Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by CTDOCodebases 26 days ago
The cognitive dissonance around this is astounding.

First of all define productive. Would someone using AI to build software at a startup which is likely to fail be considered productive? What if there is already similar software available that solves the same problems? What about the broad use of LLMs to draft emails or make silly memes?

It’s funny how everyone’s concerns around climate change just disappeared when they realised AI was useful to them.

1 comments

I think it's worth noting that the "work" these LLMs are doing is digital. ChatGPT cannot plow fields, or construct buildings and roads, or otherwise interact with the physical world. LLMs are useful because humanity has evolved (devolved?) into so much intangible work- documents, code, powerpoint presentations... One solar flare and that's all wiped out, and then we can say definitively that LLMs were a waste of time and energy.