6 ms·

I am bit tired of such discussions. I don't care if LLMs are good at coding or bad at it (in my experience the answer is "it depends"). I don't care how good a

I am bit tired of such discussions. I don't care if LLMs are good at coding or bad at it (in my experience the answer is "it depends"). I don't care how good are they at anything else. What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). It is not here to make our lives better, more worthwhile, more satisfying (it could do these as well). It is there to reduce our agency, to make it easier to fire us, to put us in even more precarious position, to suck even more wealth from those that have little to those that have a lot. Yet what I see are pigs discussing the usefulness of bacon-making machine just because it also happens to be able to produce tasty soybean feed. They forget that it is not soybean feed that their owner bought this machine for, and that their owner expects a return from such investment.

simmerup 7mo ago
I guess you didn't read the article?
- wolvesechoes 7mo ago
  Keep guessing
spacecadet 7mo ago
Demand full automation. Demand universal basic income. Notice how the later is nearly absent from the conversation. Another distraction is AGI that which is a danger to humanity- the only danger is people...
- pixl97 7mo ago
  > the only danger is people... Simply put, no it is not. But on the reverse, the first danger with AI is people. Over the longer term it will look like this. The rich 'win' the world by using AI to enslave the rest of mankind and claim ownership over everything. This will suck and a lot of us will die. The problem is this doesn't solve the greed that cause the problem in the first place. The world will still be limited in a resources of something which will end with the rich in a dick measuring contest and to win that contest they will put more and more power in AI and they connive and fight each other. Eventually the AI has enough power that it kills us all, intentionally or not. We'll achieve nearly unlimited capability long before we solve the problem of unlimited greed and that will spell our end.
  - spacecadet 7mo ago
    This is entirely assumptions about a future that has not happened. Ive worked in "AI" for 20 years, through 2 winters, and run an alignment shop and AIRT... The problem is people. People will use the problem as a scapegoat.
    - pixl97 7mo ago
      Dinosaurs lived 100 million years, before they didn't. And walls between France and Germany were effective, until they weren't. Hell, even the 'people' is the problem doesn't work well for things like Moloch problems. Which people? The problem can no longer be pointed at any individual but a super-organizational response. Once you have an issue that is abstracted from it's base components, then any agent capable of parsing the abstraction can be part of influencing it and becoming part of Moloch.
      - spacecadet 7mo ago
        Im familiar. Our group employs game theory in our research... In practice, if you are at the point of blame- yes you have failed.
        pixl97 7mo ago
        God damnit eukaryotes, I told you this bullshit was going to have long term ramifications 2 billion years ago!
        spacecadet 7mo ago
        Now thats good! :) I think you and I likely agree more than we disagree. Its just out of context...
wepple 7mo ago
> It is there to reduce our agency, to make it easier to fire us, to put us in even more precarious position Could be. It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have. Write your own OS, your own mail app, design your own machinery to farm with. It’s here, so I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something”
- wolvesechoes 7mo ago
  > It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have Yeah, companies that develop and push this tech definitely have this in mind. > I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something I am not surprised because I didn't write anything like it.
  - margalabargala 7mo ago
    > > I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something > I am not surprised because I didn't write anything like it. You're right, there was no "someone should do something" call to action in your original comment.
- idopmstuff 7mo ago
  It's also worth nothing that the "our" in that sentence is just SWEs, who are a pretty small group in the grand scheme of things. I recognize that's a lot of HN, but still bears considering in terms of the broader impact outside of that group. I'm a small business owner, and AI has drastically increased my agency. I can do so much more - I've built so many internal tools and automated so many processes that allow me to spend my time on things I care about (both within the business but also spending time with my kids). It is, fortunately, and unfortunately, the nature of a lot of technology to disempower some people while making lives better for others. The internet disempowered librarians.
  - wolvesechoes 7mo ago
    > It's also worth nothing that the "our" in that sentence is just SWEs It isn't, it just a matter of seeing ahead of the curve. Delegating stuff to AI and agents by necessity leads to atrophy of skills that are being delegated. Using AI to write code leads to reduced capability to write code (among people). Using AI for decision-making reduces capability for making decisions. Using AI for math reduces capability for doing math. Using AI to formulate opinions reduces capability to formulate opinions. Using AI to write summaries reduces capability to summarize. And so on. And, by nature, less capability means less agency. Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them Not to mention utilizing AI for control, spying, invigilation and coercion. Do I need to explain how control is opposed to agency?
phyzix5761 7mo ago
At some point, if most people lose their jobs, you have no market to sell your services to. So, either, new jobs have to be created in order to keep the capitalism machine running, or you have to provide for the needs of every human being from whatever you're doing with your AI. Otherwise, a lot of hungry people revolt and you have violence against these businesses. I think new jobs will be created because AI is always limited by hardware and its current capabilities. Businesses, in order to compete, want to do things their competitors aren't currently doing. Those business needs always go beyond the current technological capabilities until the tech catches up and then they lather, rinse, repeat.
- wolvesechoes 7mo ago
  > Otherwise, a lot of hungry people revolt and you have violence against these businesses. With shrinking and aging population?
- nerdyadventurer 7mo ago
  Economy is going to collapse with the war anyways. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ql24Z8SIeE&t=247s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ql24Z8SIeE&t=247s)
slibhb 7mo ago
> What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). How do you figure? 20 dollars/month is insanely cheap for what OpenAI/Anthropic/Google offer. That absolutely qualifies as "empowering a common person". It lowers barriers! A lot of the anti-AI sentiment on HN concerns people losing their jobs. I don't think this will happen: programmers who know what they're doing are going to be way, way more effective at using AIs to generate code than others. But even if it is true and we do see job losses in tech: are software devs really "in a precarious position"? Do they really qualify as "those that have little"? Seems like a fantasy to me. Computer programmers have done great over the past 30 years. More broadly, anti-AI sentiment comes from people who dislike change. It's hard to argue someone out of that position. You're allowed to prefer stasis. But the world moves on and I think it's best to remain optimistic, keep an open mind, and make the most of it.
- vips7L 7mo ago
  > I don't think this will happen Block just laid off 40% of their company citing AI.
  - CPLX 7mo ago
    > Block just laid off 40% of their company Because the company was being horribly run and over hired and "pivoted to blockchain" for no fucking reason. > citing AI. Because it's 2026 and they thought that would work to bullshit a few people about point one, which apparently it did.
  - slibhb 7mo ago
    Tech companies have been laying off employees for a while now. I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates but I suppose we'll see.
    - vips7L 7mo ago
      I agree that AI was not the _actual_ reason, however, it did allow them to do massive layoffs without admitting they are doing poorly and not taking a massive hit to their stock price.
tptacek 7mo ago
This argument can be used, and has been used, about every innovation in automation since the dawn of the industrial revolution.
- ducttapecrown 7mo ago
  It is not the technology that sucks ever more money out of the populace, it's the people at the top!
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- ezst 7mo ago
  No it hasn't. Work mechanisation throughout history has resulted in a shift from manual labour to one that's more intellectual in nature. Modern AI believers pretend that it will take over those jobs soon as well. This would essentially bring us to a cross-roads between, on one hand, a utopia with UBI and people not needing to work (because their labour is unnecessary), or a dystopia, where few technocratic "lords" own the means of work automation and rule over a submissive world. I don't think it takes a genius to guess where this is heading in our current political climate. Personally, I'm not scared about any of that, because I don't believe LLMs to be very potent as an AI tool. Robotic militias (remotely controlled by BI or AI) seem a much more tangible threat.
- GreenWatermelon 7mo ago
  Yeah, and for good reason. The invitation of the light bulb meant factory owners could force workers into 16 hours shifts. The main beneficiaries of new tech were always the capital owners. Workers had to literally fight and die for our 8-hour workdays and 5-days workweek. This is still going on today: the massive gains from automation are being hoarded by the wealthy capital owners, while workers struggle to make ends meet.
  - tptacek 7mo ago
    Ok but also I want to light my house with lightbulbs, not with animal-fat candles.
Gagarin1917 7mo ago
>It is there to reduce our agency Complete bullshit. The individual has never had as much ability to take on large projects as they do now. They’ve never been able to learn as easily as they can now. >to make it easier to fire us As of now, the technology increases productivity in the average user. The companies that take advantage of that and expand their offering will outperform the ones that simply replace workers and don’t expand or improve offerings. More capable employees make companies more money in general. Productivity increases lead to richer societies and yes, even more jobs, just as it always has.
visarga 7mo ago
> It is there to reduce our agency, to make it easier to fire us, to put us in even more precarious position, to suck even more wealth from those that have little to those that have a lot. You could say this is the story of society, it makes us dependent on each other, reduces our agency, puts us in precarious positions (like WW2). But nobody would argue against society like that. What happens here is that we become empowered by AI and gain some advantages which we immediately use and become dependent on, eventually not being able to function without them - like computers and even thermostats. Does anyone think how would economy operate without thermostats? No fridges, no data centers, no engines... they all need thermostats. We have lost some freedom by depending on them. But also gained.

simmerup 7mo ago

I guess you didn't read the article?

wolvesechoes 7mo ago
Keep guessing

spacecadet 7mo ago

Demand full automation. Demand universal basic income. Notice how the later is nearly absent from the conversation. Another distraction is AGI that which is a danger to humanity- the only danger is people...

pixl97 7mo ago
> the only danger is people... Simply put, no it is not. But on the reverse, the first danger with AI is people. Over the longer term it will look like this. The rich 'win' the world by using AI to enslave the rest of mankind and claim ownership over everything. This will suck and a lot of us will die. The problem is this doesn't solve the greed that cause the problem in the first place. The world will still be limited in a resources of something which will end with the rich in a dick measuring contest and to win that contest they will put more and more power in AI and they connive and fight each other. Eventually the AI has enough power that it kills us all, intentionally or not. We'll achieve nearly unlimited capability long before we solve the problem of unlimited greed and that will spell our end.
- spacecadet 7mo ago
  This is entirely assumptions about a future that has not happened. Ive worked in "AI" for 20 years, through 2 winters, and run an alignment shop and AIRT... The problem is people. People will use the problem as a scapegoat.
  - pixl97 7mo ago
    Dinosaurs lived 100 million years, before they didn't. And walls between France and Germany were effective, until they weren't. Hell, even the 'people' is the problem doesn't work well for things like Moloch problems. Which people? The problem can no longer be pointed at any individual but a super-organizational response. Once you have an issue that is abstracted from it's base components, then any agent capable of parsing the abstraction can be part of influencing it and becoming part of Moloch.
    - spacecadet 7mo ago
      Im familiar. Our group employs game theory in our research... In practice, if you are at the point of blame- yes you have failed.
      - pixl97 7mo ago
        God damnit eukaryotes, I told you this bullshit was going to have long term ramifications 2 billion years ago!
        spacecadet 7mo ago
        Now thats good! :) I think you and I likely agree more than we disagree. Its just out of context...

wepple 7mo ago

> It is there to reduce our agency, to make it easier to fire us, to put us in even more precarious position Could be. It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have. Write your own OS, your own mail app, design your own machinery to farm with. It’s here, so I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something”

wolvesechoes 7mo ago
> It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have Yeah, companies that develop and push this tech definitely have this in mind. > I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something I am not surprised because I didn't write anything like it.
- margalabargala 7mo ago
  > > I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something > I am not surprised because I didn't write anything like it. You're right, there was no "someone should do something" call to action in your original comment.
idopmstuff 7mo ago
It's also worth nothing that the "our" in that sentence is just SWEs, who are a pretty small group in the grand scheme of things. I recognize that's a lot of HN, but still bears considering in terms of the broader impact outside of that group. I'm a small business owner, and AI has drastically increased my agency. I can do so much more - I've built so many internal tools and automated so many processes that allow me to spend my time on things I care about (both within the business but also spending time with my kids). It is, fortunately, and unfortunately, the nature of a lot of technology to disempower some people while making lives better for others. The internet disempowered librarians.
- wolvesechoes 7mo ago
  > It's also worth nothing that the "our" in that sentence is just SWEs It isn't, it just a matter of seeing ahead of the curve. Delegating stuff to AI and agents by necessity leads to atrophy of skills that are being delegated. Using AI to write code leads to reduced capability to write code (among people). Using AI for decision-making reduces capability for making decisions. Using AI for math reduces capability for doing math. Using AI to formulate opinions reduces capability to formulate opinions. Using AI to write summaries reduces capability to summarize. And so on. And, by nature, less capability means less agency. Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them Not to mention utilizing AI for control, spying, invigilation and coercion. Do I need to explain how control is opposed to agency?

phyzix5761 7mo ago

At some point, if most people lose their jobs, you have no market to sell your services to. So, either, new jobs have to be created in order to keep the capitalism machine running, or you have to provide for the needs of every human being from whatever you're doing with your AI. Otherwise, a lot of hungry people revolt and you have violence against these businesses. I think new jobs will be created because AI is always limited by hardware and its current capabilities. Businesses, in order to compete, want to do things their competitors aren't currently doing. Those business needs always go beyond the current technological capabilities until the tech catches up and then they lather, rinse, repeat.

wolvesechoes 7mo ago
> Otherwise, a lot of hungry people revolt and you have violence against these businesses. With shrinking and aging population?
nerdyadventurer 7mo ago
Economy is going to collapse with the war anyways. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ql24Z8SIeE&t=247s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ql24Z8SIeE&t=247s)

slibhb 7mo ago

> What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). How do you figure? 20 dollars/month is insanely cheap for what OpenAI/Anthropic/Google offer. That absolutely qualifies as "empowering a common person". It lowers barriers! A lot of the anti-AI sentiment on HN concerns people losing their jobs. I don't think this will happen: programmers who know what they're doing are going to be way, way more effective at using AIs to generate code than others. But even if it is true and we do see job losses in tech: are software devs really "in a precarious position"? Do they really qualify as "those that have little"? Seems like a fantasy to me. Computer programmers have done great over the past 30 years. More broadly, anti-AI sentiment comes from people who dislike change. It's hard to argue someone out of that position. You're allowed to prefer stasis. But the world moves on and I think it's best to remain optimistic, keep an open mind, and make the most of it.

vips7L 7mo ago
> I don't think this will happen Block just laid off 40% of their company citing AI.
- CPLX 7mo ago
  > Block just laid off 40% of their company Because the company was being horribly run and over hired and "pivoted to blockchain" for no fucking reason. > citing AI. Because it's 2026 and they thought that would work to bullshit a few people about point one, which apparently it did.
- slibhb 7mo ago
  Tech companies have been laying off employees for a while now. I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates but I suppose we'll see.
  - vips7L 7mo ago
    I agree that AI was not the _actual_ reason, however, it did allow them to do massive layoffs without admitting they are doing poorly and not taking a massive hit to their stock price.

tptacek 7mo ago

This argument can be used, and has been used, about every innovation in automation since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

ducttapecrown 7mo ago
It is not the technology that sucks ever more money out of the populace, it's the people at the top!
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
ezst 7mo ago
No it hasn't. Work mechanisation throughout history has resulted in a shift from manual labour to one that's more intellectual in nature. Modern AI believers pretend that it will take over those jobs soon as well. This would essentially bring us to a cross-roads between, on one hand, a utopia with UBI and people not needing to work (because their labour is unnecessary), or a dystopia, where few technocratic "lords" own the means of work automation and rule over a submissive world. I don't think it takes a genius to guess where this is heading in our current political climate. Personally, I'm not scared about any of that, because I don't believe LLMs to be very potent as an AI tool. Robotic militias (remotely controlled by BI or AI) seem a much more tangible threat.
GreenWatermelon 7mo ago
Yeah, and for good reason. The invitation of the light bulb meant factory owners could force workers into 16 hours shifts. The main beneficiaries of new tech were always the capital owners. Workers had to literally fight and die for our 8-hour workdays and 5-days workweek. This is still going on today: the massive gains from automation are being hoarded by the wealthy capital owners, while workers struggle to make ends meet.
- tptacek 7mo ago
  Ok but also I want to light my house with lightbulbs, not with animal-fat candles.

Gagarin1917 7mo ago

>It is there to reduce our agency Complete bullshit. The individual has never had as much ability to take on large projects as they do now. They’ve never been able to learn as easily as they can now. >to make it easier to fire us As of now, the technology increases productivity in the average user. The companies that take advantage of that and expand their offering will outperform the ones that simply replace workers and don’t expand or improve offerings. More capable employees make companies more money in general. Productivity increases lead to richer societies and yes, even more jobs, just as it always has.

visarga 7mo ago

> It is there to reduce our agency, to make it easier to fire us, to put us in even more precarious position, to suck even more wealth from those that have little to those that have a lot. You could say this is the story of society, it makes us dependent on each other, reduces our agency, puts us in precarious positions (like WW2). But nobody would argue against society like that. What happens here is that we become empowered by AI and gain some advantages which we immediately use and become dependent on, eventually not being able to function without them - like computers and even thermostats. Does anyone think how would economy operate without thermostats? No fridges, no data centers, no engines... they all need thermostats. We have lost some freedom by depending on them. But also gained.