4 ms·

Because those power tools had just been invented and no one had experience with them. Though in theory power tools are faster than hand tools.

JoshTriplett 3mo ago
So do a workshop on power tools, measure their efficacy and the quality of the result, do some demonstration videos on power tools, get people to compare, seek feedback on their usage. Don't count electricity and sawdust, or you'll find people getting very good at expensively turning blocks of wood into sawdust.
- no-name-here 3mo ago
  Is the idea that most stubborn employees would adopt AI if their company made videos showing internal metrics that AI is better? > Don’t count electricity and sawdust I agree that it seems wasteful, but is there some better way to accomplish it at the scale of hundreds, or hundreds of thousands, etc? I'm personally doubtful that stubborn employees would switch even if a video provided internal metrics, videos, etc.
  - JoshTriplett 3mo ago
    Perhaps don't start out with the conclusion that it's obviously better and anyone rejecting it is just "stubborn".
    - TeMPOraL 3mo ago
      Nobody started out with that conclusions. The tests and experiments and workshops and consulting with select employees you propose, were all done 2-3 years ago. Results are in, but a chunk of population decides to ignore them and obstinately continue believing and claiming that it doesn't work, which is a conclusion they started out with.
      - oblio 3mo ago
        > Results are in Awesome, can you please share those results? Surely they would be all over Nature, Science, IEEE, etc.
        TeMPOraL 3mo ago
        Nature doesn't publish papers about water being wet either.
        sevenseacat 3mo ago
        source: just trust me bro
        TeMPOraL 3mo ago
        Source: it takes less effort to test this yourself than to write comments about it on Hacker News.
        sevenseacat 3mo ago
        We did, that's why we're so skeptical of your claim. The burden of proof here is on you, not on us.
        oblio 3mo ago
        What? The basic properties of water are scientifically defined as best we can. There is mathematical proof that 1+1=2. Do you think science starts from nuclear physics or differential equations? We couldn't build any of this stuff (rockets, LLMs, heart medicine) if the foundation was ill defined. I think it's the second time I run into you like this, Temporal. I wish HN had a way to classify you as an "AI booster" or equivalent.
        TeMPOraL 3mo ago
        > What? The basic properties of water are scientifically defined as best we can. There is mathematical proof that 1+1=2. Do you think science starts from nuclear physics or differential equations? Yes. There's a lot of interesting things science has to say about water, very specific claims that took a lot of effort to discover, precisely formulate, and reproduce. We're not talking about those. The whole LLM discussion on HN, as well as in the wider industry, is still stuck at the state where a large (or vocal) group of people refuses to believe water is wet. Yes, there is a similar group that tries to sell water as miracle cure, I'm not denying it - IMO both perspectives are dumb and entirely detached from obvious observational evidence that you can collect for ~free at home in 15 minutes. Example will follow. There exist the equivalent of foundational, detailed studies on LLMs, at every level of rigor imaginable (with a caveat, it's hard to rigorously prove anything useful in software engineering; it's still largely opinion-driven field). But they're not part of the overall "AI hypers/haters" dynamics. > I wish HN had a way to classify you as an "AI booster" or equivalent. You can take any of the LLMs and have it vibecode you a user script in under 5 minutes, than you then can paste into Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey, and voilà, you have me labeled as "AI booster" or filtered out. In fact, let me help you, I'll time it. I opened chatgpt.com in incognito (to emulate being a rando free user), and put the following prompt in: > I need a user script I can paste into Tampermonkey on my Firefox that will clearly label user named TeMPOraL with robot emoji and some silly emoji, so I never forget when reading their HackerNews comments that they're an unapologetic AI booster. Got back this script in under 10 seconds: https://pastebin.com/akEchvHd https://pastebin.com/akEchvHd. Tested it, works out of the box. This is the promised empirical example. It doesn't prove everything, but it proves something, and it took, end-to-end, a total of 1 minute to perform just now. You can collect many such examples over a single day by just trying. People who keep saying AI is useless and a fad and can't do anything useful, obviously never bother with even that. FYI: I'm not an AI booster. I like AI, and I find it useful, but I'm not going out of my way to boost it. I just enjoy this topic, but more importantly - and I remain consistent in this - I point out bullshit that doesn't agree with obvious observable reality. EDIT: try the example yourself, and post whether it works for you too - if it does, it's technically a peer-reviewed, replicated study, but I doubt it'll convince any of the naysayers of anything. EDIT2: I have plenty of negative things to say about LLM capabilities and how irresponsibly people use them, and I do occasionally write about this (mostly at work, these days), but most HN threads on AI are not on this level - not anymore. They used to be more reasonable back in GPT-4 days.
  - ligne 3mo ago
    The same way you monitor your staff's work in general? Do they not have goals and deadlines and some way to discuss their progress with their manager?

JoshTriplett 3mo ago

So do a workshop on power tools, measure their efficacy and the quality of the result, do some demonstration videos on power tools, get people to compare, seek feedback on their usage. Don't count electricity and sawdust, or you'll find people getting very good at expensively turning blocks of wood into sawdust.

no-name-here 3mo ago
Is the idea that most stubborn employees would adopt AI if their company made videos showing internal metrics that AI is better? > Don’t count electricity and sawdust I agree that it seems wasteful, but is there some better way to accomplish it at the scale of hundreds, or hundreds of thousands, etc? I'm personally doubtful that stubborn employees would switch even if a video provided internal metrics, videos, etc.
- JoshTriplett 3mo ago
  Perhaps don't start out with the conclusion that it's obviously better and anyone rejecting it is just "stubborn".
  - TeMPOraL 3mo ago
    Nobody started out with that conclusions. The tests and experiments and workshops and consulting with select employees you propose, were all done 2-3 years ago. Results are in, but a chunk of population decides to ignore them and obstinately continue believing and claiming that it doesn't work, which is a conclusion they started out with.
    - oblio 3mo ago
      > Results are in Awesome, can you please share those results? Surely they would be all over Nature, Science, IEEE, etc.
      - TeMPOraL 3mo ago
        Nature doesn't publish papers about water being wet either.
        sevenseacat 3mo ago
        source: just trust me bro
        TeMPOraL 3mo ago
        Source: it takes less effort to test this yourself than to write comments about it on Hacker News.
        sevenseacat 3mo ago
        We did, that's why we're so skeptical of your claim. The burden of proof here is on you, not on us.
        oblio 3mo ago
        What? The basic properties of water are scientifically defined as best we can. There is mathematical proof that 1+1=2. Do you think science starts from nuclear physics or differential equations? We couldn't build any of this stuff (rockets, LLMs, heart medicine) if the foundation was ill defined. I think it's the second time I run into you like this, Temporal. I wish HN had a way to classify you as an "AI booster" or equivalent.
        TeMPOraL 3mo ago
        > What? The basic properties of water are scientifically defined as best we can. There is mathematical proof that 1+1=2. Do you think science starts from nuclear physics or differential equations? Yes. There's a lot of interesting things science has to say about water, very specific claims that took a lot of effort to discover, precisely formulate, and reproduce. We're not talking about those. The whole LLM discussion on HN, as well as in the wider industry, is still stuck at the state where a large (or vocal) group of people refuses to believe water is wet. Yes, there is a similar group that tries to sell water as miracle cure, I'm not denying it - IMO both perspectives are dumb and entirely detached from obvious observational evidence that you can collect for ~free at home in 15 minutes. Example will follow. There exist the equivalent of foundational, detailed studies on LLMs, at every level of rigor imaginable (with a caveat, it's hard to rigorously prove anything useful in software engineering; it's still largely opinion-driven field). But they're not part of the overall "AI hypers/haters" dynamics. > I wish HN had a way to classify you as an "AI booster" or equivalent. You can take any of the LLMs and have it vibecode you a user script in under 5 minutes, than you then can paste into Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey, and voilà, you have me labeled as "AI booster" or filtered out. In fact, let me help you, I'll time it. I opened chatgpt.com in incognito (to emulate being a rando free user), and put the following prompt in: > I need a user script I can paste into Tampermonkey on my Firefox that will clearly label user named TeMPOraL with robot emoji and some silly emoji, so I never forget when reading their HackerNews comments that they're an unapologetic AI booster. Got back this script in under 10 seconds: https://pastebin.com/akEchvHd https://pastebin.com/akEchvHd. Tested it, works out of the box. This is the promised empirical example. It doesn't prove everything, but it proves something, and it took, end-to-end, a total of 1 minute to perform just now. You can collect many such examples over a single day by just trying. People who keep saying AI is useless and a fad and can't do anything useful, obviously never bother with even that. FYI: I'm not an AI booster. I like AI, and I find it useful, but I'm not going out of my way to boost it. I just enjoy this topic, but more importantly - and I remain consistent in this - I point out bullshit that doesn't agree with obvious observable reality. EDIT: try the example yourself, and post whether it works for you too - if it does, it's technically a peer-reviewed, replicated study, but I doubt it'll convince any of the naysayers of anything. EDIT2: I have plenty of negative things to say about LLM capabilities and how irresponsibly people use them, and I do occasionally write about this (mostly at work, these days), but most HN threads on AI are not on this level - not anymore. They used to be more reasonable back in GPT-4 days.
- ligne 3mo ago
  The same way you monitor your staff's work in general? Do they not have goals and deadlines and some way to discuss their progress with their manager?