4 ms·

There’s a big gap between reality and the influencer posts about LLMs. I agree with you that LLMs do provide some significant acceleration, but the influencers

There’s a big gap between reality and the influencer posts about LLMs. I agree with you that LLMs do provide some significant acceleration, but the influencers have tried to exaggerate this into unbelievable numbers. Even non-influencers are trying to exaggerate their LLM skills as a way to get hired or raise their status on LinkedIn. I rarely read the LinkedIn social feed but when I check mine it’s now filled with claims from people about going from idea to shipped product in N days (with a note at the bottom that they’re looking for a new job or available to consult with your company). Many of these posts come from people who were all in on crypto companies a few years ago. The world really is changing but there’s a wave of influencers and trend followers trying to stake out their claims as leaders on this new frontier. They should be ignored if you want any realistic information. I also think these exaggerated posts are causing a lot of people to miss out on the real progress that is happening. They see these obviously false exaggerations and think the opposite must be true, that LLMs don’t provide any benefit at all. This is creating a counter-wave of LLM deniers who think it’s just a fad that will be going away shortly. They’re diminishing in numbers but every LLM thread on HN attracts a few people who want to believe it’s all just temporary and we’re going back to the old ways in a couple years.

ge96 8mo ago
Day 7 of using Claude Code here are my takes...
- sebastiennight 8mo ago
  “Day 7" would be amazing - all that I see YouTube recommending is "I tried it for 24 hours" I was listening to an "expert" on a podcast earlier today up until the point where the interviewer asked how long his amazing new vibe-coded tooling has been in production, and the self-proclaimed expert replied "actually we have an all-hands meeting later today so I can brief the team and we will then start using the output..."
ryandrake 8mo ago
> I rarely read the LinkedIn social feed but when I check mine it’s now filled with claims from people about going from idea to shipped product in N days (with a note at the bottom that they’re looking for a new job or available to consult with your company). This always seems to be the pattern. "I vibe coded my product and shipped it in 96 hours!" OK, what's the product? Why haven't I heard of it? Why can't it replace the current software I'm using? So, you're looking for work? Why is nobody buying it? Where is the Quicken replacement that was vibecoded and shipping today? Where are the vibecoded AAA games that are going to kill Fortnite? Where is the vibecoded Photoshop alternative? Heck, where is the vibecoded replacement for exim3 that I can deploy on my self hosted E-mail server? Where are all of the actual shipping vibecoded products that millions of users are using?
- youknownothing 8mo ago
  Yeah, I really wonder if someone would trust to do their taxes in a vibe-coded version of Turbotax...
  - mordechai9000 8mo ago
    Do you really need Turbotax? Just feed it the tax code, your financial data, and the relevant forms and it should be good to go. Now we have freed up the labor of accountants so they can go be productive in another segment of society. /s
    - adithyassekhar 8mo ago
      Looking from outside the US tax system, I feel taxes are intentionally complex to keep some people employed and to hide from questions.
    - youknownothing 8mo ago
      well, you still need to drive some data: say you purchased some food, was that a personal purchase or was it business-related (e.g. a meal with a client). Software can help with that decision making. But even if human interaction wasn't needed, the question still stands, would you trust an LLM to calculate your tax liability just by feeding it data?
paganel 8mo ago
The “store on the chain” thing turned out to be a fad in terms of technology, even though it made a lot of money (in the billions and more) to some people via the crypto thing. That was less than 10 years ago, so many of us do remember the similarities of the discourse being made then to what’s happening now. With all that said, today’s LLMs do seem so provide a little bit more value compared to the bit chain thing, for example OCR/.pdf parsing is I’d say a solved thing right now thanks to LLMs, which is nice.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
roncesvalles 8mo ago
>Many of these posts come from people who were all in on crypto companies a few years ago. This is ditto my observation. There seems to be a certain "type" of people like this. And it's not just people looking for work. My guess is either they have super low critical thinking, a very cynical view of the world where lies and exaggeration are the only way to make it, or something more pathological (narcissism etc).
- PyWoody 8mo ago
  The "type" is simply the get-rich-quick schemers. I have a relative who was late to crypto, late to drop shipping, late to carbon credits, but is now absolutely all-in on AI as his ticket out. It honestly depresses the hell out of me trying to talk to him because everything is about money and getting rich. People like this don't care about underlying technologies or learning past the most basic surface level of understanding.

ge96 8mo ago

Day 7 of using Claude Code here are my takes...

sebastiennight 8mo ago
“Day 7" would be amazing - all that I see YouTube recommending is "I tried it for 24 hours" I was listening to an "expert" on a podcast earlier today up until the point where the interviewer asked how long his amazing new vibe-coded tooling has been in production, and the self-proclaimed expert replied "actually we have an all-hands meeting later today so I can brief the team and we will then start using the output..."

ryandrake 8mo ago

> I rarely read the LinkedIn social feed but when I check mine it’s now filled with claims from people about going from idea to shipped product in N days (with a note at the bottom that they’re looking for a new job or available to consult with your company). This always seems to be the pattern. "I vibe coded my product and shipped it in 96 hours!" OK, what's the product? Why haven't I heard of it? Why can't it replace the current software I'm using? So, you're looking for work? Why is nobody buying it? Where is the Quicken replacement that was vibecoded and shipping today? Where are the vibecoded AAA games that are going to kill Fortnite? Where is the vibecoded Photoshop alternative? Heck, where is the vibecoded replacement for exim3 that I can deploy on my self hosted E-mail server? Where are all of the actual shipping vibecoded products that millions of users are using?

youknownothing 8mo ago
Yeah, I really wonder if someone would trust to do their taxes in a vibe-coded version of Turbotax...
- mordechai9000 8mo ago
  Do you really need Turbotax? Just feed it the tax code, your financial data, and the relevant forms and it should be good to go. Now we have freed up the labor of accountants so they can go be productive in another segment of society. /s
  - adithyassekhar 8mo ago
    Looking from outside the US tax system, I feel taxes are intentionally complex to keep some people employed and to hide from questions.
  - youknownothing 8mo ago
    well, you still need to drive some data: say you purchased some food, was that a personal purchase or was it business-related (e.g. a meal with a client). Software can help with that decision making. But even if human interaction wasn't needed, the question still stands, would you trust an LLM to calculate your tax liability just by feeding it data?

paganel 8mo ago

The “store on the chain” thing turned out to be a fad in terms of technology, even though it made a lot of money (in the billions and more) to some people via the crypto thing. That was less than 10 years ago, so many of us do remember the similarities of the discourse being made then to what’s happening now. With all that said, today’s LLMs do seem so provide a little bit more value compared to the bit chain thing, for example OCR/.pdf parsing is I’d say a solved thing right now thanks to LLMs, which is nice.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

roncesvalles 8mo ago

>Many of these posts come from people who were all in on crypto companies a few years ago. This is ditto my observation. There seems to be a certain "type" of people like this. And it's not just people looking for work. My guess is either they have super low critical thinking, a very cynical view of the world where lies and exaggeration are the only way to make it, or something more pathological (narcissism etc).

PyWoody 8mo ago
The "type" is simply the get-rich-quick schemers. I have a relative who was late to crypto, late to drop shipping, late to carbon credits, but is now absolutely all-in on AI as his ticket out. It honestly depresses the hell out of me trying to talk to him because everything is about money and getting rich. People like this don't care about underlying technologies or learning past the most basic surface level of understanding.