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When AI first happened, I was afraid I was going to eventually lose my job. And while I've been lucky since, many did, and that hurt a lot. When people are losi
by patates 4mo ago
When AI first happened, I was afraid I was going to eventually lose my job. And while I've been lucky since, many did, and that hurt a lot. When people are losing something to automation, regardless of the economics of the situation, you cheer for the humans, or at least hope that society keeps being fair to those who are most affected.
Now I see communities being affected. When you kill PRs, you not only kill the code contributions, but also massively impact the other, non-tangible contributions like ideas, eyes on code, etc. That feels way worse.
I'm conflicted, confused and afraid, HN. Look at what I just wrote, yet I use claude and deepseek and all the skills and complex harnesses and MCPs and whatnot... But all now seems like a transition phase. Transition to f-ing what though?
A lot of questions cannot be answered unless we dedicate a meaning to our lives. Human touch? Too late? Also: I liked a song and it was sonos. I unliked it after discovering. I feel so stupid, so often.
Sorry for the unhinged digression.
I love Ladybird (have a sticker on my laptop to prove!), I hope they thrive.
- BrissyCoder 4mo ago[flagged]
- lucasban 4mo agoWhy do you care if they want to put stickers on their laptop? It’s not my taste, either, but it’s subjective.
- BrissyCoder 4mo ago[flagged]
- tiluha 4mo agoLadybird is the browser this whole submission is about. Did you not even read the headline?
- patates 4mo agoI'm talking about Ladybird, AI and its effects on communities. Stickers start conversations with people I have common interests with in unexpected places. I didn't know of this effect until I experienced it a couple of times, so that's why I keep them. The reason I started was, to be completely honest with you, to show off my "skills" and beliefs. To be fair, I was much younger and naive. Strong evidence against your implied accusation of me being insane is the fact that my licensed therapist not having me sent to an intensive psychiatry clinic yet. She says we'll be fine within the limited hours we get courtesy of the German health care system. I do have ADHD and I do feel different all the time, and I tend to go off course when talking/writing, so maybe you mean that?
- BrissyCoder 4mo ago[flagged]
- embedding-shape 4mo agoFirst off, to have conflicting feelings about something is really normal and doesn't immediately point to a problem, it's extremely human, and I feel similar to you to. I'm a creative + programmer, I hate to see what's happening in some communities yet I too use agents for development, it'd be like avoiding Google + SO when they first appeared, feels like there is a clear "before/after" moments with those, and with LLMs as well. I don't really have anything useful to add here, I think, just that you aren't alone in feeling conflicting feelings here. New things usually are like that, comes with incredible benefits in some areas yet seem to strip humanity away from others, some people use it to produce fluff and crap, others essentially gain new abilities and use those to build even better stuff. I don't think there is any universal truths here, sadly.
- vasco 4mo agoWe can also take some refuge in things like steam engines or electricity or the internet and how if you're just on the cusp of those you'd have similar feelings, but many years later here we are, still with jobs and meaning. A lot of people say this time is different but I guess when electricy showed up people would've said the same? I certainly remember people predicting that Manhattan would stop existing during the dotcom bubble because the internet would kill all street level businesses and people would work from wherever so big cities were over. And here we are. I'm also conflicted but take a glass half full approach basing myself on the fact that when I'm feeling like "this time is different" it's probably my ego wanting my lifetime to happen at an interesting time in history, so my brain wants the current events to be the most transformative.
- fc417fc802 4mo ago> A lot of people say this time is different but I guess when electricy showed up people would've said the same? No. Electricity didn't raise the skill floor all that much. Certainly nowhere near the human skill ceiling. > the internet would kill all street level businesses That was never going to happen overnight, if at all. But online retail (and food delivery, etc) does seem to be slowly but surely eating away at local shops so I think it's within the realm of possibility.
- sdevonoes 4mo agoIt doesn’t help to know that using and supporting private LLMs is only making openai/anthropic/google/etc even richer. I myself cannot justify its usage.
- duskdozer 4mo agoYou can stop at any time. It's an unfortunate reality that many will not pay much mind as long as it's other people who are being harmed, but why support something morally and financially when it's now destroying something you personally care about?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- hypfer 4mo ago> Now I see communities being affected. When you kill PRs, you not only kill the code contributions, but also massively impact the other, non-tangible contributions like ideas, eyes on code, etc. That feels way worse. These "contributions", while they did exist in small quantities, mostly were not actually what you've described there. Instead, those boiled down to unsolicited opinions, hostile takeover attempts, value extraction, general drama and just overall overhead over simply building code. This was not always the case, but the GitHub model of building FOSS (and removal of all friction) certainly made it the new default. Said model was always unsustainable, but the burn rate made it sustainable enough so that we could just throw more humans at the problem to replace the burnt-out ones. AI pushed the burn rate over the replacement rate. => We will likely see more projects adapt this or a similar stance I think.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- hombre_fatal 4mo agoIt always seemed like a weird default to let people (esp strangers) submit PRs that weren't tied to an issue nor approved. What do you mean you just spent a week implementing something in secret? AI makes it extra silly because now you can craft up your unsolicited code change in minutes, making it extra obvious that code changes should spawn from real discussion and agreement. TFA is part of looking for new processes that actually work. Dunno why people are having such rose tinted glasses about pull requests. Open an issue, talk to people. Have an idea? Then get people to cosign it.
- robryan 4mo agoI think it was different pre-AI. Someone might come in and spend days getting some understanding of the codebase before they contribute some minor fix. Over time they might stick around a make some more of these, progressively gaining trust so when they do take on something bigger the maintainers will know they aren't wasting their time reviewing it. Now they can drop a multi thousand line poorly understood PR day 1.
- torben-friis 4mo ago>But all now seems like a transition phase. Transition to f-ing what though? It feels like being in the middle of a tornado. But I think it helps to turn off screens, sit in a desk, and calmly remember first principles and consider them slowly. Quoting obama, "reality has a way of catching up with you". I see a lot of talk, but iOS is not delivering a decade of features and fixes on each yearly release. Literally no one does, if anything people are complaining that existing functionality is breaking down. So it can't be true that we're at 10x productivity, and this fact will eventually catch up with us. Let's be human, and remember that many people are emotionally invested. Juniors want this to be a chance to shine in a market that otherwise rejected them. CEOs placed their bet on AI and don't want to walk that back. Seniors want to signal that they are not obsolete. AI companies will poison discourse. But all this smoke will eventually clear.
- patates 4mo ago> Juniors want this to be a chance to shine in a market that otherwise rejected them. I actually am training 2 trainees (Azubi in German) and 1 working student. All three are somewhat anxious about the future but also all are learning in a significantly increased pace, compared to the ones I worked with 1.5 years ago. They don't have to wait for random senior to answer questions, so they get stuck way less often. They aren't allowed to use AI to generate code though, so not sure how that'd look like learning-wise if we/they went all-in on AI.
- runarberg 4mo agoI am skeptical. This is a testable hypothesis, and I know there have been tons of research done trying to provide evidence of claims like these. However I have yet to see a convincing evidence. If this statement was indeed true, I think experimental data backing it up would be old news at this point, it however is not, and I suspect that is because junior developers are by and large in fact not learning faster or more with the help of AI.
- leononame 4mo agoIs that a good thing? I think getting stuck is an intrinsic part of the learning process and sometimes it's good that there isn't an immediate answer from a senior. For some things you'd never have solved yourself, sure. But pain and suffering is a big and important chunk of learning and I fear we just throw it all out of the window with asking AI.
- dzonga 4mo agoI think your response is reactionary. how was open source managed before GitHub ? you had to find a mailing list, be involved in the mailing list - ask questions, make a proposal, then create code after -- code goes through x rounds in the mailing list. finally it is merged if it suits direction of the project. this willy nilly of opening pr's while not being an active member of a community I would say decimated open source.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- singpolyma3 4mo ago> When people are losing something to automation, regardless of the economics of the situation, you cheer for the humans As in cheer for the humans because they've been liberated from the drudgery they have lost?
- gpvos 4mo agoSide question: what's wrong with Sonos playing a song? Are they generating AI music now?
- MrBuddyCasino 4mo agoVery related: https://graymirror.substack.com/p/sam-altmans-lamplighter https://graymirror.substack.com/p/sam-altmans-lamplighter
- ninjagoo 4mo ago> Transition to f-ing what though? The future is a bit fuzzy, always. That said, here's my take on it. > Transition to f-ing what though? Not jobs. Those will be gone once ai can do them cheaper than humans. ai can already do many (most?) of them better than humans. The jury is still out on the cost aspect. Judging by r/LocalLlama, the lower cost is not that far off. There may be some structural adjustments around compute pricing before that happens, though. In the EU, humans will probably be ok. They have a strong tradition of focus on human needs. Because of lower average salaries [1] than the US [2], human employment will likely carry on longer as well. In the US, those folks that have capital will likely be ok. They'll be able to purchase services from ai companies and invest in ai companies and corporate armed forces (ai-populated, not human) to protect the Haves. Those that don't have capital? Who knows? America hates poor people, women and minorities. China? No idea. Though I hear that their demographics are upside-down, so there'll be fewer people to support over the long-term. That they'll supply the robotics and goods for the rest of the world is not in doubt: cheaper electricity from solar/wind, advanced ai and robotic tech, science and industry moving forward while the US regresses, hard. India? Hard to say. No social net of any consequence. Not enough capital to go full ai/robotics, human labor way cheaper than ai/robotic labor at the moment, so maybe they'll survive as that last major bastion of human work for some time to come. But their economy is growing, and they have a lot of people, so at some point they'll come to that same fork in the road. Hopefully they'll have serious social safety nets by that time. Africa? In a lot of ways, they're similar to India on the human labor costs side, so their future hasn't been written yet either. India can probably fend off an invasion by rapacious US corporates with ai/robotic armies looking for resources because of sheer numbers, but Africa, fragmented, is a different story. Maybe China will be their friend? If you think this scenario is outlandish, look into the history of European companies colonizing the world. You didn't think the East India Company with its massive private armies were government-owned, did you? Likewise with the Spanish/Dutch/Portugese expansions. The govt. takeovers didn't happen until much later, tens of decades later. South America? They're an interesting case. Brazil may take a trajectory similar to the EU. Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay too. The others are a ? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
- jatora 4mo ago> Also: I liked a song and it was sonos. I unliked it after discovering. I feel so stupid, so often. This is asinine. Keep depriving yourself of things you enjoy I guess?
- wussboy 4mo agoPerhaps knowing a human with talent worked on it, putting some small part of themselves and their lived experience into the music has value to them? If so, then their actions make complete sense.
- tejohnso 4mo agoHuman created music might have value to them, but it doesn't mean that the AI song was valueless. They admit they enjoyed it. So it doesn't make sense in terms of it not having value. I wouldn't say it's asinine though. People reject creative output out of personal protest against the creator. Someone might love a movie only to refuse to ever watch it again because they found out the director was accused of something horrible. Some people just don't want to support anything to do with AI. Although in this case the OP admits to also using AI directly so there's some inconsistency there, which is consistent with the state of confusion and uncertainty OP is expressing.
- jatora 4mo agoTrue, asinine was too strong a critique. I am just not in favor of emotional decision making where it can be helped. I can despise Tom Cruise as a person while still enjoying many of his movies. I know that some can't do that. I have always detached the creators from the art and that makes AI slot right in for me.
- sodapopcan 4mo agoIt's not emotional when there is still always a person behind these "works" that stands top benefit from it from you listening to it.
- 4mo ago
- flaviolivolsi 4mo agoSonos? Did you mean Suno?
- gpvos 4mo agoApparently, yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48411805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48411805
- oceanhaiyang 4mo agoIs cursing not allowed..?
- thegrim33 4mo ago"I was afraid" .. "hurt a lot" .. "I hope that" .. "that feels" .. "I'm conflicted" .. "I'm confused" .. "I'm afraid" .. "human touch" .. "I liked" .. "I feel so stupid". Maybe, just maybe, you're not thinking rationally/logically about the situation and instead are mostly operating on emotion and feelings?
- grepex 4mo agoThe irony is that it is sometimes irrational/illogical to only consider rationality and logic. Have you ever had an experience where, by all calculations, you should be happy with the outcome but for whatever reason you're not? In some ways, that is the state of the internet today. Everything is optimized based on analytics, but so many of use are unhappy with how things are.
- john_strinlai 4mo agoits okay for humans to have feelings (and even occasionally talk about them).
- boca_honey 4mo agoWhat are you talking about? There was nothing irrational or illogical about what he said. The fact that he balanced his (well thought-out) opinion with emotion does not make it instantly irrational.
- BoostandEthanol 4mo agoThe core of the human experience is to react to emotions. There’s nothing without emotions. Even if you feel like you can numb yourself to look at everything objectively, those “objective” “rational” thoughts are still based on feelings and inklings about what you trust and which facts you believe through chains of sources and anecdotes. There’s no such thing as operating without emotion.
- penguinPhilosop 4mo agoAnd that is perfectly acceptable if somebody is a human person.
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo agoAI first happened in the 1950s