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People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for

by coldtea 10d ago

People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for me". I say the question isn't if you use AI to build you something, but if you nerd out and tinker yourself.

drstewart 10d ago
I'd further say it's not a TRUE Scottish tinkering unless you're hand writing machine code yourself and feeding it via punch cards.
- coldtea 10d ago
  "I asked somebody else to do this hobby project for me" is not the same as "I tinkered" whether that somebody else is a person or AI. Same how you're not a musician just because you had Suno create something. So, no, sticking to the actual meaning of a thing is not true scotsman fallacy.
  - 5upplied_demand 10d ago
    > Same how you're not a musician just because you had Suno create something. In this analogy, the person calling themselves a musician would have to be falsely calling themselves a programmer after using AI to code something. The word used here was "tinker" which can be any number of things. One can "tinker" with business ideas, investment theses, hardware designs, economic models, gameplay concepts, baking recipes, brewing formulas, and more.
- softwarewright 9d ago
  But what if I use AI to write live demos where you can write machine code, debug it visually in your browser, punch data on virtual punch cards? What if I used AI to generate videos about this, generate the artwork, backgrounds, narration, intro music, etc. I guess I am just a meta-tinkerer :-)
sejje 10d ago
For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you. For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help of AI. You can say I didn't build it, I don't really care--my ego isn't wrapped up in it.
- gamessucknow 10d ago
  > For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. So if I outsource all the work to some guy on fiverr am I also a tinkerer?
  - sejje 10d ago
    All of the coding work? Or all of the work? (Depends what you're building, of course)
- coldtea 10d ago
  >For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing Those are not tinkerers then, as there's no tinkering involved. Or there might be in other parts (e.g. with electronics to hook up and house the code AI wrote for you, if it's something that will run on a Raspberry Pi), but not in the coding part. The question implies: "do you still enjoy nerding out and tinkering by writing code yourself, now that AI can write it". Else asking if you're demotivated from doing it "because of AI" wouldn't make sense. So I would say that "I like making stuff by having AI write the code" is still an admission of not nerding out and tinkering (regarding code) anymore.
  - 5upplied_demand 10d ago
    > Those are not tinkerers, as there's no tinkering involved. This seems closed minded view of tinkering. There are plenty of ways to tinker aside from just writing code. It could be in driving traffic to a website, selling a product, combining datasets, automating a task, etc. I personally love economics and have used AI to tinker with combing multiple datasets to create new ways of viewing economic growth at the metro level across variables.
runjake 9d ago
AI is just another tool to nerd out and tinker with. The question was "Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker". If you're using AI (to wit: another tool) to nerd out and tinker, then you're obviously not losing that motivation. So my genuine answer to the original question is: No, I nerd out and tinker more than ever. Right now, I am using AI as a tool to do stuff I otherwise wouldn't do, like reverse engineer a Whoop band for use with Apple Health sans a Whoop subscription.

by coldtea 10d ago

drstewart 10d ago

I'd further say it's not a TRUE Scottish tinkering unless you're hand writing machine code yourself and feeding it via punch cards.

coldtea 10d ago
"I asked somebody else to do this hobby project for me" is not the same as "I tinkered" whether that somebody else is a person or AI. Same how you're not a musician just because you had Suno create something. So, no, sticking to the actual meaning of a thing is not true scotsman fallacy.
- 5upplied_demand 10d ago
  > Same how you're not a musician just because you had Suno create something. In this analogy, the person calling themselves a musician would have to be falsely calling themselves a programmer after using AI to code something. The word used here was "tinker" which can be any number of things. One can "tinker" with business ideas, investment theses, hardware designs, economic models, gameplay concepts, baking recipes, brewing formulas, and more.
softwarewright 9d ago
But what if I use AI to write live demos where you can write machine code, debug it visually in your browser, punch data on virtual punch cards? What if I used AI to generate videos about this, generate the artwork, backgrounds, narration, intro music, etc. I guess I am just a meta-tinkerer :-)

sejje 10d ago

For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you. For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help of AI. You can say I didn't build it, I don't really care--my ego isn't wrapped up in it.

gamessucknow 10d ago
> For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective. That's maybe Matthias Wandel. So if I outsource all the work to some guy on fiverr am I also a tinkerer?
- sejje 10d ago
  All of the coding work? Or all of the work? (Depends what you're building, of course)
coldtea 10d ago
>For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing Those are not tinkerers then, as there's no tinkering involved. Or there might be in other parts (e.g. with electronics to hook up and house the code AI wrote for you, if it's something that will run on a Raspberry Pi), but not in the coding part. The question implies: "do you still enjoy nerding out and tinkering by writing code yourself, now that AI can write it". Else asking if you're demotivated from doing it "because of AI" wouldn't make sense. So I would say that "I like making stuff by having AI write the code" is still an admission of not nerding out and tinkering (regarding code) anymore.
- 5upplied_demand 10d ago
  > Those are not tinkerers, as there's no tinkering involved. This seems closed minded view of tinkering. There are plenty of ways to tinker aside from just writing code. It could be in driving traffic to a website, selling a product, combining datasets, automating a task, etc. I personally love economics and have used AI to tinker with combing multiple datasets to create new ways of viewing economic growth at the metro level across variables.

runjake 9d ago

AI is just another tool to nerd out and tinker with. The question was "Is anyone else losing their motivation to nerd out and tinker". If you're using AI (to wit: another tool) to nerd out and tinker, then you're obviously not losing that motivation. So my genuine answer to the original question is: No, I nerd out and tinker more than ever. Right now, I am using AI as a tool to do stuff I otherwise wouldn't do, like reverse engineer a Whoop band for use with Apple Health sans a Whoop subscription.