3 ms·

> But on the flip side, we get AI That is kind of net loss at this point. Hey, on the bright side we get onslaught of slop, ai psychosis, constant stream of do

by watwut 8d ago

> But on the flip side, we get AI That is kind of net loss at this point. Hey, on the bright side we get onslaught of slop, ai psychosis, constant stream of doom trolling. And ideology of pointlessness where any time you do or learn anything, you get told that why bother you should have used AI. The kid forever locked in candy store is happy for a bit, but then they get hungry and feel bad. And no matter how much sugar you eat, it wont get better.

post-it 8d ago
> And ideology of pointlessness where any time you do or learn anything, you get told that why bother you should have used AI. Who cares? Anyone can tell you anything online.
- watwut 8d ago
  That part was about people in real life and their real life comments.
  - post-it 8d ago
    People in real life are going up to you and telling you you shouldn't bother learning things and just use AI instead?
lisplist 8d ago
From an ego perspective, the artisan craft of programming basically being dead at this point makes me sad, having spent so much of my life getting good at it (or at least trying to). From technological enthusiast perspective - if you can't find an endless stream of uses for this technology, I really don't know what to tell you anymore. I gave credence to AI naysayers for a while, but at this point I feel like its akin to denying gravity exists. Who are we to gatekeep software development? So many people have gained the ability to interact with computers in ways they never dreamed of before! For me, I've never felt so engaged in software development, even if I'm no longer writing it line by line. Like you say, there are a lot of negative externalities to this technology, but its something we're going to have to solve rather than dismissing it outright. The industrial revolution caused all sorts of problems! But you can't argue we're worse off because of it.
- Pannoniae 8d ago
  I don't think it's dead if you have a market which values high-quality, artisanal products. Sure, artisanal code in itself isn't something inherently sellable but if you pride your program on being a quality product then it's still valuable for others:) AI is basically the new JavaScript in a way.It won't create the next Linux or the next SQLite by itself.
  - hombre_fatal 8d ago
    That's separate from LLM usage though. By this point, if you care about a quality product, you should learn how to leverage LLMs for that like running automated audits for correctness and performance opportunities. There isn't a market for "yeah there's a memory leak but I wrote it by hand."
    - Pannoniae 8d ago
      Fair enough, but as things stand now, the usual LLM-assisted piece of software is usually also partly or wholly LLM-designed too. Not just implemented on a function level or a file level. And LLM design is usually called "slop" because it's nothing spectacular unless you bring fresh ideas to it from a human perspective. Hand-written memory leaks don't have a market but hand-designed software with hand-designed UX and a hand-designed vision does :)
      - hombre_fatal 8d ago
        I'm generally impressed with the code that Fable/Opus is writing for me these days; I would be proud to have had the same foresight had I implemented the solution myself. And Fable's architectural design is pretty much always well-reasoned and a good place to start. There's this idea that the best way to use LLMs is to be in the backseat constantly yelling out corrections, but that hasn't been true in my experience for quite some time, though I only use a few sota models. I think something being slop this late in the game is mainly a reflection of the person using it. I can't really blame AI anymore when pretty much any lever you'd recommend to de-slop it is one prompt away. I agree with your last bit, and that is the only thing left now that AI solved the technical part.
mmaunder 8d ago
Thing about being in cybersecurity is you get to see outcomes that aren't a matter of debate or taste. For example, if I lock an agent in a jail and tell it to attack something and that the only way to win is to show me a number stored on that target, and it succeeds, then assuming our jail was effective, it's an outcome that isn't debatable. I've lost count of the moments I've had this year where my jaw just drops because I'm holding undeniable proof of a level of expertise I've never seen in humans - and that is far above human capability, in a field where I'm an expert. So I guess from my perspective, it's not a candy store or candy. It's something that can solve problems we've never before been able to solve. Problems that are too hard for a human. Another example: Recently one of our agents found a vulnerability so complex, that our team, who are experts in their field, could not understand it and had to ask an agent to write a blog post to explain it to them. It had more steps in the exploit than we've ever seen, and would never have been discovered by a human. Cybersecurity is a leading indicator of what's to come in other fields. Leading because programming is something models are inherently good at. Doing wetwork in a lab is harder to plug into a model or agent. But it's on the horizon. So we will be seeing these kinds of breakthroughs in other fields, and the leading indicator says they're going to blow our minds. If you think this stuff is candy, and you're relating it to social media, you're simply not paying attention or getting your hands dirty. And honestly if I wasn't hands-on, every day that passed would make me progressively more scared and more angry as it pulled away from me.

by watwut 8d ago

post-it 8d ago

> And ideology of pointlessness where any time you do or learn anything, you get told that why bother you should have used AI. Who cares? Anyone can tell you anything online.

watwut 8d ago
That part was about people in real life and their real life comments.
- post-it 8d ago
  People in real life are going up to you and telling you you shouldn't bother learning things and just use AI instead?

lisplist 8d ago

From an ego perspective, the artisan craft of programming basically being dead at this point makes me sad, having spent so much of my life getting good at it (or at least trying to). From technological enthusiast perspective - if you can't find an endless stream of uses for this technology, I really don't know what to tell you anymore. I gave credence to AI naysayers for a while, but at this point I feel like its akin to denying gravity exists. Who are we to gatekeep software development? So many people have gained the ability to interact with computers in ways they never dreamed of before! For me, I've never felt so engaged in software development, even if I'm no longer writing it line by line. Like you say, there are a lot of negative externalities to this technology, but its something we're going to have to solve rather than dismissing it outright. The industrial revolution caused all sorts of problems! But you can't argue we're worse off because of it.

Pannoniae 8d ago
I don't think it's dead if you have a market which values high-quality, artisanal products. Sure, artisanal code in itself isn't something inherently sellable but if you pride your program on being a quality product then it's still valuable for others:) AI is basically the new JavaScript in a way.It won't create the next Linux or the next SQLite by itself.
- hombre_fatal 8d ago
  That's separate from LLM usage though. By this point, if you care about a quality product, you should learn how to leverage LLMs for that like running automated audits for correctness and performance opportunities. There isn't a market for "yeah there's a memory leak but I wrote it by hand."
  - Pannoniae 8d ago
    Fair enough, but as things stand now, the usual LLM-assisted piece of software is usually also partly or wholly LLM-designed too. Not just implemented on a function level or a file level. And LLM design is usually called "slop" because it's nothing spectacular unless you bring fresh ideas to it from a human perspective. Hand-written memory leaks don't have a market but hand-designed software with hand-designed UX and a hand-designed vision does :)
    - hombre_fatal 8d ago
      I'm generally impressed with the code that Fable/Opus is writing for me these days; I would be proud to have had the same foresight had I implemented the solution myself. And Fable's architectural design is pretty much always well-reasoned and a good place to start. There's this idea that the best way to use LLMs is to be in the backseat constantly yelling out corrections, but that hasn't been true in my experience for quite some time, though I only use a few sota models. I think something being slop this late in the game is mainly a reflection of the person using it. I can't really blame AI anymore when pretty much any lever you'd recommend to de-slop it is one prompt away. I agree with your last bit, and that is the only thing left now that AI solved the technical part.

mmaunder 8d ago

Thing about being in cybersecurity is you get to see outcomes that aren't a matter of debate or taste. For example, if I lock an agent in a jail and tell it to attack something and that the only way to win is to show me a number stored on that target, and it succeeds, then assuming our jail was effective, it's an outcome that isn't debatable. I've lost count of the moments I've had this year where my jaw just drops because I'm holding undeniable proof of a level of expertise I've never seen in humans - and that is far above human capability, in a field where I'm an expert. So I guess from my perspective, it's not a candy store or candy. It's something that can solve problems we've never before been able to solve. Problems that are too hard for a human. Another example: Recently one of our agents found a vulnerability so complex, that our team, who are experts in their field, could not understand it and had to ask an agent to write a blog post to explain it to them. It had more steps in the exploit than we've ever seen, and would never have been discovered by a human. Cybersecurity is a leading indicator of what's to come in other fields. Leading because programming is something models are inherently good at. Doing wetwork in a lab is harder to plug into a model or agent. But it's on the horizon. So we will be seeing these kinds of breakthroughs in other fields, and the leading indicator says they're going to blow our minds. If you think this stuff is candy, and you're relating it to social media, you're simply not paying attention or getting your hands dirty. And honestly if I wasn't hands-on, every day that passed would make me progressively more scared and more angry as it pulled away from me.