the_af

16 ms·

361.
by the_af 6mo ago
I agree , but this time it seems qualitatively different. I think you (we) are falling into the trap of thinking "it was BS before, therefore it's also BS now." The whole "when calculators were introduced..." yadda
362.
by the_af 6mo ago
> My impression from a couple years ago was that it was fairly decent at coding, it was just slow to go from question -> code, and the tooling around that has improved significantly so that it's all pretty quick Your experience
363.
by the_af 6mo ago
> We've been through cycles like this before. Back in the day, Dreamweaver was going to put every web developer out of a job [...] I get what you're saying. This is why I was also skeptical, initially. But consider this: this
364.
by the_af 6mo ago
> It's especially bad on LinkedIn Agreed, but to be fair, LinkedIn was especially bad to begin with. Even before AI-slop, LinkedIn posts were rightfully mocked. Self-congratulatory or self-pitying, full of empty platitudes and &qu
365.
by the_af 6mo ago
> Does it seem to you like those issues will be solved soon? No. But I was also very skeptical about AI being able to code semi-reliably during the early stages of GPT hype, and look where I'm now: most of the code I produce is wr
366.
by the_af 6mo ago
> because not using LLM is rapidly becoming untenable Completely agreed. This is not what I'm advocating for. And definitely, there's a lot of self-serving hype (and fearmongering can be another kind of hype) by AI companies.
367.
by the_af 6mo ago
I'm pro FOSS, militantly so. FSF-style. But... playing devil's advocate, if AI makes it very easy to find exploits without the source code, wouldn't it be doubly effective finding them with the source code as well? And why
368.
by the_af 6mo ago
Playing devil's advocate here, I'm not antagonizing you but thinking out loud. > if it exceed the context the agent does random stuff, that are often against simplicity and coherent logical structure. That's a current te
369.
by the_af 6mo ago
> As an engineer, I'm never more excited about this job. How long do you think it'll take for the AI trend to mostly automate the parts of your job that still make you excited? Everyone thinks it won't be them, it will b
370.
by the_af 6mo ago
> But now that signal is even more rubbish. Even readmes and blog posts are becoming worse signals since they don't necessarily showcase your own communication skills anymore nor how you think about problems. Yup. I've spotte
371.
by the_af 6mo ago
> Humans will be held accountable, not machines, whatever is the technology used Isn't this addressed explicitly in TFA, in section "meat shields"? As for the rest, if you predict even the jobs described in TFA will be o
372.
by the_af 6mo ago
This story of space toilers clears out many questions I had about spaceflight and... uh, going number 2. Namely: astronauts try NOT to as much as they can, and when they do go, it's a mess for both them and their crew mates. They suffe
373.
by the_af 6mo ago
I don't disagree with anything you're saying, mind you! I'm just curious that in the two Chimp cases at the forefront of this conversation, the smaller group started the war. Yes, they of course attacked when they could fin
374.
by the_af 6mo ago
> Yes, and your comment contrasts heavily with the reality of using LLMs as code assistants, as conveyed in comments such as "a whole new layer of lossy interpretation. This is profoundly wrong, even if you use LLMs naively. Most
375.
by the_af 6mo ago
> The "consultants wrote sloppy code" is one of those memes that never die. Your comment is one of those that feel intuitively right, because what you say makes sense... until faced with reality. Most consultants that most
376.
by the_af 6mo ago
> I recommend you get acquainted with LLMs and code assistants I use them daily, thanks for your condescension. > I could see LLMs being used to check/analyze natural language requirements and help turn them into formal requir
377.
by the_af 6mo ago
> What if that process changes and the language you’re reading is a natural one instead of code? Natural language is not a good way to specify computer systems. This is a lesson we seem doomed to forget again and again. It's the c
378.
by the_af 6mo ago
> I don’t understand why this post is so negative on Franklin. They seemed great. The whole article is a framed as some kind of denunciation, but when I read it, it just seemed like a charming piece of computer history. Bob Applegate&#
379.
by the_af 6mo ago
That's how I feel about clones in general. Ok, I owned a real Commodore 64, but all my PCs during my formative years were clones. Actually, this wasn't such a good example since I believe PC clones were legal. Let me change it to
380.
by the_af 6mo ago
Good comment! But this left me thinking: > Thus a fight to death may be chosen, because the bigger team has good chances to win the fight. So chimpanzees start wars for the same reason why Russia attacks Ukraine or USA attacks Iran, tho
381.
by the_af 6mo ago
> That's a weird thing to say. Studies of primitive tribes showed decades ago that they only seem to fight each other for a handful of reasons. Religion, ethnicity and political beliefs aren't among them. Fighting over resourc
382.
by the_af 6mo ago
I think the novelty here is that this was the same group which underwent a schism of sorts, and over the course of relatively few years became two completely separate groups antagonistic to each other. edit: I'm rate-limited, so here
383.
by the_af 6mo ago
> When competing for resources, killing your neighbour frees up resources, which you can take I don't think it's that straightforward. War is usually extremely wasteful for all involved, even the victor. Plus it puts the whol
384.
by the_af 6mo ago
I think some of the individuals who died were key in linking the two groups (they were "the glue" that prevented disruptive aggression), and after they were gone, the split cemented and later turned into aggression.
385.
by the_af 6mo ago
> To the extent that they have good memory, they live in a world of finite resources, and their behavior was shaped by the forces of game theory as applied to tribes, this is more or less inevitable. You can read that as defeatism or ju
386.
by the_af 6mo ago
I think the most insightful bit is buried in the article: > Perhaps because this is the best advertising money can’t buy. People like Harari and others repeat these accounts like ghost stories around a campfire. The public, awed and afr
387.
by the_af 6mo ago
Agreed. I was just pointing out it's not actually removed, and you can still read it (if you go out of your way to do so).
388.
by the_af 6mo ago
I have more than a passing interest in history and this is the first I heard of the Avignon Papacy, which I of course never heard of in middle school.
389.
by the_af 6mo ago
Flagged, not removed. Subtle difference, not saying it's huge, but you can still see their comments if you enable showdead in your settings.
390.
by the_af 6mo ago
Let me try again: You can be French and not like cheese. Wait, no, it doesn't work.

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