6 ms·

I largely agree with you but I still can't stand the "you're gonna be left behind!!" framing that is really common with people who are enthusiastic about AI. Wh

I largely agree with you but I still can't stand the "you're gonna be left behind!!" framing that is really common with people who are enthusiastic about AI. What does it even mean to "be left behind" in this instance, it's just a vague emotional expression. These AI tools are not hard to learn, in fact they're super easy when you have some experience programming, so the only people who are going to be left behind are the ones who simply refuse to use the tools out of principle. And why would they care about being "left behind"? They're making a conscious choice to not use the tools. They want to be left behind! And not everyone who is skeptical are that out of principle, some just don't see the value yet or are slowly and cautiously adopting it into their workflow. If AI powered coding ends up being even half as good as promised, so good that denying the evidence is impossible, they can just start using it and catch right up. So who exactly is "being left behind" here? It's complete nonsense while simultaneously being extremely condescending and I get triggered every time I read the phrase. I don't mean anything against you personally with my ranting, it's more a general observation. Perhaps you and some others do mean it as a genuine bit of advice, like "hey, you should learn these tools or else you might struggle to find work in the future", but the sense I get most of the time are people who are gleeful that the non-believers are soon to be homeless or whatever.

bronlund 8mo ago
Yeah, I could have formulated that in another way - 'missing out' would be a better term. I do not mean to be condescending in the meaning that I look down on people that have other preferences than me. Take books as an example. I do not believe that people that can't read is of any lesser value than me, and whether you can read or not, is a poor indication of how intelligent you are - or how happy you are for that matter. Sure, information is important, but there are a lot of different types of information and a lot of different ways of acquire it - so I do not believe that my way is any better than someone else's. That being said, me being able to read and appreciate books, do believe that people who can't, are missing out. We know books has been used for both good and evil, but I still think books are a wonderful invention. Same with television or the internet, the quality of the content on there doesn't really take anything away from the fact that the technology in itself is absolutely amazing. In hindsight - it has been a minute since Gutenberg - how the society has adopted the written word do have real implications for the people living in it though. If you can't read today, you will struggle. Not because there are anything wrong with you, but because the system more or less take it for granted that you can. And it is going to be the same with AI, but even more so. The ones who learns to master it will dominate those who don't. It will create a new form of class divide, where access to tokens and knowing how to use them, is going to be the main drivers. AI is still in it's early stages and we see that not everything is alright with it, take for instance the economics around it or the environmental impact it has. But still, I do believe that it is an amazing invention, and that if you do not embrace it, you are missing out.
- slopinthebag 8mo ago
  If someone said "Yeah I haven't read in 5 years" would you find it reasonable to tell them they're going to be left behind? If someone did that to me in person I'd consider whacking them in the face. Maybe don't say it online if you wouldn't say it offline.
  - bronlund 8mo ago
    No, but if you claim that reading will be the end of human kind, I will have no problem leaving you behind.
    - slopinthebag 8mo ago
      Sounds good buddy
      - bronlund 8mo ago
        Yeah. I understand the whacking part now.
adampunk 8mo ago
I think this approach means well, but it doesn’t connect with the reality of the times. You’ve got people repeatedly insisting that times have shifted and folks are going to be left behind because that’s what’s happening. October 2025 marked a turning point in all of software— that sounds grandiose, but it’s true. The longer we pretend that it didn’t happen the harder it gets to adjust. I think people are talking like this because we have not lived in a genuine computing revolution like this since probably the introduction of the micro computer. It’s been more than 40 years. I get that people are mad about this. That’s real obvious when you comment in any way about the use of AI. You get told that you’re a robot you get told that you’re not a real engineer you get told that you’re insecure you get told that—-all kinds of things. So it’s super clear that people are upset because they’re being fucking childish about it. Even a post like this one where the author tries hard to be pretty nice, we see the same sneering comments about training your own replacement and shit like that. It’s not subtle. Where I get off the train is concluding that because they’re upset that they don’t need to be told what’s happening. All of computing is already changing. It’s already happening. It’s like if the sun winked out right now we would discover it in eight minutes, but the event has already happened. We are merely outside the cone of visibility. This shit is all happening right now. It is all real. I think it does a disservice to people to pretend as though it’s not.
- slopinthebag 8mo ago
  No disrespect intended but I think you're in a bubble. Things will change, sure, but not to the same extent as the invention of the Internet for example.
  - archagon 8mo ago
    Comments like the one you’re replying to give me a disturbing feeling — like AI is speaking through the mouths of its users, Pluribus style.
    - adampunk 8mo ago
      What am I supposed to do with this, man? Am I supposed to talk to you like this? Should I do some psychoanalysis here? If you wanna say I’m pantomimed machinery, then I think we may need to have a discussion. Because here’s what it looks like to me: I think there’s a lot of people who arguably had a pretty good handle on how their corner of computing worked. They can understand a pretty deep dive into the stack they use, and where they have to deposit something into the intellectual hinterlands, it can safely be abstracted away on dependable, engineered machines or standards. That is no mean feat; lots of people cannot say that. The fact that someone who does say it doesn’t fully understand paging or floating point arithmetic is not a sign that something is wrong, but rather that we have succeeded in big shared engineering problems. Cool. Some new shit is afoot. We are entering into a new, turbulent, uncertain era of computing. A lot of people who previously had a pretty confident grasp of both the core in the frontier of their work now do not understand what is driving the frontier. They have made the fact that they do not understand this everyone else’s problem. Rather than admit that they do not understand an area they used to understand we are subjected to incessant infantile progression through what I hope are stages of grief. Because at least then it might come to an end. Everyone has an explanation for why this is all gonna collapse tomorrow and why they don’t need to learn about it. Everyone has a smart remark about the use of AI for some very important moral reason which also means they don’t need to learn about it. They both add up to the same thing which might just be healthier if treated as a true admission of ignorance.

bronlund 8mo ago

Yeah, I could have formulated that in another way - 'missing out' would be a better term. I do not mean to be condescending in the meaning that I look down on people that have other preferences than me. Take books as an example. I do not believe that people that can't read is of any lesser value than me, and whether you can read or not, is a poor indication of how intelligent you are - or how happy you are for that matter. Sure, information is important, but there are a lot of different types of information and a lot of different ways of acquire it - so I do not believe that my way is any better than someone else's. That being said, me being able to read and appreciate books, do believe that people who can't, are missing out. We know books has been used for both good and evil, but I still think books are a wonderful invention. Same with television or the internet, the quality of the content on there doesn't really take anything away from the fact that the technology in itself is absolutely amazing. In hindsight - it has been a minute since Gutenberg - how the society has adopted the written word do have real implications for the people living in it though. If you can't read today, you will struggle. Not because there are anything wrong with you, but because the system more or less take it for granted that you can. And it is going to be the same with AI, but even more so. The ones who learns to master it will dominate those who don't. It will create a new form of class divide, where access to tokens and knowing how to use them, is going to be the main drivers. AI is still in it's early stages and we see that not everything is alright with it, take for instance the economics around it or the environmental impact it has. But still, I do believe that it is an amazing invention, and that if you do not embrace it, you are missing out.

slopinthebag 8mo ago
If someone said "Yeah I haven't read in 5 years" would you find it reasonable to tell them they're going to be left behind? If someone did that to me in person I'd consider whacking them in the face. Maybe don't say it online if you wouldn't say it offline.
- bronlund 8mo ago
  No, but if you claim that reading will be the end of human kind, I will have no problem leaving you behind.
  - slopinthebag 8mo ago
    Sounds good buddy
    - bronlund 8mo ago
      Yeah. I understand the whacking part now.

adampunk 8mo ago

I think this approach means well, but it doesn’t connect with the reality of the times. You’ve got people repeatedly insisting that times have shifted and folks are going to be left behind because that’s what’s happening. October 2025 marked a turning point in all of software— that sounds grandiose, but it’s true. The longer we pretend that it didn’t happen the harder it gets to adjust. I think people are talking like this because we have not lived in a genuine computing revolution like this since probably the introduction of the micro computer. It’s been more than 40 years. I get that people are mad about this. That’s real obvious when you comment in any way about the use of AI. You get told that you’re a robot you get told that you’re not a real engineer you get told that you’re insecure you get told that—-all kinds of things. So it’s super clear that people are upset because they’re being fucking childish about it. Even a post like this one where the author tries hard to be pretty nice, we see the same sneering comments about training your own replacement and shit like that. It’s not subtle. Where I get off the train is concluding that because they’re upset that they don’t need to be told what’s happening. All of computing is already changing. It’s already happening. It’s like if the sun winked out right now we would discover it in eight minutes, but the event has already happened. We are merely outside the cone of visibility. This shit is all happening right now. It is all real. I think it does a disservice to people to pretend as though it’s not.

slopinthebag 8mo ago
No disrespect intended but I think you're in a bubble. Things will change, sure, but not to the same extent as the invention of the Internet for example.
- archagon 8mo ago
  Comments like the one you’re replying to give me a disturbing feeling — like AI is speaking through the mouths of its users, Pluribus style.
  - adampunk 8mo ago
    What am I supposed to do with this, man? Am I supposed to talk to you like this? Should I do some psychoanalysis here? If you wanna say I’m pantomimed machinery, then I think we may need to have a discussion. Because here’s what it looks like to me: I think there’s a lot of people who arguably had a pretty good handle on how their corner of computing worked. They can understand a pretty deep dive into the stack they use, and where they have to deposit something into the intellectual hinterlands, it can safely be abstracted away on dependable, engineered machines or standards. That is no mean feat; lots of people cannot say that. The fact that someone who does say it doesn’t fully understand paging or floating point arithmetic is not a sign that something is wrong, but rather that we have succeeded in big shared engineering problems. Cool. Some new shit is afoot. We are entering into a new, turbulent, uncertain era of computing. A lot of people who previously had a pretty confident grasp of both the core in the frontier of their work now do not understand what is driving the frontier. They have made the fact that they do not understand this everyone else’s problem. Rather than admit that they do not understand an area they used to understand we are subjected to incessant infantile progression through what I hope are stages of grief. Because at least then it might come to an end. Everyone has an explanation for why this is all gonna collapse tomorrow and why they don’t need to learn about it. Everyone has a smart remark about the use of AI for some very important moral reason which also means they don’t need to learn about it. They both add up to the same thing which might just be healthier if treated as a true admission of ignorance.