "the technology can’t understand a simple bug" multiple times, and willfully ignores all the good that it can do. Anyone who read this article without having experienced AI coding themselves would be grossly misled. Sure, the article makes other good points, too. But those points could be made without hyperbolic claims about what AI can and can't do, by everyone, not just this author
    - ruraljuror 1y ago
      You missed half of the title.

dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago

> Just like any other tool, there are people who use it poorly, and people who use it well. We are not talking about random folks here but about the largest software company with high stakes in the most popular LLM trying to show off how good it is. Stephen Toub is hardly a newbie either.

ruraljuror 1y ago

AI can be used as a tool, sure, but it is distinct from other technologies in that it is an agent, that is: it has or operates with agency. There are many prominent people out there who are saying that AI will replace SWEs--not just saying that AI will be a tool added to th SWE tool belt. Although it seems like you agree with the conclusion of the article you are criticizing, the context is much more complex than AI is a tool like a hammer.

-__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
It is not "an agent" in the sense you are implying here, it does not will, want, plan, none of those words apply meaningfully. It doesn't reason, or think, either. I'll be excited if that changes, but there is absolutely no sign of it changing. I mean, explicitly, the possibility of thinking machines is where it was before this whole thing started - maybe slightly higher, but moreso because a lot of money is being pumped into research. LLMs might still replace some software workers, or lead to some reorganising of tech roles, but for a whole host of reasons, none of which are related to machine sentience. As one example - software quality matters less and less the as users get locked in. If some juniors get replaced by LLMs and code quality plummets causing major headaches and higher workloads for senior devs, as long as sales don't dip, managers will be skipping around happily.
- ruraljuror 1y ago
  I didn't mean to imply AI was sentient or approaching sentience. Agency seems to be the key distinction between it and other technologies. You can have agency, apparently, without the traits you claim I imply.
  - -__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
    Ah, ok, you must be using agency in some new way I'm not aware of. Can you clarify what exactly you mean then when you say that "AI" (presumably you mean LLMs) has agency, and that this sets it apart from all other technologies? If this agency as you define it makes it different from all other technologies, presumably it must mean something pretty serious.

computerthings 1y ago

[dead]