4 ms·

I think we all been fooled by the sentence: "It's yet another automation, it's like horses were replaced by cars". It is not. Industrialization and automation i

I think we all been fooled by the sentence: "It's yet another automation, it's like horses were replaced by cars". It is not. Industrialization and automation is about manual labor. LLM/AI is about outsourcing thinking. And while I'll give two thumbs up for using ML(there is not 'I' in 'AI') as a technology for some tasks, outsourcing thinking is an evolutionary dead-end.

dbalatero 4mo ago
Thank you for writing what I want to scream every time a comparison is made to some archaic technology change.
jvanderbot 4mo ago
Its advertised as outsourcing thinking, but I doubt many serious people making serious things actually outsourced their thinking very much. I definitely outsource my typing, search, and LSP interaction!
joe_mamba 4mo ago
>LLM/AI is about outsourcing thinking. No it isn't. I still do the thinking on how to solve my problems, I only outsource the tedious part, which is typing the code and fixing the syntax errors till it all compiles and does what I want. If you also outsource thinking to it, that's your choice though. Or the company's choice. But ultimately the free market will deiced with products made using LLMs outcompete those made without.
- cryo32 4mo ago
  It shouldn't be used for that either. The problem is our programming languages and tools are shit so we made another expensive tool to drive them. I've said this elsewhere before but I single-handedly produced more actual tangible business value with Microsoft Access than anything else since. What was an hour's work is now a procurement process and thousands of lines of tedious configuration and boilerplate that involves pipelines and tens of services all coordinated and hosted by someone who has created a moat to extract money out of me. All I want is a fucking report. The LLM makes us blind to the gigantic fucking shit show we built.
  - jonatron 4mo ago
    Recently, I had some data for which I wanted some graphs. I uploaded the .jsonl file, and prompted "make a html page and graph this data using plotly". I wanted a report, and got a report, quicker than I could have made it myself.
    - joe_mamba 4mo ago
      Not sure why you got downvoted, but I agree with your take. It's now so much easier to one-shot such small task that are supposed to be one-and-done, instead of needing a small army of interns or juniors with would typically handle such non-business critical tasks.
- ethin 4mo ago
  > I still do the thinking on how to solve my problems, I only outsource the tedious part, which is typing the code and fixing the syntax errors till it all compiles and does what I want. Do you really though? Here's a question: how many times do you visit claude.ai or open Claude Code (or whatever harness you use) (or use whatever model you prefer) to help you solve a problem, ask it a question, etc.? One thing I've noticed, which seems to go completely unmentioned, is how these LLM tools are like drugs. It can pump out thousands of lines of code ---> it can write my entire program for me ---> I've written quite a few programs with it and I don't write a single line anymore ---> I go to it for what would normally be things I could do on my own. The problem is that this isn't some immediate thing: like a drug, it sneaks up on you and you don't even realize it until it's far, far too late. I've been programming since I was 13 and I've just now started to notice the deskilling that's been happening to me. I've just now started noticing how often I'll visit Claude Web for something I should be able to do on my own. Nobody really seems to mention this, or it's repharsed as a good thing. And I don't get it: how is undergoing cognitive surrender a "good" thing by any metric other than the metric a beancounter would use? What worries me is that I fear this is happening to way, way more people than those who actually bring it up, potentially yourself included, and you just haven't yet realized it because you haven't really thought about it. That is ultimately what this "AI revolution" is going to bring. It's what the billionaires want, and what they want is usually what they get because the systems we've built are set up to not constrain them.
  - joe_mamba 4mo ago
    > I've been programming since I was 13 Congrats, you're in a small minority of people. >What worries me is that I fear this is happening to way, way more people than those who actually bring it up, potentially yourself included, and you just haven't yet realized it because you haven't really thought about it. People probably said the same thing about using pocket calculators when they started getting cheap and mainstream in the 1970s. Do you still use your brain to calculate sales tax or the square root of pi just to keep your brain sharp on knowing calculus, or do you always use a calculator because it's a mainstream commodity that will never go away?
    - 4mo ago
satisfice 4mo ago
It’s worse— it’s seeking to replace every single aspect of what it means to be YOU in the world. Some people are literally trying to “fire themselves” and be replaced with digital twins. Perhaps those people are independently wealthy and also have no need of human connection? For the rest of us, it is a sickening prospect. AI is automated irresponsibility, and it is nothing like any earlier transition. When a technology trend means people literally won’t be able to tell if you are living or dead, and also stop caring about the difference— that’s unprecedented in the history of humans.
wolvesechoes 4mo ago
Moreover, historical events and processes are unique, even if there are some similarities. Nothing that happened in the past can give us certainty on what will happen now.

dbalatero 4mo ago

Thank you for writing what I want to scream every time a comparison is made to some archaic technology change.

jvanderbot 4mo ago

Its advertised as outsourcing thinking, but I doubt many serious people making serious things actually outsourced their thinking very much. I definitely outsource my typing, search, and LSP interaction!

joe_mamba 4mo ago

>LLM/AI is about outsourcing thinking. No it isn't. I still do the thinking on how to solve my problems, I only outsource the tedious part, which is typing the code and fixing the syntax errors till it all compiles and does what I want. If you also outsource thinking to it, that's your choice though. Or the company's choice. But ultimately the free market will deiced with products made using LLMs outcompete those made without.

cryo32 4mo ago
It shouldn't be used for that either. The problem is our programming languages and tools are shit so we made another expensive tool to drive them. I've said this elsewhere before but I single-handedly produced more actual tangible business value with Microsoft Access than anything else since. What was an hour's work is now a procurement process and thousands of lines of tedious configuration and boilerplate that involves pipelines and tens of services all coordinated and hosted by someone who has created a moat to extract money out of me. All I want is a fucking report. The LLM makes us blind to the gigantic fucking shit show we built.
- jonatron 4mo ago
  Recently, I had some data for which I wanted some graphs. I uploaded the .jsonl file, and prompted "make a html page and graph this data using plotly". I wanted a report, and got a report, quicker than I could have made it myself.
  - joe_mamba 4mo ago
    Not sure why you got downvoted, but I agree with your take. It's now so much easier to one-shot such small task that are supposed to be one-and-done, instead of needing a small army of interns or juniors with would typically handle such non-business critical tasks.
ethin 4mo ago
> I still do the thinking on how to solve my problems, I only outsource the tedious part, which is typing the code and fixing the syntax errors till it all compiles and does what I want. Do you really though? Here's a question: how many times do you visit claude.ai or open Claude Code (or whatever harness you use) (or use whatever model you prefer) to help you solve a problem, ask it a question, etc.? One thing I've noticed, which seems to go completely unmentioned, is how these LLM tools are like drugs. It can pump out thousands of lines of code ---> it can write my entire program for me ---> I've written quite a few programs with it and I don't write a single line anymore ---> I go to it for what would normally be things I could do on my own. The problem is that this isn't some immediate thing: like a drug, it sneaks up on you and you don't even realize it until it's far, far too late. I've been programming since I was 13 and I've just now started to notice the deskilling that's been happening to me. I've just now started noticing how often I'll visit Claude Web for something I should be able to do on my own. Nobody really seems to mention this, or it's repharsed as a good thing. And I don't get it: how is undergoing cognitive surrender a "good" thing by any metric other than the metric a beancounter would use? What worries me is that I fear this is happening to way, way more people than those who actually bring it up, potentially yourself included, and you just haven't yet realized it because you haven't really thought about it. That is ultimately what this "AI revolution" is going to bring. It's what the billionaires want, and what they want is usually what they get because the systems we've built are set up to not constrain them.
- joe_mamba 4mo ago
  > I've been programming since I was 13 Congrats, you're in a small minority of people. >What worries me is that I fear this is happening to way, way more people than those who actually bring it up, potentially yourself included, and you just haven't yet realized it because you haven't really thought about it. People probably said the same thing about using pocket calculators when they started getting cheap and mainstream in the 1970s. Do you still use your brain to calculate sales tax or the square root of pi just to keep your brain sharp on knowing calculus, or do you always use a calculator because it's a mainstream commodity that will never go away?
  - 4mo ago

satisfice 4mo ago

It’s worse— it’s seeking to replace every single aspect of what it means to be YOU in the world. Some people are literally trying to “fire themselves” and be replaced with digital twins. Perhaps those people are independently wealthy and also have no need of human connection? For the rest of us, it is a sickening prospect. AI is automated irresponsibility, and it is nothing like any earlier transition. When a technology trend means people literally won’t be able to tell if you are living or dead, and also stop caring about the difference— that’s unprecedented in the history of humans.

wolvesechoes 4mo ago

Moreover, historical events and processes are unique, even if there are some similarities. Nothing that happened in the past can give us certainty on what will happen now.