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Tools like Tailwind are one of the few cases where I totally believe it when the CEO says "we are cutting jobs because of AI". Sucks that anytime you ask AI to

Tools like Tailwind are one of the few cases where I totally believe it when the CEO says "we are cutting jobs because of AI". Sucks that anytime you ask AI to generate a site for you Tailwind will have an impact on that.

echelon 9mo ago
Anything open source will be turned against its authors and against ICs. We thought it would give us freedom, but all of the advantage will accrue to the hyperscalers. If we don't build open source infra that is owned by everyone, we'll be owned by industrial giants and left with a thin crust that is barely ours. (This seems like such a far-fetched "Kumbaya, My Lord" type of wishful thinking, that it's a joke that I'm even suggesting this is possible.) Tech is about to cease being ours. I really like AI models, but I hate monopolies. Especially ones that treat us like cattle and depopulate the last vestiges of ownership and public commons.
- lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ivell 9mo ago
    It did provide us with lots of non vendors locked products. World has been a better place because of open source.
    - lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
      You have no way way of knowing if that is true whatsoever. lol the capitalist bloodsucker brigade has arrived, they're almost as bad as the entitled "open source community" bloodsuckers
- deckard1 9mo ago
  it's a real shame no one warned us this would happen when a bunch of corporatists and opportunists wrested the term "open source" from the advocates of true freedom in the late '90s. https://www.fsf.org/ https://www.fsf.org/ But there was money to be made and the friends you thought were friends were just mercenaries with a shiv in their hand.
  - acdha 9mo ago
    Also the FSF squandered its opportunity being RMS’ hobby / support organization and skipped a lot of important discussions, even before the skeevy behavior they’d been ignoring came to light. I used to donate in the 90s but … really feels like that was just flushing cash.
    - infamouscow 9mo ago
      If my timelines are correct, the FSF ousted RMS before ChatGPT came out.
      - bgwalter 9mo ago
        The FSF also ignored the SaaS revolution. They put out the AGPL but did not really market it or convert FSF projects to it.
      - supern0va 9mo ago
        They actually re-appointed him to the board in 2021, also before ChatGPT came out: https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-...
      - acdha 9mo ago
        ChatGPT came into the picture long after the open source issues we’re talking about were apparent. AI companies are making it even worse but solid advocacy in the 2010s or 2000s would’ve been helpful.
  - SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
- pdonis 9mo ago
  > owned by everyone There's no such thing. Even if on paper "everyone" has an ownership share, in practice it's going to be a relatively small number of people who actually exercise all the functions of ownership. The idea that "everyone" can somehow collectively "own" anything is a pipe dream. Ownership in practice is control--whoever controls it owns it. "Everyone" can't control anything. > I really like AI models, but I hate monopolies. Especially ones that treat us like cattle and depopulate the last vestiges of ownership and public commons. I would dispute whether the tech giants are "monopolies", since there's still competition between them, but that's a minor point. I agree with you that they treat individual coders like cattle--but that's because they can: because, from their standpoint, individual coders are commodities. And if automated tools, including AI models, are cheaper commodities that, from their standpoint, can do the same job, that's what they'll use. And if the end result is that whatever they're selling as end products becomes cheaper for the same functionality, then economically speaking, that's an improvement--we as coders might not like it, but we as customers are better off because things we want are cheaper. So I'm not sure it's a consistent position to "really like AI models" but also not want the tech giants to treat you like cattle. The two things go together.
  - crabmusket 9mo ago
    > we as customers are better off because things we want are cheaper Why privilege that side of the equation over "we as workers"? Being a customer isn't all there is to life. I happen to spend quite a bit more time working than shopping.
    - pdonis 9mo ago
      > Why privilege that side of the equation It's not a matter of "privilege". It's simple economics: if the same functionality can be provided more cheaply, that's a gain to everyone. The gain to customers is the most obvious gain, and it's what I focused on in my previous post--but it's also a gain to producers, because it frees up resources to produce other things of value. But the producers have to be willing to change how they make use of resources in order to take advantage of those opportunities. > I happen to spend quite a bit more time working than shopping. Then you should be a lot more worried about AI providing the same functionality you were providing as a coder, but more cheaply--because that makes you, or at least you as a coder providing that functionality, a commodity that's no longer worth its cost. So if you want to avoid being commoditized and treated like cattle, you have to change what you produce to something that AI can't do more cheaply than you can.
- throw234234234 9mo ago
  They commoditized their complement to their hardware/infra, that being software. Good for them and the value of tech will shift to what is still scarce relatively.
- burnt-resistor 9mo ago
  Stop enabling corporations' theft and exploitation. Don't FOSS by default, unionize, embrace solidarity, and form worker-owned co-ops that aren't run by craven/unrealistic/non-business founders if you want any sort of stability.
- heavyset_go 9mo ago
  IMO, the only ethical and legal way to build LLMs on the entire output of all human creativity, that still respects rights and won't lead to feudalism, is conforming to the actual legal requirements of fair use that are being ignored. According to fair use doctrine, research models would be okay. Models used in education would be okay. Models used for public betterment by the government would be okay, etc Pie in the sky version would be that models, their output and the infrastructure they run on would be held in a public trust for everyone's benefit. They wouldn't exist without consuming all of the public's intellectual and creative labor and property, therefore they should belong to the public, for the public. > Tech is about to cease being ours. On the hardware side, it's bad, as well. Remote attestation is here, and the frog is just about boiled when it comes to the idea of a somewhat open and compatible PC as the platform for general computing. It was kinda cool while it lasted, glad I got to see the early internet, but it wasn't worth it to basically sign away for my great grandchildren to be peasants or belong to some rich kid's harem.
- naasking 9mo ago
  It does give us freedom. In fact, it arguably gives more people freedom, as non-programmers can create now simple tools to help themselves. I really don't see any way that it reduces our freedom.
- throw10920 9mo ago
  > Anything open source will be turned against its authors and against ICs. I fail to see how open source is being "turned against" anyone here. > we'll be owned by industrial giants ...or how anyone is being "owned by" industrial giants in any way relevant to open source. > Tech is about to cease being ours. This doesn't mean anything. You're just ranting.
tills13 9mo ago
It's just interesting because most of the talk is programmers talking about AI taking their job by replacing them not taking their job because it's taking away revenue from the business. Reminds me of the problem with Google & their rich results which wiped out and continues to wipe out blogs who rely on people actually visiting their site vs. getting the information they seek without leaving Google.
- FuckButtons 9mo ago
  I suppose in the limit that’s likely to be the fate of all other businesses.
- causal 9mo ago
  I expect a lot of business disruption because of AI. Agree it's not the same as employee replacement, but it adds to the sort of fog of war around what effect AI is really having.
cluckindan 9mo ago
And this is why AI coding will eventually degrade into a mess. Enjoy it while it lasts. AI eats up users caring about $company which makes library, library degrades because nobody is paying, $company goes insolvent, library goes unmaintained and eventually defunct, AI still tries to use it. Vibe coding with libraries is a fad that is destined to die. Vibe coding your own libraries will result in million line codebases nobody understands. Nothing about either is sustainable, it’s all optics and optics will come crashing down eventually.
- rewgs 9mo ago
  I don't see enough people talking about this side of things. Couldn't agree more.
  - csomar 9mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons Given that countries/cities can go into this state for a very long time without resolution, I am not quite optimistic.
- TeMPOraL 9mo ago
  That's presuming libraries need companies backing them to continue to work. That's a bad state of things in the first place.
  - jcattle 9mo ago
    That's presuming humans don't need money to feed themselves and continue to work.
    - TeMPOraL 9mo ago
      That's neither here, nor there. AI is destined to destroy software industry, but not itself. Software does not decay by itself (it's literally the whole point of using digital media over analog). Libraries do not "degrade". "Bit rot" is an illusion, a fictitious force like centrifugal force in Newtonian dynamics, representing changes that happen not to a program, but to everything else around it. The current degree of churn in webshit ecosystem (whose anti-patterns are increasingly seeping in and infecting other software ecosystems) is not a natural state of things. Reducing churn won't kill existing software - on the contrary, it'll just let it continue to work without changes.

echelon 9mo ago

Anything open source will be turned against its authors and against ICs. We thought it would give us freedom, but all of the advantage will accrue to the hyperscalers. If we don't build open source infra that is owned by everyone, we'll be owned by industrial giants and left with a thin crust that is barely ours. (This seems like such a far-fetched "Kumbaya, My Lord" type of wishful thinking, that it's a joke that I'm even suggesting this is possible.) Tech is about to cease being ours. I really like AI models, but I hate monopolies. Especially ones that treat us like cattle and depopulate the last vestiges of ownership and public commons.

lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
[flagged]
- ivell 9mo ago
  It did provide us with lots of non vendors locked products. World has been a better place because of open source.
  - lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
    You have no way way of knowing if that is true whatsoever. lol the capitalist bloodsucker brigade has arrived, they're almost as bad as the entitled "open source community" bloodsuckers
deckard1 9mo ago
it's a real shame no one warned us this would happen when a bunch of corporatists and opportunists wrested the term "open source" from the advocates of true freedom in the late '90s. https://www.fsf.org/ https://www.fsf.org/ But there was money to be made and the friends you thought were friends were just mercenaries with a shiv in their hand.
- acdha 9mo ago
  Also the FSF squandered its opportunity being RMS’ hobby / support organization and skipped a lot of important discussions, even before the skeevy behavior they’d been ignoring came to light. I used to donate in the 90s but … really feels like that was just flushing cash.
  - infamouscow 9mo ago
    If my timelines are correct, the FSF ousted RMS before ChatGPT came out.
    - bgwalter 9mo ago
      The FSF also ignored the SaaS revolution. They put out the AGPL but did not really market it or convert FSF projects to it.
    - supern0va 9mo ago
      They actually re-appointed him to the board in 2021, also before ChatGPT came out: https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-...
    - acdha 9mo ago
      ChatGPT came into the picture long after the open source issues we’re talking about were apparent. AI companies are making it even worse but solid advocacy in the 2010s or 2000s would’ve been helpful.
- SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
pdonis 9mo ago
> owned by everyone There's no such thing. Even if on paper "everyone" has an ownership share, in practice it's going to be a relatively small number of people who actually exercise all the functions of ownership. The idea that "everyone" can somehow collectively "own" anything is a pipe dream. Ownership in practice is control--whoever controls it owns it. "Everyone" can't control anything. > I really like AI models, but I hate monopolies. Especially ones that treat us like cattle and depopulate the last vestiges of ownership and public commons. I would dispute whether the tech giants are "monopolies", since there's still competition between them, but that's a minor point. I agree with you that they treat individual coders like cattle--but that's because they can: because, from their standpoint, individual coders are commodities. And if automated tools, including AI models, are cheaper commodities that, from their standpoint, can do the same job, that's what they'll use. And if the end result is that whatever they're selling as end products becomes cheaper for the same functionality, then economically speaking, that's an improvement--we as coders might not like it, but we as customers are better off because things we want are cheaper. So I'm not sure it's a consistent position to "really like AI models" but also not want the tech giants to treat you like cattle. The two things go together.
- crabmusket 9mo ago
  > we as customers are better off because things we want are cheaper Why privilege that side of the equation over "we as workers"? Being a customer isn't all there is to life. I happen to spend quite a bit more time working than shopping.
  - pdonis 9mo ago
    > Why privilege that side of the equation It's not a matter of "privilege". It's simple economics: if the same functionality can be provided more cheaply, that's a gain to everyone. The gain to customers is the most obvious gain, and it's what I focused on in my previous post--but it's also a gain to producers, because it frees up resources to produce other things of value. But the producers have to be willing to change how they make use of resources in order to take advantage of those opportunities. > I happen to spend quite a bit more time working than shopping. Then you should be a lot more worried about AI providing the same functionality you were providing as a coder, but more cheaply--because that makes you, or at least you as a coder providing that functionality, a commodity that's no longer worth its cost. So if you want to avoid being commoditized and treated like cattle, you have to change what you produce to something that AI can't do more cheaply than you can.
throw234234234 9mo ago
They commoditized their complement to their hardware/infra, that being software. Good for them and the value of tech will shift to what is still scarce relatively.
burnt-resistor 9mo ago
Stop enabling corporations' theft and exploitation. Don't FOSS by default, unionize, embrace solidarity, and form worker-owned co-ops that aren't run by craven/unrealistic/non-business founders if you want any sort of stability.
heavyset_go 9mo ago
IMO, the only ethical and legal way to build LLMs on the entire output of all human creativity, that still respects rights and won't lead to feudalism, is conforming to the actual legal requirements of fair use that are being ignored. According to fair use doctrine, research models would be okay. Models used in education would be okay. Models used for public betterment by the government would be okay, etc Pie in the sky version would be that models, their output and the infrastructure they run on would be held in a public trust for everyone's benefit. They wouldn't exist without consuming all of the public's intellectual and creative labor and property, therefore they should belong to the public, for the public. > Tech is about to cease being ours. On the hardware side, it's bad, as well. Remote attestation is here, and the frog is just about boiled when it comes to the idea of a somewhat open and compatible PC as the platform for general computing. It was kinda cool while it lasted, glad I got to see the early internet, but it wasn't worth it to basically sign away for my great grandchildren to be peasants or belong to some rich kid's harem.
naasking 9mo ago
It does give us freedom. In fact, it arguably gives more people freedom, as non-programmers can create now simple tools to help themselves. I really don't see any way that it reduces our freedom.
throw10920 9mo ago
> Anything open source will be turned against its authors and against ICs. I fail to see how open source is being "turned against" anyone here. > we'll be owned by industrial giants ...or how anyone is being "owned by" industrial giants in any way relevant to open source. > Tech is about to cease being ours. This doesn't mean anything. You're just ranting.

tills13 9mo ago

It's just interesting because most of the talk is programmers talking about AI taking their job by replacing them not taking their job because it's taking away revenue from the business. Reminds me of the problem with Google & their rich results which wiped out and continues to wipe out blogs who rely on people actually visiting their site vs. getting the information they seek without leaving Google.

FuckButtons 9mo ago
I suppose in the limit that’s likely to be the fate of all other businesses.
causal 9mo ago
I expect a lot of business disruption because of AI. Agree it's not the same as employee replacement, but it adds to the sort of fog of war around what effect AI is really having.

cluckindan 9mo ago

And this is why AI coding will eventually degrade into a mess. Enjoy it while it lasts. AI eats up users caring about $company which makes library, library degrades because nobody is paying, $company goes insolvent, library goes unmaintained and eventually defunct, AI still tries to use it. Vibe coding with libraries is a fad that is destined to die. Vibe coding your own libraries will result in million line codebases nobody understands. Nothing about either is sustainable, it’s all optics and optics will come crashing down eventually.

rewgs 9mo ago
I don't see enough people talking about this side of things. Couldn't agree more.
- csomar 9mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons Given that countries/cities can go into this state for a very long time without resolution, I am not quite optimistic.
TeMPOraL 9mo ago
That's presuming libraries need companies backing them to continue to work. That's a bad state of things in the first place.
- jcattle 9mo ago
  That's presuming humans don't need money to feed themselves and continue to work.
  - TeMPOraL 9mo ago
    That's neither here, nor there. AI is destined to destroy software industry, but not itself. Software does not decay by itself (it's literally the whole point of using digital media over analog). Libraries do not "degrade". "Bit rot" is an illusion, a fictitious force like centrifugal force in Newtonian dynamics, representing changes that happen not to a program, but to everything else around it. The current degree of churn in webshit ecosystem (whose anti-patterns are increasingly seeping in and infecting other software ecosystems) is not a natural state of things. Reducing churn won't kill existing software - on the contrary, it'll just let it continue to work without changes.