[48terry]

The simple explanation for all this, along with the milquetoast replies kasey_junk gave you, is that to its acolytes, AI and LLMs cannot fail, only be failed.

If it doesn't seem to work very well, it's because you're obviously prompting it wrong.

If it doesn't boost your productivity, either you're the problem yourself, or, again, you're obviously using it wrong.

If progress in LLMs seems to be stagnating, you're obviously not part of the use cases where progress is booming.

When you have presupposed that LLMs and this particular AI boom is definitely the future, all comments to the contrary are by definition incorrect. If you treat it as a given that this AI boom will succeed (by some vague metric of "success") and conquer the world, skepticism is basically a moral failing and anti-progress.

The exciting part about this belief system is how little you actually have to point to hard numbers and, indeed, rely on faith. You can just entirely vibe it. It FEELS better and more powerful to you, your spins on the LLM slot machine FEEL smarter and more usable, it FEELS like you're getting more done. It doesn't matter if those things are actually true over the long run, it's about the feels. If someone isn't sharing your vibes about the LLM slot machine, that's entirely their fault and problem.

[mwigdahl]

And on the other side, to detractors, AI and LLMs cannot ever succeed. There's always another goalpost to shift.

If it seems to work well, it's because it's copying training data. Or it sometimes gets something wrong, so it's unreliable.

If they say it boosts their productivity, they're obviously deluded as to where they're _really_ spending time, or what they were doing was trivial.

If they point to improvements in benchmarks, it's because model vendors are training to the tests, or the benchmarks don't really measure real-world performance.

If the improvements are in complex operations where there aren't benchmarks, their reports are too vague and anecdotal.

The exciting part about this belief system is how little you have to investigate the actual products, and indeed, you can simply rely on a small set of canned responses. You can just entirely dismiss reports of success and progress; that's completely due to the reporter's incompetence and self-delusion.

[wkat4242]

I work in a company that's "all in on AI" and there's so much BS being blown up just because they can't have it fail because all the top dogs will have mud on their faces. They're literally just faking it. Just making up numbers, using biased surveys, making sure employees know it's being "appreciated" if they choose option A "Yes AI makes me so much more productive" etc.

This is definitely something that biases me against AI, sure. Seeing how the sausage is made doesn't help. Because it's really a lot of offal right now especially where I work.

I'm a very anti-corporate non-teamplayer kinda person so I tend to be highly critical, I'll never just go along with PR if it's actually false. I won't support my 'team' if it's just wrong. Which often rubs people the wrong way at work. Like when I emphasised in a training that AI results must be double checked. Or when I answered in an "anonymous" survey that I'd rather have a free lunch than "copilot" and rated it a 2 out of 5 in terms of added value (I mean, at the time it didn't even work in some apps)

But I'm kinda done with soul-killing corporatism anyway. Just waiting for some good redundancy packages when the AI bubble collapses :)

[hadlock]

> If they say it boosts their productivity, they're obviously deluded as to where they're _really_ spending time, or what they were doing was trivial.

A pretty substantial number of developers are doing trivial edits to business applications all over the globe, pretty much continuously. At least in the low to mid double digits %

[bangaroo]

wouldn't call myself a detractor. i wouldn't call it a belief system i hold (i am an engineer 20 years into my career and would love to automate away the tedious parts of my job i've done a thousand times) as it is a position i hold based on the evidence i've seen in front of me.

i constantly hear that companies are running with "50% of their code written by AI!" but i've yet to meet an engineer who says they've personally seen this. i've met a few who say they see it through internal reporting, though it's not the case on their team. this is me personally! i'm not saying these people don't exist. i've heard it much more from senior leadership types i've met in the field - directors, vps, c-suite, so on.

i constantly hear that AI can do x, y, or z, but no matter how many people i talk to or how much i or my team works towards those goals, it doesn't really materialize. i can accept that i may be too stupid (though i'd argue that if that's the problem, the AI isn't as good as claimed) but i work with some brilliant people and if they can't see results, that means something to me.

i see people deploying the tool at my workplace, and recently had to deal with a situation where leadership was wondering why one of our top performers had slowed down substantially and gotten worse, only to find that the timeline exactly aligned with them switching to cursor as their IDE.

i read papers - lots of papers - and articles about both positive and negative assertions about LLMs and their applicability in the field. i don't feel like i've seen compelling evidence in research not done by the foundation model companies that supports the theory this is working well. i've seen lots of very valid and concerning discoveries reported by the foundation model companies, themselves!

there are many places in the world i am a hardliner on no generative AI and i'll be open about that - i don't want it in entertainment, certainly not in music, and god help me if i pick up the phone and call a company and an agent picks up.

for my job? i'm very open to it. i know the value i provide above what the technology could theoretically provide, i've written enough boilerplate and the same algorithms and approaches for years to prove to myself i can do it. if i can be as productive with less work, or more productive with the same work? bring it on. i am not worried about it taking my job. i would love it to fulfill its promise.

i will say, however, that it is starting to feel telling that when i lay out any sort of reasoned thought on the issue that (hopefully) exposes my assumptions, biases, and experiences, i largely get vague, vibes-based answers, unsourced statistics, and responses that heavily carry the implication that i'm unwilling to be convinced or being dogmatic. i very rarely get thoughtful responses, or actual engagement with the issues, concerns, or patterns i write about. oftentimes refutations of my concerns or issues with the tech are framed as an attack on my willingness to use or accept it, rather than a discussion of the technology on its merits.

while that isn't everything, i think it says something about the current state of discussion around the technology.

[48terry]

You really thought you had a post with this one huh. I have second-hand embarrassment for you.