4 ms·

1. If you can't convince yourself, after downloading Claude Code or Codex and playing with them for 1 week, that programming is completely revolutionized, there

by antirez 9mo ago

1. If you can't convince yourself, after downloading Claude Code or Codex and playing with them for 1 week, that programming is completely revolutionized, there is nothing I can do: you have it at your fingertips and you search for facts I should communicate for you. 2. The US alone air conditioning usage is around 4 times the energy / CO2 usage of all the world data centers (not just AI) combined together. AI is 10% of the data centers usage, so just AC is 40 times that.

oulipo2 9mo ago
1. "if you can't convince yourself by playing anecdotically" is NOT "facts" 2. it's not because the US is incredibly bad at energy spending in AC that it somehow justifies the fact that we would add another, mostly unnecessary, polluting source, even if it's slightly lower. ACs have existed for decades. AI has been exploding for a few years, so we can definitely see it go way, way past the AC usage also the idea is of "accelerationnism". Why do we need all this tech? What good does it make to have 10 more silly slop AI videos and disinformation campaigns during election? Just so that antirez can be a little bit faster at doing his code... that's not what the world is about. Our world should be about humans, connecting together (more slowly, not "faster"), about having meaningful work, and caring about planetary resources The exact opposite of what capitalistic accelerationism / AI is trying to sell us
- simonw 9mo ago
  If you can solve "measure programming productivity with data" you'll have cracked one of the hardest problems in our industry. > Why do we need all this tech? Slightly odd question to be asking here on Hacker News!
  - oulipo2 9mo ago
    Sure, but I wasn't the one pretending to have "facts" on AI... > Slightly odd question to be asking here on Hacker News! It's absolutely not? The first line of question when you work in a domain SHOULD BE "why am I doing this" and "what is the impact of my work on others"
    - simonw 9mo ago
      Yeah, I think I quoted you out of context there. I'm very much in agreement about asking "what is the impact of my work on others".
  - lunar_mycroft 9mo ago
    > If you can solve "measure programming productivity with data" you'll have cracked one of the hardest problems in our industry. That doesn't mean that we have to accept claims that LLMs drastically increase productivity without good evidence (or in the presence of evidence to the contrary). If anything, it means the opposite.
    - simonw 9mo ago
      At the is point the best evidence we have is a large volume of extremely experienced programmers - like antirez - saying "this stuff is amazing for coding productivity". My own personal experience supports that too. If you're determined to say "I refuse to accept appeal to authority here, I demand a solution to the measuring productivity problem first" then you're probably in for a long wait.
      - llmslave3 9mo ago
        There is also plenty of extremely experienced programmers saying "this stuff is useless for programming".
        simonw 9mo ago
        If a bunch of people say "it's impossible to go to the moon, nobody has done it" and Buzz Aldrin says "I have been to the moon, here are the photos/video/NASA archives to prove it", who do you believe?
        sussyomegalul 9mo ago
        [dead]
        fatata123 9mo ago
        [dead]
        oulipo2 9mo ago
        The equivalent of "we've been to the moon" in the case of LLMs would be: "Hey Claude, generate a full Linux kernel from scratch for me, go on the web to find protocol definitions, it should handle Wifi, USB, Bluetooth, and have WebGL-backed window server" And then have it run in a couple of hours/days to deliver, without touching it. We are *far* from this
- akomtu 9mo ago
  This is obviously a collision between our human culture and the machine culture, and on the surface its intent is evil, as many have guessed already. But what it also does is it separates the two sides cleanly, as they want to pursue different and wildly incompatible futures. Some want to herd sheep, others want to unite with tech, and the two can't live under one sky. The AI wedge is a necessity in this sense.
keybits 9mo ago
I enjoyed about your blog post, but I was curious about the claim in point 2 above. I asked Claude and it seems the claim is false: # Fact-Checking This Climate Impact Claim Let me break down this claim with actual data: ## The Numbers *US Air Conditioning:* - US A/C uses approximately *220-240 TWh/year* (2020 EIA data) - This represents about 6% of total US electricity consumption *Global Data Centers:* - Estimated *240-340 TWh/year globally* (IEA 2022 reports) - Some estimates go to 460 TWh including cryptocurrency *AI's Share:* - AI represents roughly *10-15%* of data center energy (IEA estimates this is growing rapidly) ## Verdict: *The claim is FALSE* The math doesn't support a 4:1 ratio. US A/C and global data centers use *roughly comparable* amounts of energy—somewhere between 1:1 and 1:1.5, not 4:1. The "40 times AI" conclusion would only work if the 4x premise were true. ## Important Caveats 1. *Measurement uncertainty*: Data center energy use is notoriously difficult to measure accurately 2. *Rapid growth*: AI energy use is growing much faster than A/C 3. *Geographic variation*: This compares one country's A/C to global data centers (apples to oranges) ## Reliable Sources - US EIA (Energy Information Administration) for A/C data - IEA (International Energy Agency) for data center estimates - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory studies The quote significantly overstates the disparity, though both are indeed major energy consumers.
vultour 9mo ago
So you don't actually have anything to support your argument other than "trust me bro". Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
- simonw 9mo ago
  A useful skill in both software engineering and life is figuring out, based on prior reputation and performance, who you should trust.
  - pmarin 9mo ago
    That sound more like software pseudo-engineering to me.
  - oulipo2 9mo ago
    A bit like we should trust RFK on how "vaccines don't work" thanks to his wide experience? The idea here is not to say that antirez has no knowledge about coding or software engineering, the idea was that if he says "hey we have the facts", and then when people ask "okay, show us the fact" he says: "just download claude code and play with it one hour and you have the facts" we don't trust that, that's not science
    - simonw 9mo ago
      That's a great example in support of my argument here, because RFK Jr clearly has no relevant experience at all - so "figuring out, based on prior reputation and performance, who you should trust" should lead you to not listen to a word he says.
      - oulipo2 9mo ago
        Well guess what, a lot of people will "trust him" because he is a "figure of power" (he's a minister of the current administration). So that's exactly why "authority arguments" are bad... and we should rely on science and studies
  - minusf 9mo ago
sn0wleppard 9mo ago
I tried Claude on a project where I'd got stuck trying to use some MacOS media APIs in a Rust app. It just went in circles between something that wouldn't compile, and a "solution" that compiled but didn't work despite the output insisting it worked. Anything it said that wasn't already in the (admittedly crap) Apple documentation was just hallucination. Not exactly what I'd describe as "revolutionary".

by antirez 9mo ago

oulipo2 9mo ago

1. "if you can't convince yourself by playing anecdotically" is NOT "facts" 2. it's not because the US is incredibly bad at energy spending in AC that it somehow justifies the fact that we would add another, mostly unnecessary, polluting source, even if it's slightly lower. ACs have existed for decades. AI has been exploding for a few years, so we can definitely see it go way, way past the AC usage also the idea is of "accelerationnism". Why do we need all this tech? What good does it make to have 10 more silly slop AI videos and disinformation campaigns during election? Just so that antirez can be a little bit faster at doing his code... that's not what the world is about. Our world should be about humans, connecting together (more slowly, not "faster"), about having meaningful work, and caring about planetary resources The exact opposite of what capitalistic accelerationism / AI is trying to sell us

simonw 9mo ago
If you can solve "measure programming productivity with data" you'll have cracked one of the hardest problems in our industry. > Why do we need all this tech? Slightly odd question to be asking here on Hacker News!
- oulipo2 9mo ago
  Sure, but I wasn't the one pretending to have "facts" on AI... > Slightly odd question to be asking here on Hacker News! It's absolutely not? The first line of question when you work in a domain SHOULD BE "why am I doing this" and "what is the impact of my work on others"
  - simonw 9mo ago
    Yeah, I think I quoted you out of context there. I'm very much in agreement about asking "what is the impact of my work on others".
- lunar_mycroft 9mo ago
  > If you can solve "measure programming productivity with data" you'll have cracked one of the hardest problems in our industry. That doesn't mean that we have to accept claims that LLMs drastically increase productivity without good evidence (or in the presence of evidence to the contrary). If anything, it means the opposite.
  - simonw 9mo ago
    At the is point the best evidence we have is a large volume of extremely experienced programmers - like antirez - saying "this stuff is amazing for coding productivity". My own personal experience supports that too. If you're determined to say "I refuse to accept appeal to authority here, I demand a solution to the measuring productivity problem first" then you're probably in for a long wait.
    - llmslave3 9mo ago
      There is also plenty of extremely experienced programmers saying "this stuff is useless for programming".
      - simonw 9mo ago
        If a bunch of people say "it's impossible to go to the moon, nobody has done it" and Buzz Aldrin says "I have been to the moon, here are the photos/video/NASA archives to prove it", who do you believe?
        sussyomegalul 9mo ago
        [dead]
        fatata123 9mo ago
        [dead]
        oulipo2 9mo ago
        The equivalent of "we've been to the moon" in the case of LLMs would be: "Hey Claude, generate a full Linux kernel from scratch for me, go on the web to find protocol definitions, it should handle Wifi, USB, Bluetooth, and have WebGL-backed window server" And then have it run in a couple of hours/days to deliver, without touching it. We are *far* from this
akomtu 9mo ago
This is obviously a collision between our human culture and the machine culture, and on the surface its intent is evil, as many have guessed already. But what it also does is it separates the two sides cleanly, as they want to pursue different and wildly incompatible futures. Some want to herd sheep, others want to unite with tech, and the two can't live under one sky. The AI wedge is a necessity in this sense.

keybits 9mo ago

I enjoyed about your blog post, but I was curious about the claim in point 2 above. I asked Claude and it seems the claim is false: # Fact-Checking This Climate Impact Claim Let me break down this claim with actual data: ## The Numbers *US Air Conditioning:* - US A/C uses approximately *220-240 TWh/year* (2020 EIA data) - This represents about 6% of total US electricity consumption *Global Data Centers:* - Estimated *240-340 TWh/year globally* (IEA 2022 reports) - Some estimates go to 460 TWh including cryptocurrency *AI's Share:* - AI represents roughly *10-15%* of data center energy (IEA estimates this is growing rapidly) ## Verdict: *The claim is FALSE* The math doesn't support a 4:1 ratio. US A/C and global data centers use *roughly comparable* amounts of energy—somewhere between 1:1 and 1:1.5, not 4:1. The "40 times AI" conclusion would only work if the 4x premise were true. ## Important Caveats 1. *Measurement uncertainty*: Data center energy use is notoriously difficult to measure accurately 2. *Rapid growth*: AI energy use is growing much faster than A/C 3. *Geographic variation*: This compares one country's A/C to global data centers (apples to oranges) ## Reliable Sources - US EIA (Energy Information Administration) for A/C data - IEA (International Energy Agency) for data center estimates - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory studies The quote significantly overstates the disparity, though both are indeed major energy consumers.

vultour 9mo ago

So you don't actually have anything to support your argument other than "trust me bro". Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

simonw 9mo ago
A useful skill in both software engineering and life is figuring out, based on prior reputation and performance, who you should trust.
- pmarin 9mo ago
  That sound more like software pseudo-engineering to me.
- oulipo2 9mo ago
  A bit like we should trust RFK on how "vaccines don't work" thanks to his wide experience? The idea here is not to say that antirez has no knowledge about coding or software engineering, the idea was that if he says "hey we have the facts", and then when people ask "okay, show us the fact" he says: "just download claude code and play with it one hour and you have the facts" we don't trust that, that's not science
  - simonw 9mo ago
    That's a great example in support of my argument here, because RFK Jr clearly has no relevant experience at all - so "figuring out, based on prior reputation and performance, who you should trust" should lead you to not listen to a word he says.
    - oulipo2 9mo ago
      Well guess what, a lot of people will "trust him" because he is a "figure of power" (he's a minister of the current administration). So that's exactly why "authority arguments" are bad... and we should rely on science and studies
- minusf 9mo ago

sn0wleppard 9mo ago

I tried Claude on a project where I'd got stuck trying to use some MacOS media APIs in a Rust app. It just went in circles between something that wouldn't compile, and a "solution" that compiled but didn't work despite the output insisting it worked. Anything it said that wasn't already in the (admittedly crap) Apple documentation was just hallucination. Not exactly what I'd describe as "revolutionary".