[nixpulvis]

I'm so frustrated by both the zealous AI bulls and the blind AI opposition.

There's a lot of issues, ranging over technical, cultural, environmental, and moral problems. But there's also obvious value. To say otherwise tells me you haven't actually tried to make use of these tools.

It's one thing to get an AI google response and feel like it's dubious, it's another thing to know what you want and have an LLM find the APIs for a framework you're not familiar with yet and put the pieces together. The only way I use AI for programming still involves a large amount of rejecting the responses and a massive amount of reading and validating.

Am I able to write things faster with LLMs, yes. Am I missing out on the work involved in learning things I would be forced to otherwise, also yes. Are coworkers pushing stuff they don't understand more, surely.

It's a mixed bag, and we need more balanced takes in the discussion around this.

[Ethee]

Nuance has been completely lost on our society. If it doesn't spark immediate outrage or joy it has no place in our attention economy. I really wish this wasn't the case and I'm not sure how we can reverse it. Most people just aren't interested in the 'balanced takes' because it's just not exciting enough it seems sadly.

[nixpulvis]

I recently learned the term "thought-terminating cliché" and it's so incredibly prevalent in society these days. Always has been I'm sure, but short form text based anonymous communication must be making it worse.

[mpalmer]

It's a useful term but humorously risks becoming auto-exemplary.

[nixpulvis]

Haha, yes 100% I've had the same thought.

[noman-land]

It is what it is.

[arcanemachiner]

And that's just the way things are.

[gamblor956]

But there's also obvious value. To say otherwise tells me you haven't actually tried to make use of these tools.

The issue is not that AIs are useless. It's that they are objectively worse at the job (except apparently programming[1]), than a cheaper, entry-level worker on their first week still learning how to do the job, even though nearly a trillion dollars has been spent on them by this point. The worker gets substantially better over time, and slightly more expensive. LLM models get slightly better over time, but substantially more expensive.

[1] The output of even the latest models would have gotten a junior programmer PIP'd back when I was still programming many years ago. That is now considered to be above average code quality is a disheartening referendum on how bad programming standards have fallen since then.

[torben-friis]

It is good to remember that the discourse is not fully real.

There are fake accounts pushing AI everywhere, and people burned out by the marketing that react positioning too aggressively in the opposite direction (particularly when it's their boss who bought into the marketing and makes unreasonable demands).

[BrenBarn]

I think it's possible to acknowledge that the technology has value while still being pretty much entirely opposed to AI as it exists and is being used today. It's sort of like believing we should have a police force while also believing that pretty much every existing police force should be disbanded and reconstituted from scratch (which also generated polarizing responses), or believing you need a government while also believing that all people currently in office are crooks. It's true there might be a version of something like AI that would be a net good, but I think that's quite far from what we actually have.

[watwut]

> Am I able to write things faster with LLMs, yes.

LLM is great at identifying useless writing - if you have llm writing it, it should not exist.

[skywhopper]

There’s “obvious value” in lots of things that aren’t forced on us and that aren’t pretended to be something everyone is required to learn and use before sticking to their existing toolset or their preferred methods for getting things done.

Morality wise, it might have “obvious value” to poison my competitors and steal from my business partners, employees, and customers. That doesn’t mean I am obligated to “try to make use of these tools.”

[lapcat]

> There's a lot of issues, ranging over technical, cultural, environmental, and moral problems. But there's also obvious value. To say otherwise tells me you haven't actually tried to make use of these tools.

Why would you try to make use of these tools when there are obvious environmental and moral problems with them? What do you tell yourself about those problems, and how do you get past them?

[nixpulvis]

I think it's worth understanding the technology so we can have informed strategies for how to best regulate it.

We don't solve the climate crisis by abandoning all the technological progress which has put such a strain on our ecosystem, we solve it by rethinking how we use this technology, and finding new technologies and policies to better meet our needs.

[lapcat]

> I think it's worth understanding the technology so we can have informed strategies for how to best regulate it.

There's a significant difference between understanding a technology and using a technology. We can understand how a technology is made without totally changing our workflows to rely on it essentially.

How many cities do we have to blow up to understand nuclear weapons? That's a serious question, because atomic bombs were dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

> We don't solve the climate crisis by abandoning all the technological progress which has put such a strain on our ecosystem, we solve it by rethinking how we use this technology

I don't think that's true. Shouldn't we abandon fossil fuels? Switch to cleaner energy, solar, wind, geothermal, electric cars, etc.?

[nixpulvis]

If a thinking machine can find new mathematical proofs we haven't thought of yet, it might also find new medicines and other things that really do make it worth finding a way to live with. If I can ask the thinking machine to find bugs in my code and it does, that seems nice to have.

The analysis that I want is on a studied cost/value basis somehow. I'd start by trying to force tech companies to sell products at cost sooner, so it's not driving markets before it can truly be absorbed. I'd also ask for energy/resource consumers to be forced to buy climate credits which are used to help offset the impacts and fund research and development for sustainable technology.

[jcgrillo]

> The analysis that I want is on a studied cost/value basis somehow.

Absolutely. The AI ROI question is the entire ballgame. Earlier today I heard the term "jagged technology" for the first time, and it's an extremely good one. Given how jagged AI appears to be, anecdotal reports are all over the place. It also doesn't help that it appears heavily using this technology can affect people psychologically. The information environment for someone who wants to know what this tool is good for and what it isn't is.. treacherous. Some clear, objective grounding would really help.

[lapcat]

Humans can already find new medicines and bugs in code. We didn't need AI to find the Covid vaccines, for example.

> The analysis that I want is on a studied cost/value basis somehow.

If something is immoral, do the ends justify the means? I would reiterate that you originally mentioned moral problems.

> I'd start by trying to force tech companies to sell products at cost sooner, so it's not driving markets before it can truly be absorbed.

That sounds an awful lot like abolishing capitalism. Which might actually help with the climate crisis, regardless of AI.

> climate credits

These always seemed like BS to me, a way for wealthy corporations to buy their way out of doing anything.

[asp_hornet]

No OP but I can tell you exactly where I find my peace:

4 dependents, a cost of living that keeps rocketing and an industry that’s decided “the people who don’t glaze this shit don’t get to continue”.

Maybe Ive sold out but what’s the alternative, I’m 17 years in, I can’t figure how I pivot my expertise and still support the family’s demands.

[thatfunkymunki]

I've heard it being described as an iterated prisoner's dilemma and very many people are very publicly defecting.

[lapcat]

Fair enough. I have no criticism for people whose employers are forcing it on employees. I blame the employers there.

But the OP didn't sound like one of the reluctant.

[antonvs]

> To say otherwise tells me you haven't actually tried to make use of these tools.

There's also a lot of ideological opposition, which often tries to claim that the tech is useless etc.

> Am I missing out on the work involved in learning things I would be forced to otherwise, also yes.

Yes, but many of those things are things you might not really care about learning about. And if you want to learn about them, AI can be a big help, if you use it appropriately.

The "mixed bag" comes from the way people use it, mostly not from the tech itself.

[asadotzler]

>It's one thing to get an AI google response and feel like it's dubious, it's another thing to know what you want and have an LLM find the APIs for a framework you're not familiar with

What I'm hearing is that the 0.00001% use case is great while the 99.9999% use case is shit--and we're supposed to think that's reasonable.

Feeding nonsense to pretty much the entire population is just fine with tech bros because a few programmers have an easier time cranking out some code to more effectively sell ads?

That's not a mixed bag, friend. That's a bag of horse shit with one M&M at the bottom.

[nixpulvis]

Google was never immune to spitting out junk BTW.

Like I said, if you can't see the value in AI, I'd hedge a bet you haven't tried. Even a brief conversation with google's can help identify a gap in your understanding of many topics.

How we balance the positives with the negatives is the hard part I want to hear thoughtful and studied opinions on.

[BoredPositron]

No, we can't all be friends. Never happened, never will be.