24 ms·

Could it be that the fact that the thing you’re an expert at looked like garbage to you, but the things you’re not an expert at, looked just fine, is not a coin

Could it be that the fact that the thing you’re an expert at looked like garbage to you, but the things you’re not an expert at, looked just fine, is not a coincidence? You can talk to a bunch of designers who will say the opposite. Claude Design Studio generated this garbage UI, that I fixed manually, but it created great code j never could have that made it work.

reactordev 5mo ago
This is the juxtaposition the general public is in. They don’t have advanced tech skills to know any better so they see an output that they can’t produce from their skills and think it’s great. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. What does the code look like?
- genxy 5mo ago
  Both had a working prototype. The flaw everyone is making is that they are over focusing on the artifact and not that they have a shared tangible object that they can both editorialize and iterate on. These systems should allow rapid iteration on discovery and thinking. One can now make a prototype a day that would have taken a week. That means that we should be able to converge on a much better design in the same amount of time it would have taken to make a v0 that turns how to have systemic flaws. AI should scale our understanding of systems, not just shovel out half baked features and apps.
  - bluejellybean 5mo ago
    Road to hell is paved with a lot of 'shoulds' reality is a very different place filled with piles of trash and half baked ideas.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- lobf 5mo ago
  This is where I’m at. I’ve always been a computer tinkerer but a novice coder at best. I work in the film industry, so I don’t need to know how to code. Where I’m at when building personal applications for my home / life is: does the code execute and perform the desired task? If so, what do I care how shitty it is? I’m not publishing these projects (for the most part… I have one joke application up at songshift.reachnick.co) so efficient, clean, secure code are not really a priority for me.
  - reactordev 5mo ago
    You are ahead of the curve my friend
    - lobf 5mo ago
      How do you mean?
      - reactordev 5mo ago
        using AI to write your own personal software whose quality is only concerned by you, the user. If it works for you, it works for you. This will be the norm in the future. SaaS and platforms and the old way of writing software will die when writing software becomes something one does while asleep.
        lobf 5mo ago
        Ah I see. Funny enough I consider myself more of a dinosaur or originalist- the PC was idealized as a device for individuals to write their own programs for their personal use. The issue before is that coding is not only difficult and time-consuming to learn, but also that I think it requires a particular type of person to fully grasp this new, non-human language. I see these SOTA LLMs as akin to the digital camera revolution. Suddenly the moat that has kept people from participating in this art form (for film it was the high cost of film stock, processing film, editing the film prior to non-linear editing programs, etc) has disappeared. Are people producing low-quality video content now because of the cheap and ubiquitous access? Of course, but we’re also exposed to brilliant filmmakers / artists who simply never would have had the opportunity to try their hand. By the same token, sure there’s lots of garbage code out there now. But it’s also unlocking imaginations by granting access to the mysterious inner workings of a computer to the average person, letting them use their computers more thoroughly than ever before. I find it exciting. Bummer for the highly-paid SWEs, but such is life. You can only protect a niche to demand high wages for so long.
jmount 5mo ago
Good point on "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect."
tomgp 5mo ago
I think this is true, it's like a close relation of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#:~:text=%5B149%5D-,%22Gell%2DMann%20amnesia%20effect%22,-%5Bedit%5D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#:~:text=%5B14...
- MichaelZuo 5mo ago
  This! People are never perfectly even in intelligence across all possible disciplines.
- chrismorgan 5mo ago
  More robust link (to the heading by ID, rather than by text directive with pre/post text that will change): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_...
- ajross 5mo ago
  It's worth pointing out that Crichton coined that term during a period in his life where he was rapidly descending into conspiracy and iconoclastic thought, and this is of a piece with that. Gell-Mann's observation was a sincere and thoughtful caution about the way we transmit information about complicated ideas. Crichton's "amnesia effect" is an excuse to ignore media you dislike.
dataflow 5mo ago
I'm confused, this doesn't make sense. The target they're iterating on (UI) is the same one whose quality they're assessing, not a different one (source code). You're suggesting that (a) their UI skills are lacking (based on what? isn't UI exactly what they were iterating on and trying to improve?), and (b) that a real UI expert would've somehow felt the UI they were working on was consistently garbage, despite how many times they iterate on it? Which means you're saying you don't believe anyone can actually produce high quality (to an expert) output with AI on the same target they're working on, and if they think they are, that just means they don't have a good sense of quality?
- danielmarkbruce 5mo ago
  It's not confusing. It makes sense.
  - 8note 5mo ago
    no, it is confusing. the llm produced something the operator thought was garbage for the design too, and the operator iterated it from garbage to good. they could also have the llm iterate the underlying code from garbage to good, if they wanted. most likely a specialist would say its neither good nor bad, since its not considering the right things, and hasnt collected the right useability feedback, but making straightforward designs isnt that hard, and counting clicks and interactions, and avoiding hidden functionality is all measureable stuff
    - danielmarkbruce 5mo ago
      is functional but has bad UI/layout/etc is a thing. It's only confusing because you don't know the field. Which is kind of the point.
      - lobf 5mo ago
        > is functional but has bad UI/layout/etc is a thing. Tell me about it… I was forced to use a program called Farmer’s Wife for a time. What a fucking nightmare of a UX.
vslira 5mo ago
Maybe specialists have a higher bar than consumers, and as a design consumer he's right about the design, and the designer is right about the code, if "being right" means "understanding what the end customer will think about this".
- wavemode 5mo ago
  Well, design isn't just about looking nice, nor even just about what people think about it. Something can look nice and fail as a design. That is to say - it's entirely possible to have a design that a layperson looks at and goes "wow that's beautiful", and then A/B test it in the real world and your revenue goes down X% because (for example) certain important sections now require more clicks to access. Or to use a real-world example - you could redesign a train station and make it more beautiful while also increasing the amount of people who get lost because it's now more difficult for some people with poor eyesight to find the right track.
  - hashmap 5mo ago
    those are some nice thoughts but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way, or software would get more responsive, more legible, and less irritating over time. the opposite has been true for decades. user friendliness can be cracked open to increase revenue and those who do just the right amount of cracking win. right now a meme is the frustration is the product. failing as design means something different now than what it meant at like nasa in the 60s.
holoduke 5mo ago
Ai is a hammer. Use it right and it makes you very powerful. But it's not an easy tool.
yawnxyz 5mo ago
this is why people still enjoy eating at Olive Garden and Chipotle and Sweetgreen basically the AI-slop version of food, yet still they thrive
rhubarbtree 5mo ago
Colleague (non-designer) generated UI with Claude. It was awful and broke basic design rules. So yes you may be right.
- teaearlgraycold 5mo ago
  Claude Code or Claude Design? The latter seems to be a step up, but it’s more so a replacement for a repurposed paid template than a full time designer.
  - rhubarbtree 5mo ago
    Claude Design. It produced something that looked good for a second, then you pay attention and realise it’s a disaster. Broke most UX rules out of the gate.
12_throw_away 5mo ago
> Could it be that the fact that the thing you’re an expert at looked like garbage to you, but the things you’re not an expert at, looked just fine, is not a coincidence? Well when you put it that way ... monetizing the Dunning-Kruger effect does actually sound like a very good business idea.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
vibebased 5mo ago
Yeah, that's basically me. (Hold the "expert", substitute with "has a degree, at least.") findfantasyxviii.com
teaearlgraycold 5mo ago
I use and like Claude Design, but I’m fully aware I don’t have the means to judge the output as well as a professional designer could. That said, it’s still doing a better job than I would on my own. I find you need to remove a lot of the extra junk it throws in (code generation has the same problem). And really think through the requirements and state them to the model all up front. At the end it’s at least decent.
SR2Z 5mo ago
I have noticed it generating good code even in domains I'm an expert in! I think that it is extremely tempting to just let Claude run freely over the codebase and turn it into unmaintainable slop. My hot take is that this is fine. It doesn't take very long to come up with a list of simple yes-or-no style rules (e.g. modules should be descoped to simple files, each module must have tests at filename_test, a reasonable reader should find comments to be concise and not extraneous, etc). It doesn't take very long to set up a precommit hook that starts a short Claude session to check each rule, block if any are failed, and explain the issues. After that? I've found that it's pretty easy to get good code written, and even easier to maintain it. Obviously anything with a value judgement is an avenue for issues, but even a non-frontier model can generally do a passable job answering questions. As long as you eventually read the code to decide on big-picture refactorings, you'll be in a great place.
bsoles 5mo ago
It is called Gell-mann amnesia.
camdenreslink 5mo ago
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in action

reactordev 5mo ago

This is the juxtaposition the general public is in. They don’t have advanced tech skills to know any better so they see an output that they can’t produce from their skills and think it’s great. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. What does the code look like?

genxy 5mo ago
Both had a working prototype. The flaw everyone is making is that they are over focusing on the artifact and not that they have a shared tangible object that they can both editorialize and iterate on. These systems should allow rapid iteration on discovery and thinking. One can now make a prototype a day that would have taken a week. That means that we should be able to converge on a much better design in the same amount of time it would have taken to make a v0 that turns how to have systemic flaws. AI should scale our understanding of systems, not just shovel out half baked features and apps.
- bluejellybean 5mo ago
  Road to hell is paved with a lot of 'shoulds' reality is a very different place filled with piles of trash and half baked ideas.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
lobf 5mo ago
This is where I’m at. I’ve always been a computer tinkerer but a novice coder at best. I work in the film industry, so I don’t need to know how to code. Where I’m at when building personal applications for my home / life is: does the code execute and perform the desired task? If so, what do I care how shitty it is? I’m not publishing these projects (for the most part… I have one joke application up at songshift.reachnick.co) so efficient, clean, secure code are not really a priority for me.
- reactordev 5mo ago
  You are ahead of the curve my friend
  - lobf 5mo ago
    How do you mean?
    - reactordev 5mo ago
      using AI to write your own personal software whose quality is only concerned by you, the user. If it works for you, it works for you. This will be the norm in the future. SaaS and platforms and the old way of writing software will die when writing software becomes something one does while asleep.
      - lobf 5mo ago
        Ah I see. Funny enough I consider myself more of a dinosaur or originalist- the PC was idealized as a device for individuals to write their own programs for their personal use. The issue before is that coding is not only difficult and time-consuming to learn, but also that I think it requires a particular type of person to fully grasp this new, non-human language. I see these SOTA LLMs as akin to the digital camera revolution. Suddenly the moat that has kept people from participating in this art form (for film it was the high cost of film stock, processing film, editing the film prior to non-linear editing programs, etc) has disappeared. Are people producing low-quality video content now because of the cheap and ubiquitous access? Of course, but we’re also exposed to brilliant filmmakers / artists who simply never would have had the opportunity to try their hand. By the same token, sure there’s lots of garbage code out there now. But it’s also unlocking imaginations by granting access to the mysterious inner workings of a computer to the average person, letting them use their computers more thoroughly than ever before. I find it exciting. Bummer for the highly-paid SWEs, but such is life. You can only protect a niche to demand high wages for so long.

jmount 5mo ago

Good point on "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect."

tomgp 5mo ago

I think this is true, it's like a close relation of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#:~:text=%5B149%5D-,%22Gell%2DMann%20amnesia%20effect%22,-%5Bedit%5D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#:~:text=%5B14...

MichaelZuo 5mo ago
This! People are never perfectly even in intelligence across all possible disciplines.
chrismorgan 5mo ago
More robust link (to the heading by ID, rather than by text directive with pre/post text that will change): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_...
ajross 5mo ago
It's worth pointing out that Crichton coined that term during a period in his life where he was rapidly descending into conspiracy and iconoclastic thought, and this is of a piece with that. Gell-Mann's observation was a sincere and thoughtful caution about the way we transmit information about complicated ideas. Crichton's "amnesia effect" is an excuse to ignore media you dislike.

dataflow 5mo ago

I'm confused, this doesn't make sense. The target they're iterating on (UI) is the same one whose quality they're assessing, not a different one (source code). You're suggesting that (a) their UI skills are lacking (based on what? isn't UI exactly what they were iterating on and trying to improve?), and (b) that a real UI expert would've somehow felt the UI they were working on was consistently garbage, despite how many times they iterate on it? Which means you're saying you don't believe anyone can actually produce high quality (to an expert) output with AI on the same target they're working on, and if they think they are, that just means they don't have a good sense of quality?

danielmarkbruce 5mo ago
It's not confusing. It makes sense.
- 8note 5mo ago
  no, it is confusing. the llm produced something the operator thought was garbage for the design too, and the operator iterated it from garbage to good. they could also have the llm iterate the underlying code from garbage to good, if they wanted. most likely a specialist would say its neither good nor bad, since its not considering the right things, and hasnt collected the right useability feedback, but making straightforward designs isnt that hard, and counting clicks and interactions, and avoiding hidden functionality is all measureable stuff
  - danielmarkbruce 5mo ago
    is functional but has bad UI/layout/etc is a thing. It's only confusing because you don't know the field. Which is kind of the point.
    - lobf 5mo ago
      > is functional but has bad UI/layout/etc is a thing. Tell me about it… I was forced to use a program called Farmer’s Wife for a time. What a fucking nightmare of a UX.

vslira 5mo ago

Maybe specialists have a higher bar than consumers, and as a design consumer he's right about the design, and the designer is right about the code, if "being right" means "understanding what the end customer will think about this".

wavemode 5mo ago
Well, design isn't just about looking nice, nor even just about what people think about it. Something can look nice and fail as a design. That is to say - it's entirely possible to have a design that a layperson looks at and goes "wow that's beautiful", and then A/B test it in the real world and your revenue goes down X% because (for example) certain important sections now require more clicks to access. Or to use a real-world example - you could redesign a train station and make it more beautiful while also increasing the amount of people who get lost because it's now more difficult for some people with poor eyesight to find the right track.
- hashmap 5mo ago
  those are some nice thoughts but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way, or software would get more responsive, more legible, and less irritating over time. the opposite has been true for decades. user friendliness can be cracked open to increase revenue and those who do just the right amount of cracking win. right now a meme is the frustration is the product. failing as design means something different now than what it meant at like nasa in the 60s.

holoduke 5mo ago

Ai is a hammer. Use it right and it makes you very powerful. But it's not an easy tool.

yawnxyz 5mo ago

this is why people still enjoy eating at Olive Garden and Chipotle and Sweetgreen basically the AI-slop version of food, yet still they thrive

rhubarbtree 5mo ago

Colleague (non-designer) generated UI with Claude. It was awful and broke basic design rules. So yes you may be right.

teaearlgraycold 5mo ago
Claude Code or Claude Design? The latter seems to be a step up, but it’s more so a replacement for a repurposed paid template than a full time designer.
- rhubarbtree 5mo ago
  Claude Design. It produced something that looked good for a second, then you pay attention and realise it’s a disaster. Broke most UX rules out of the gate.

12_throw_away 5mo ago

> Could it be that the fact that the thing you’re an expert at looked like garbage to you, but the things you’re not an expert at, looked just fine, is not a coincidence? Well when you put it that way ... monetizing the Dunning-Kruger effect does actually sound like a very good business idea.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

vibebased 5mo ago

Yeah, that's basically me. (Hold the "expert", substitute with "has a degree, at least.") findfantasyxviii.com

teaearlgraycold 5mo ago

I use and like Claude Design, but I’m fully aware I don’t have the means to judge the output as well as a professional designer could. That said, it’s still doing a better job than I would on my own. I find you need to remove a lot of the extra junk it throws in (code generation has the same problem). And really think through the requirements and state them to the model all up front. At the end it’s at least decent.

SR2Z 5mo ago

I have noticed it generating good code even in domains I'm an expert in! I think that it is extremely tempting to just let Claude run freely over the codebase and turn it into unmaintainable slop. My hot take is that this is fine. It doesn't take very long to come up with a list of simple yes-or-no style rules (e.g. modules should be descoped to simple files, each module must have tests at filename_test, a reasonable reader should find comments to be concise and not extraneous, etc). It doesn't take very long to set up a precommit hook that starts a short Claude session to check each rule, block if any are failed, and explain the issues. After that? I've found that it's pretty easy to get good code written, and even easier to maintain it. Obviously anything with a value judgement is an avenue for issues, but even a non-frontier model can generally do a passable job answering questions. As long as you eventually read the code to decide on big-picture refactorings, you'll be in a great place.

bsoles 5mo ago

It is called Gell-mann amnesia.

camdenreslink 5mo ago

Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in action