I spent multiple 5-hour sessions spec-ing my climbing app with AI, clarifying interactions, algorithm, workflow etc. It ended up a frankenstein that I didn't recognise or know how each part interact with each other. Command line were a mess, different commands doing the same thing, with similar but redundant arguments. Everything looks kind of doing what I intended but overly convoluted and nothing really works. Real progress was made when I actually dig into the documentation of colmap/OpenMVS (essential tools, which I had never used before, in my workflow).
The AI gave me unprecedented turn around time in experimentation. The same experiments would easily take me over a month in the past. Now it was a few days. But still, real progress is made only when my understanding catch up with reality.
It sounds great for prototyping. Once you do a month's experimentation in a day and generate some shit app that barely works, but looks functional, you have a definite goal to recreate that design but working properly.
> And I think that’s the biggest danger of AI. You convince yourself that you are doing something useful when you are not.
Building technology to overcome relatable hardships and frictions is a worthy challenge full of meaning.
Using someone else's technology to erase frictions and hardships from your life can erode meaning.
On my worst days I am convinced programming and technological optimism is a theft of meaning; personal satisfaction at solving a human problem awkwardly mapped to technology, at the expense of users dating, socializing, or consuming with discomfort and therefore the possibility of growth and meaning.
I agree with your overall sentiment, although maybe the article and this sentiment more generally are going a little bit overboard with the skepticism/negativity.
It is a little alarming the way people treat AI as another human relationship, yes.
But AI is also a pretty useful research partner and rubber duck for ideas so long as you know going into it that it’s going to have a bias toward agreeing with you.
This situation reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes comics that mock the idea of Calvin’s dad’s idea of building character.
For example, I was debating ECC memory and cheap used business workstation hardware for a homelab recently with an AI. It helped me pick a system out of some eBay listings and verified whether the model and Xeon processor SKU supported ECC.
When I went to buy the RAM, it actually caught a mistake where I thought a listing was for UDIMM when it was actually RDIMM.
It’s not going to build my character or build my growth and meaning to buy the wrong thing from an online store.
Mistakes without a significant lesson or takeaway aren’t a useful avenue for growth.
I think it’s possible that this concept that AI is an easy shortcut is a form of gatekeeping.
We had the same reactions to StackOverflow and web search when those technologies came around. And there’s certainly partial truth to it. Maybe reading a full book really does make you more well-rounded than googling your answer, but sometimes blowing a lot of time searching an index in a physical book hoping to find the piece of knowledge you need is just spending time for sake of spending time.
It’s a nice quote.
But what about the notion that we’re always believing in something, and sometimes those beliefs tune closer to something objective but if we keep tuning past that into something else, then that reality becomes hard to conceive of and really does seem like it’s gone away.
You can't become a pro footballer just by wishing your leg wasn't broken, but you can pay close attention to the difference between pain and suffering, and acknowledge the pain without accepting any unnecessary suffering.
Pain is part of reality. Suffering comes from wishing reality was different to how it is.
There isn't an exact quote from Douglas Adams, you have to read it all, but he put the point marvelously: reality is scary, unlimited and lovecraftesque, and we have filters to avoid that. Only when you master those filters you can consider yourself conscious.
And something I wish the current crop of AI startups learn as well, just making XYZ agentic maybe isn't the answer to everything.
Same folks that said crypto will destroy traditional finance are now saying stuff like, AI will "destroy" all jobs and create a permanent underclass. Almost feels like every few years a new cult gets created with messaging perfectly designed to trigger the Gen-Z(/current college generation) into a frenzy and drinking the kool-aid.
Can't wait for it to be over (and then to do it all over again with something else). Being in my 30s helps. I care less :)
Yeah. In the 90's it was outsourcing is going to move all software jobs to India. Turns out that did happen, but also not. Still, manufacturing jobs have actually left the USA.
I think there is something parasitic in both legacy media and actually even worse in new media - where it finds the most toxic, negative idea that can latch on to the minds of the masses and runs away with it.
Maybe "things going bad suddenly in the near future" is just such a captivating idea to the human mind that those narratives will always find a way to dominate vs "everything will continue to slowly get better".
Maybe things are going bad suddenly in the near future. For instance, the projected weather cycle later this year is four times as powerful as a Super El Niño. The US is one week away from running out of gasoline (was 4 weeks away, 3 weeks ago). Are these not things that should be reported?
I don’t think it’s about what should or shouldn’t be reported. It’s about your relationship to those things. If you wake up on July 21 and there are no headlines saying “The US has run out of gasoline, no driving!”, will you breathe a sigh of relief and be happy things weren’t that bad after all? Or will you browse the headlines for other scary things that might happen in the near future?
> I think in the AI era, the only delta left will be in relentlessly chasing the truth.
I agree. Unfortunately the AIs of this era relentlessly chase zeitgeist instead. That is they mostly try to generate output that will be a caress. To get the cold cocks we really need may require AI based on world models. But I assume that when we get there it will be just as socially and politically unpalatable as it always has been, and the world models will become deeply regulated to revert to the party line.
I have found that it gets some of the "cruft" out of the work, freeing me to do more work.
Since starting to use LLMs, I have actually been spending more time, at the console, than before.
One reason is that I like to ship (as opposed to "code"). That means a lot of tedious, boring stuff. The kind of thing that I want to "take a break before tackling," so I may take 30 minutes, and watch something on TV for a while, before rolling up my sleeves.
Now, the LLM can take care of a lot of this stuff, so I am not motivated to "take a break," so much, anymore.
It doesn't actually feel bad, but I now have to schedule "downtime." I never used to have to do that, before. My work always involved a lot of "context switch" points; naturally set up for taking breaks.
Yeah I have found that AI in general has a procrastination nullifying effect.
Before dealing with anything that might put me off. I can just ask the agent to do it for me. And then, do something else, take that break, but regardless in a few minutes I will have something to jump on instead of the same blank terminal with the same blinking cursor judging me. It really makes taking the first step, much easier and then the ball just gets rolling.
I see what his point is to be honest though, it's easy to say just one more week of polish, just 5 more features, etc.
Such a great synopsis. The things that are easy to signal (landing page, presentation deck, logo, etc) have never been the make-or-break aspect. The part that's always been hard, that remains hard, is that a business must solve a problem for people. Even B2B is solving business problems for specific people. And people are a difficult, difficult problem to solve.
My previous business failed. Everything we built was useless. 2.5 yrs.
My current business is profitable. Almost everything we built was still useless. Since 4 yrs ago.
The amount of effort that went into that "almost" Is something that I don't think AI moved any needle for even though half of our journey was after AI coding took off.
Speed of coding was never the problem, still isn't even if AI allegedly 10x-ed it.
"Being honest with themselves about whether what they are doing is actually working or not" and "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you" are opposites.
> "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you"
If you're doing something that isn't like how people are used to things being done, is novel, or is contra to common beliefs, there's a good chance that nobody will believe in you. And in such situations, their lack of belief is not a reliable indicator of whether what you're doing is valid or correct. Most people's negative responses in such cases are emotional responses, not rational ones.
In such situations, "Being honest with themselves about whether what they are doing is actually working or not" and "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you" are not opposites.
Not if you're perfectly able to differentiate which things will eventually succeed rather than will always fail! The best strategy for "winning in the age of AI" is "be able to predict the future with perfect accuracy", which at least anecdotally quite a lot of people lately seem to think they are able to do lately.
Probably not so different from past hype cycles, except maybe this time it will be different!
Nobody. We're just here. Mentally healthy human adults have ways to avoid thinking about the terrifying reality of infinite potential being restricted by a finite lifespan of decay, but not everyone is mentally healthy all the time.
The AI gave me unprecedented turn around time in experimentation. The same experiments would easily take me over a month in the past. Now it was a few days. But still, real progress is made only when my understanding catch up with reality.
Building technology to overcome relatable hardships and frictions is a worthy challenge full of meaning.
Using someone else's technology to erase frictions and hardships from your life can erode meaning.
On my worst days I am convinced programming and technological optimism is a theft of meaning; personal satisfaction at solving a human problem awkwardly mapped to technology, at the expense of users dating, socializing, or consuming with discomfort and therefore the possibility of growth and meaning.
It is a little alarming the way people treat AI as another human relationship, yes.
But AI is also a pretty useful research partner and rubber duck for ideas so long as you know going into it that it’s going to have a bias toward agreeing with you.
This situation reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes comics that mock the idea of Calvin’s dad’s idea of building character.
For example, I was debating ECC memory and cheap used business workstation hardware for a homelab recently with an AI. It helped me pick a system out of some eBay listings and verified whether the model and Xeon processor SKU supported ECC.
When I went to buy the RAM, it actually caught a mistake where I thought a listing was for UDIMM when it was actually RDIMM.
It’s not going to build my character or build my growth and meaning to buy the wrong thing from an online store.
dealing with the consequences of my mistakes sounds like growth to me
I think it’s possible that this concept that AI is an easy shortcut is a form of gatekeeping.
We had the same reactions to StackOverflow and web search when those technologies came around. And there’s certainly partial truth to it. Maybe reading a full book really does make you more well-rounded than googling your answer, but sometimes blowing a lot of time searching an index in a physical book hoping to find the piece of knowledge you need is just spending time for sake of spending time.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
As much as you would have aspirations to be a pro soccer player, badly enough broken leg can prevent you from ever being good enough.
Your imagination of being pro player does go away when in reality you’re not fit for the purpose.
Pain is part of reality. Suffering comes from wishing reality was different to how it is.
And something I wish the current crop of AI startups learn as well, just making XYZ agentic maybe isn't the answer to everything.
Same folks that said crypto will destroy traditional finance are now saying stuff like, AI will "destroy" all jobs and create a permanent underclass. Almost feels like every few years a new cult gets created with messaging perfectly designed to trigger the Gen-Z(/current college generation) into a frenzy and drinking the kool-aid.
Can't wait for it to be over (and then to do it all over again with something else). Being in my 30s helps. I care less :)
Maybe "things going bad suddenly in the near future" is just such a captivating idea to the human mind that those narratives will always find a way to dominate vs "everything will continue to slowly get better".
I agree. Unfortunately the AIs of this era relentlessly chase zeitgeist instead. That is they mostly try to generate output that will be a caress. To get the cold cocks we really need may require AI based on world models. But I assume that when we get there it will be just as socially and politically unpalatable as it always has been, and the world models will become deeply regulated to revert to the party line.
Since starting to use LLMs, I have actually been spending more time, at the console, than before.
One reason is that I like to ship (as opposed to "code"). That means a lot of tedious, boring stuff. The kind of thing that I want to "take a break before tackling," so I may take 30 minutes, and watch something on TV for a while, before rolling up my sleeves.
Now, the LLM can take care of a lot of this stuff, so I am not motivated to "take a break," so much, anymore.
It doesn't actually feel bad, but I now have to schedule "downtime." I never used to have to do that, before. My work always involved a lot of "context switch" points; naturally set up for taking breaks.
Before dealing with anything that might put me off. I can just ask the agent to do it for me. And then, do something else, take that break, but regardless in a few minutes I will have something to jump on instead of the same blank terminal with the same blinking cursor judging me. It really makes taking the first step, much easier and then the ball just gets rolling.
I see what his point is to be honest though, it's easy to say just one more week of polish, just 5 more features, etc.
My current business is profitable. Almost everything we built was still useless. Since 4 yrs ago.
The amount of effort that went into that "almost" Is something that I don't think AI moved any needle for even though half of our journey was after AI coding took off.
Speed of coding was never the problem, still isn't even if AI allegedly 10x-ed it.
If you're doing something that isn't like how people are used to things being done, is novel, or is contra to common beliefs, there's a good chance that nobody will believe in you. And in such situations, their lack of belief is not a reliable indicator of whether what you're doing is valid or correct. Most people's negative responses in such cases are emotional responses, not rational ones.
In such situations, "Being honest with themselves about whether what they are doing is actually working or not" and "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you" are not opposites.
The first is getting market feedback.
The second is just getting opinions.
It does require you to think carefully about what constitutes validation or invalidation of your ideas, though.
Probably not so different from past hype cycles, except maybe this time it will be different!
Who is responsible for this mess? ;)