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by rf15 17 days ago
> instant gratification

I'm with you. I don't understand why it affects some people more than others. To me, using AI triggered my sense for drugs and addiction after a while: when your first association for an engineering product is "it feels _great_!" then run, it's just cocaine with extra components.

A tool should not make you feel good, just accomplish the task.
2 comments
MrGilbert 17 days ago
ADHD might be in play, and I think it‘s undiagnosed by more people than we assume. And it‘s fine, because as long as you can deal with it, it‘s not an issue. I can imagine that the addiction to LLM hits the same areas as addiction to, say, gambling, binge eating or shopping. I wrote a small thing about it here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081469

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pmarreck 12 days ago
So is ADHD also to blame for "being addicted" to driving instead of walking?

What about using a sewing machine instead of hand-sewing?

Washing machines instead of hand-washing? (Some people still swear by air-drying instead of using a dryer, but there aren't that many "hand-washing is just better" holdouts, even if it might be true!)

Note that in all of these cases, you ALWAYS grin when you first use the more automated thing after having done the manual thing, and you ALWAYS lose something by going the faster/less-laborious route. If people are simply hyperfocusing on what is lost when you lean on LLM for coding, then they're simply going to miss the train (yet another invention that superseded walking and horseback-riding, with its own set of tradeoffs!)

We all know a walk is good on its own terms even if a car is faster, but if your goal is to get from point A to B in less than a certain amount of time, sometimes only a car will do. Hand-washing probably is less wear-and-tear on the clothes and lets you focus on dirty spots. Air-drying leads to fresher-smelling clothes that don't shrink. And hand-coding leads to a more curated solution than an LLM ever could... All of these at a comparatively extreme extra time or labor cost.

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MrGilbert 10 days ago
I was giving OP an answer to their question, as to why the "instant gratification" loop from AI is triggered by some people more than others. It's not about the grin, it's about the "not being in control, and not being able to stop". And if it's only the grin - yeah, hyperfocus is also something that neurodiverse brains have. Not sure what triggered your reply specifically, but I think it is worth stating that there is nothing bad about it, as long as it doesn't become an issue. Different brains work differently. It's just a fact we should accept.
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pmarreck 12 days ago
on "a tool should not make you feel good"

I never thought I'd actually see an anti-joy argument being used in all seriousness, but welcome to 2026!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48413983

Thoughts on that, then?

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