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> extinguish the ecosystem since open source libraries are essentially a competitor. (If there were no libraries you'd have to ask the AI to do everything!) Th

by sshine 2mo ago

> extinguish the ecosystem since open source libraries are essentially a competitor. (If there were no libraries you'd have to ask the AI to do everything!) That is neither the incentive of AI companies nor the truth. Availability of Open Source where stealing and illegal relicensing is not being litigated, is a perfect ecosystem for AI to work in. Maintainer exhaustion is totally a secondary effect, not intended. The maintainer economy was already not working out, AI amplified the asymmetry at play.

krupan 2mo ago
I think you are correct on how it's playing out because AI cannot write software very well all on its own. The dream is that AI is so good that it can write all the code you need from scratch, replacing all and any code written by anyone else, but that's not happening
- sshine 2mo ago
  With guidance, it kind of is happening. While, simultaneously, an abundance of slop is being made.
- selectodude 2mo ago
  GPT-5.6 just finished writing a shim for me in rust that sits between Broadcom’s bullshit kernel and a standard Linux user space to turn my mesh routers into standard computers. At some point I’m not sure what the difference is in practice. Note: I can’t code. Not a line.
  - vinceguidry 2mo ago
    What do you need your tiny routers to do?
    - selectodude 2mo ago
      Not run all of ASUS's unstable garbage software.
  - smcnally 2mo ago
    Does this work on early Velop mesh nodes, by chance?
    - selectodude 2mo ago
      Doubt it - Linksys encrypts their firmware. ASUS not only doesn't, but left everything in the binary that made it really easy for GPT-5.6 to crack it open and decompile everything in ghidra.
  - adithyassekhar 2mo ago
    That is amazing, I am surprised how the other replies to your comment just ignore that aspect pf it.
    - selectodude 2mo ago
      I thought it was cool too, though I understand AI use is a heated debate and I think people get their backs up that some dumb illiterate like me who can't code has ghidra on my laptop decompiling kernel headers. I get it, the deluge is coming for my job too.
overgard 2mo ago
As far as I can tell, Anthropic's entire goal is to extinguish software development as a profession. They're not exactly subtle. If they do that, I don't see how they wouldn't take out open source with it as a consequence. If nobody even looks at code why would anyone bother to publish a library, much less care about making it maintainable? Shit, if everybody is vibe coding how long before your "average" dev has no idea what a library even is or why you'd want one?
- sshine 2mo ago
  > Anthropic's entire goal is to extinguish software development as a profession They’re killing “programmer”, not “code”. > I don't see how they wouldn't take out open source with it as a consequence An analogy: the automobile industry sought to make working horses redundant, not to go door-to-door and kill horses. Horses getting chopped was an indirect economic consequence. > If nobody even looks at code why would anyone bother to publish a library, much less care about making it maintainable? For the exact same reasons as before. Agentic programming still integrates well with the existing ecosystem; I’ll tell agents which libraries to use, so I know what to expect. While I don’t read the implementation of anything any more unless there’s a hard algorithmic problem, I do make an effort to read and document APIs thoroughly. Interfacing is exactly the same, it’s just agents doing it. > if everybody is vibe coding how long before your "average" dev has no idea what a library even is or why you'd want one? That is a very good question.
  - jdkoeck 2mo ago
    > While I don’t read the implementation of anything any more unless there’s a hard algorithmic problem, I do make an effort to read and document APIs thoroughly. I have some questions. Are you doing this for client-facing production code? It seems you believe painting over APIs with some amount of documentation will guarantee the implementation is correct and well designed. Am I misreading that? You say you still read code when code is « algorithmically hard ». How do you define that? Software systems have requirements that are essential but not algorithmically hard. For instance, access control in a web application must be thorough and cover all REST resources. How do you know the implementation has the desired properties if you don’t read the code? Do you have tests? How do you know they’re correct if you don’t read the code? Moreover, how do know if their coverage is sufficient if you don’t read the code? Do you refactor code or is that not needed anymore? I don’t understand your answer to the question of why anyone would publish a library if no one reads code anymore. « For the exact same reasons as before ». How so? This isn’t making sense.
socialcommenter 2mo ago
> Maintainer exhaustion is totally a secondary effect, not intended. Malice, incompetence, etc. My question is, how much does it matter _why_ the problem exists because of AI/is being exacerbated by AI?
watwut 2mo ago
> That is neither the incentive of AI companies nor the truth They literally sell themselves to investors as the thing that will destroy everything people create. That is their bragging point. And they are using things people created to destroy them and their future work. Those are their openly stated goals. Which they claimed to achieve 2 years ago.

by sshine 2mo ago

krupan 2mo ago

I think you are correct on how it's playing out because AI cannot write software very well all on its own. The dream is that AI is so good that it can write all the code you need from scratch, replacing all and any code written by anyone else, but that's not happening

sshine 2mo ago
With guidance, it kind of is happening. While, simultaneously, an abundance of slop is being made.
selectodude 2mo ago
GPT-5.6 just finished writing a shim for me in rust that sits between Broadcom’s bullshit kernel and a standard Linux user space to turn my mesh routers into standard computers. At some point I’m not sure what the difference is in practice. Note: I can’t code. Not a line.
- vinceguidry 2mo ago
  What do you need your tiny routers to do?
  - selectodude 2mo ago
    Not run all of ASUS's unstable garbage software.
- smcnally 2mo ago
  Does this work on early Velop mesh nodes, by chance?
  - selectodude 2mo ago
    Doubt it - Linksys encrypts their firmware. ASUS not only doesn't, but left everything in the binary that made it really easy for GPT-5.6 to crack it open and decompile everything in ghidra.
- adithyassekhar 2mo ago
  That is amazing, I am surprised how the other replies to your comment just ignore that aspect pf it.
  - selectodude 2mo ago
    I thought it was cool too, though I understand AI use is a heated debate and I think people get their backs up that some dumb illiterate like me who can't code has ghidra on my laptop decompiling kernel headers. I get it, the deluge is coming for my job too.

overgard 2mo ago

As far as I can tell, Anthropic's entire goal is to extinguish software development as a profession. They're not exactly subtle. If they do that, I don't see how they wouldn't take out open source with it as a consequence. If nobody even looks at code why would anyone bother to publish a library, much less care about making it maintainable? Shit, if everybody is vibe coding how long before your "average" dev has no idea what a library even is or why you'd want one?

sshine 2mo ago
> Anthropic's entire goal is to extinguish software development as a profession They’re killing “programmer”, not “code”. > I don't see how they wouldn't take out open source with it as a consequence An analogy: the automobile industry sought to make working horses redundant, not to go door-to-door and kill horses. Horses getting chopped was an indirect economic consequence. > If nobody even looks at code why would anyone bother to publish a library, much less care about making it maintainable? For the exact same reasons as before. Agentic programming still integrates well with the existing ecosystem; I’ll tell agents which libraries to use, so I know what to expect. While I don’t read the implementation of anything any more unless there’s a hard algorithmic problem, I do make an effort to read and document APIs thoroughly. Interfacing is exactly the same, it’s just agents doing it. > if everybody is vibe coding how long before your "average" dev has no idea what a library even is or why you'd want one? That is a very good question.
- jdkoeck 2mo ago
  > While I don’t read the implementation of anything any more unless there’s a hard algorithmic problem, I do make an effort to read and document APIs thoroughly. I have some questions. Are you doing this for client-facing production code? It seems you believe painting over APIs with some amount of documentation will guarantee the implementation is correct and well designed. Am I misreading that? You say you still read code when code is « algorithmically hard ». How do you define that? Software systems have requirements that are essential but not algorithmically hard. For instance, access control in a web application must be thorough and cover all REST resources. How do you know the implementation has the desired properties if you don’t read the code? Do you have tests? How do you know they’re correct if you don’t read the code? Moreover, how do know if their coverage is sufficient if you don’t read the code? Do you refactor code or is that not needed anymore? I don’t understand your answer to the question of why anyone would publish a library if no one reads code anymore. « For the exact same reasons as before ». How so? This isn’t making sense.

socialcommenter 2mo ago

> Maintainer exhaustion is totally a secondary effect, not intended. Malice, incompetence, etc. My question is, how much does it matter _why_ the problem exists because of AI/is being exacerbated by AI?

watwut 2mo ago

> That is neither the incentive of AI companies nor the truth They literally sell themselves to investors as the thing that will destroy everything people create. That is their bragging point. And they are using things people created to destroy them and their future work. Those are their openly stated goals. Which they claimed to achieve 2 years ago.