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Blog posts by authors claiming AI has transformed them into godlike engines of productivity: 103728369129 Interviews by celebrities predicting AI will revoluti

Blog posts by authors claiming AI has transformed them into godlike engines of productivity: 103728369129 Interviews by celebrities predicting AI will revolutionize the economy: 2837191001747 Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before ChatGPT was introduced: 0

candiddevmike 8mo ago
I feel like the things I've built have gotten better since ChatGPT, but I don't use LLMs, just iterating and realizing how naive/terrible my old code is. Maybe I should write a blog post on How I (Don't) Use LLMs for Coding.
snicky 8mo ago
I agree with you in general, but come on - learning is easier (unless you need to dive into highly specialized stuff), writing shorter chunks of code is faster, simple photo editing ("remove this and that from the background") doesn't need any skills now. Image generation isn't terribly too if you put some effort and don't stick with the same 3-4 drawing styles that all the cheapskate companies use.
marginalia_nu 8mo ago
To be fair there is this persistent paradox about programming methodologies is that no matter how much they seem to speed you up, or how effective they seem to be at reducing bugs, this doesn't seem to give you any material competitive advantage over companies going for the most conservative language and methodology choices.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
  It's almost like writing the code isn't the hard part.
tjr 8mo ago
I don't think it's quite at trillions to zero, but I do think the numbers are way, way out of balance so far. I'm still at the point where, if AI disappeared tomorrow, I would be, at worst, mildly inconvenienced.
- frizlab 8mo ago
  > if AI disappeared tomorrow, I would be, at worst, mildly inconvenienced And I think the same is true for quite a lot of people. It’s a thing I said a few months ago while discussing with someone about AI. “If AI was to go away, would you care? Compare with if smartphones were to go away.” Most people would not blink twice if AI were to be removed. Try to remove their phones, would not be the same!
  - LEDThereBeLight 7mo ago
    It’s not a helpful comparison because it’s too early. If the first iPhone went away, no one would care. Once software is rearchitected around AI, it will look a lot different. Your phone won’t need UIs that are as complex, because we can just tell AI what to change or open or do.
ojr 8mo ago
Google Search has gotten better unless you think AI mode is a downgrade, the alternative of having a wikipedia article, reddit post or random website as the first result is not better technically maybe morally for you but not matter of factually. The average user does less manual filtering.
- snarf_br 8mo ago
  Factually and environmentally as well.
  - ojr 8mo ago
    I guess all the publishers and advertisers are worried and complaining about nothing
- elorant 8mo ago
  AI overview though is crap. It almost always gives wrong answers and contradicts things that are in the results.
  - ojr 8mo ago
    hasn't been my experience, I am able to search for information faster, speed to correct answer has increased on average, I feel, if we start providing examples your argument starts to fall fast. Think about the average Google Search, you really think it gets it wrong? Your search query is probably more obscure than mainstream web users.
- nicoburns 8mo ago
  I definitely think the AI mode is a downgrade. It has me seriously considering abandoning Google for different search engine. With a reddit post or a Wikipedia article, it's much easier to assess the credibility of the content. The AI mode does at least attempt to list it's sources, but it's extra hoops to jump through.
  - ojr 8mo ago
KronisLV 8mo ago
> Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before ChatGPT was introduced: 0 I don't think you can really get any sort of a signal on this? Nobody is all that sensitive to the amount of features that get shipped in any project, and nobody really perceives how many people or how much time was needed to ship anything. As a user, unless that means a 5x difference in price of some service, you don't really see or care about any of that - and even if there were savings on the part of any developer/company, they'd probably just pocket the difference. Similarly, if there's a product or service that exists thanks to vibe coding and wouldn't have existed otherwise, you probably don't know that particular detail. Even when fuckups and bugs do happen, there's also no signal whether it's explicitly due to AI (or whether people are scapegoating it), or just management pushing features nobody wants and enshittifying products and entire industries for their own gain. Well, maybe StackOverflow is a bit easier to host now: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/stack-overflow-is-almost-dead/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/stack-overflow-is-almost-...
hu3 8mo ago
- learning: easier - searching: better - photo edit/enhance/filter: easier and acessible - text summarization: better - quick scripts/tools: faster - brainstorming/iterating ideas: faster - generating list of names: faster - rephrasing text: better - researching topics: faster - stackoverflow: i'm finally free. won't be missed by me - coding: debatable but for me LLMs made possible projects that weren't before due to scope or lack of expertise
- perrygeo 8mo ago
  Doing things "faster" and "easier" is an interesting way to put it. It places all of the value on one's personal experience of using the AI, and completely ignores the quality of the thing produced. Which explains why most stuff produced by LLMs is throwaway garbage! It only reinforces the parent comment - there is virtually no emphasis on making things "better".
  - skeledrew 8mo ago
    There won't even be a quality conversation if a thing isn't built in the first place, which is the tendency when the going is slow and hard. AI makes the highly improbable very probable.
    - perrygeo 8mo ago
      I agree. I think this is the LLM superpower: making quick prototypes that allow us to speak concretely about technical tradeoffs. My comment was pointed at people who use AI specifically with the goal of making anything easier and faster. Doesn't matter what it is. "Faster and easier is better". as though doing more of the same shit are primary goals in themselves. If you're using AI to explore better technical decisions, you're doing it right! AI can be a catalyst for engineering and science. But not if we treat it like a mere productivity tool. The quality of the thing enabled by the AI very much matters.
  - hu3 8mo ago
    Doing things faster/easier means I now do most of these things whereas I didn't before. Because I have limited time and energy. Take learning as an example: I couldn't afford to spend a weekend learning the tradeoffs made by the top 5 WebGL JavaScript game engines AND generate the same demos for all of them to compare DX, and performance on my phone. And as I had more questions about their implementation I would have to scavenge their code again, for each question. A sample of the questions I had (and as I asked it would suggest new question for things I didn't know I should ask): - Do they perform sorting or are their drawing immediate? sort on z? z and y? z/y and layers? immediate'ish + layers? Frustum culling supported? What's their implementation for it if any? - What are their GPU atlas strategies? fixed size? multiple with grouping by drawing frequency to reduce atlas switching? 2048? 4096? How many atlases? Does it build the atlas at boot or does it support progressive atlas sprite loading? How does it deal with fragmentation? What does it use for packing algo? Skyline ir something more advanced? How is their batch splitting behaviour and performance characteristics? - Does it help with ECS? How is their hierarchical entity DX, if any? Does it math with matrices for transformations or simpler math? Shaders support? Do they use an Uber shader for most things? And what about polygons? Also, how do they help with texture bleeding? What's their camera implementation? Do they support spatial audio? ...and so on. Multiply the number of questions by at least 10. And I asked LLM to show me the code for each answer, on all 5 engines. This kind of learning just wasn't feasible for me before with my busy life. So when I say "easier" it often means "made possible". Finally let's not forget most of us in HN are incredibly privileged and can afford to learn futile things on the weekend. But for a great part of the less privileged population, having access to easier learning is LIFE CHANGING.
daturkel 8mo ago
Notion AI is pretty great for both search and writing.
bdangubic 8mo ago
> Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before I would not know if they have gotten better or worse cause I don’t use them anymore.
ivanjermakov 8mo ago
> things I've used that seem to be better than they were A bunch of things got obsolete with emergence of good LLMs, especially in research and working with text tasks. See usage graphs of Stackoverflow, Grammarly and others.
- getnormality 8mo ago
  "Obsolete" is an incomplete characterization of the state of play. LLMs put the information from StackOverflow into an arguably more helpful format, but they're still heavily dependent on human input. The LLM must periodically harvest info from human communities to stay up-to-date with technological progress. If those communities die, the LLM will not compensate, and other communities will arise to replace them. Those communities may have different attitudes towards the LLMs that killed their ancestors.

candiddevmike 8mo ago

I feel like the things I've built have gotten better since ChatGPT, but I don't use LLMs, just iterating and realizing how naive/terrible my old code is. Maybe I should write a blog post on How I (Don't) Use LLMs for Coding.

snicky 8mo ago

I agree with you in general, but come on - learning is easier (unless you need to dive into highly specialized stuff), writing shorter chunks of code is faster, simple photo editing ("remove this and that from the background") doesn't need any skills now. Image generation isn't terribly too if you put some effort and don't stick with the same 3-4 drawing styles that all the cheapskate companies use.

marginalia_nu 8mo ago

To be fair there is this persistent paradox about programming methodologies is that no matter how much they seem to speed you up, or how effective they seem to be at reducing bugs, this doesn't seem to give you any material competitive advantage over companies going for the most conservative language and methodology choices.

AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
It's almost like writing the code isn't the hard part.

tjr 8mo ago

I don't think it's quite at trillions to zero, but I do think the numbers are way, way out of balance so far. I'm still at the point where, if AI disappeared tomorrow, I would be, at worst, mildly inconvenienced.

frizlab 8mo ago
> if AI disappeared tomorrow, I would be, at worst, mildly inconvenienced And I think the same is true for quite a lot of people. It’s a thing I said a few months ago while discussing with someone about AI. “If AI was to go away, would you care? Compare with if smartphones were to go away.” Most people would not blink twice if AI were to be removed. Try to remove their phones, would not be the same!
- LEDThereBeLight 7mo ago
  It’s not a helpful comparison because it’s too early. If the first iPhone went away, no one would care. Once software is rearchitected around AI, it will look a lot different. Your phone won’t need UIs that are as complex, because we can just tell AI what to change or open or do.

ojr 8mo ago

Google Search has gotten better unless you think AI mode is a downgrade, the alternative of having a wikipedia article, reddit post or random website as the first result is not better technically maybe morally for you but not matter of factually. The average user does less manual filtering.

snarf_br 8mo ago
Factually and environmentally as well.
- ojr 8mo ago
  I guess all the publishers and advertisers are worried and complaining about nothing
elorant 8mo ago
AI overview though is crap. It almost always gives wrong answers and contradicts things that are in the results.
- ojr 8mo ago
  hasn't been my experience, I am able to search for information faster, speed to correct answer has increased on average, I feel, if we start providing examples your argument starts to fall fast. Think about the average Google Search, you really think it gets it wrong? Your search query is probably more obscure than mainstream web users.
nicoburns 8mo ago
I definitely think the AI mode is a downgrade. It has me seriously considering abandoning Google for different search engine. With a reddit post or a Wikipedia article, it's much easier to assess the credibility of the content. The AI mode does at least attempt to list it's sources, but it's extra hoops to jump through.
- ojr 8mo ago

KronisLV 8mo ago

> Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before ChatGPT was introduced: 0 I don't think you can really get any sort of a signal on this? Nobody is all that sensitive to the amount of features that get shipped in any project, and nobody really perceives how many people or how much time was needed to ship anything. As a user, unless that means a 5x difference in price of some service, you don't really see or care about any of that - and even if there were savings on the part of any developer/company, they'd probably just pocket the difference. Similarly, if there's a product or service that exists thanks to vibe coding and wouldn't have existed otherwise, you probably don't know that particular detail. Even when fuckups and bugs do happen, there's also no signal whether it's explicitly due to AI (or whether people are scapegoating it), or just management pushing features nobody wants and enshittifying products and entire industries for their own gain. Well, maybe StackOverflow is a bit easier to host now: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/stack-overflow-is-almost-dead/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/stack-overflow-is-almost-...

hu3 8mo ago

- learning: easier - searching: better - photo edit/enhance/filter: easier and acessible - text summarization: better - quick scripts/tools: faster - brainstorming/iterating ideas: faster - generating list of names: faster - rephrasing text: better - researching topics: faster - stackoverflow: i'm finally free. won't be missed by me - coding: debatable but for me LLMs made possible projects that weren't before due to scope or lack of expertise

perrygeo 8mo ago
Doing things "faster" and "easier" is an interesting way to put it. It places all of the value on one's personal experience of using the AI, and completely ignores the quality of the thing produced. Which explains why most stuff produced by LLMs is throwaway garbage! It only reinforces the parent comment - there is virtually no emphasis on making things "better".
- skeledrew 8mo ago
  There won't even be a quality conversation if a thing isn't built in the first place, which is the tendency when the going is slow and hard. AI makes the highly improbable very probable.
  - perrygeo 8mo ago
    I agree. I think this is the LLM superpower: making quick prototypes that allow us to speak concretely about technical tradeoffs. My comment was pointed at people who use AI specifically with the goal of making anything easier and faster. Doesn't matter what it is. "Faster and easier is better". as though doing more of the same shit are primary goals in themselves. If you're using AI to explore better technical decisions, you're doing it right! AI can be a catalyst for engineering and science. But not if we treat it like a mere productivity tool. The quality of the thing enabled by the AI very much matters.
- hu3 8mo ago
  Doing things faster/easier means I now do most of these things whereas I didn't before. Because I have limited time and energy. Take learning as an example: I couldn't afford to spend a weekend learning the tradeoffs made by the top 5 WebGL JavaScript game engines AND generate the same demos for all of them to compare DX, and performance on my phone. And as I had more questions about their implementation I would have to scavenge their code again, for each question. A sample of the questions I had (and as I asked it would suggest new question for things I didn't know I should ask): - Do they perform sorting or are their drawing immediate? sort on z? z and y? z/y and layers? immediate'ish + layers? Frustum culling supported? What's their implementation for it if any? - What are their GPU atlas strategies? fixed size? multiple with grouping by drawing frequency to reduce atlas switching? 2048? 4096? How many atlases? Does it build the atlas at boot or does it support progressive atlas sprite loading? How does it deal with fragmentation? What does it use for packing algo? Skyline ir something more advanced? How is their batch splitting behaviour and performance characteristics? - Does it help with ECS? How is their hierarchical entity DX, if any? Does it math with matrices for transformations or simpler math? Shaders support? Do they use an Uber shader for most things? And what about polygons? Also, how do they help with texture bleeding? What's their camera implementation? Do they support spatial audio? ...and so on. Multiply the number of questions by at least 10. And I asked LLM to show me the code for each answer, on all 5 engines. This kind of learning just wasn't feasible for me before with my busy life. So when I say "easier" it often means "made possible". Finally let's not forget most of us in HN are incredibly privileged and can afford to learn futile things on the weekend. But for a great part of the less privileged population, having access to easier learning is LIFE CHANGING.

daturkel 8mo ago

Notion AI is pretty great for both search and writing.

bdangubic 8mo ago

> Software and online things I've used that seem to be better than they were before I would not know if they have gotten better or worse cause I don’t use them anymore.

ivanjermakov 8mo ago

> things I've used that seem to be better than they were A bunch of things got obsolete with emergence of good LLMs, especially in research and working with text tasks. See usage graphs of Stackoverflow, Grammarly and others.

getnormality 8mo ago
"Obsolete" is an incomplete characterization of the state of play. LLMs put the information from StackOverflow into an arguably more helpful format, but they're still heavily dependent on human input. The LLM must periodically harvest info from human communities to stay up-to-date with technological progress. If those communities die, the LLM will not compensate, and other communities will arise to replace them. Those communities may have different attitudes towards the LLMs that killed their ancestors.