Ask HN: What has AI ruined for you? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What has AI ruined for you?

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AI has ruined my love of programming. AI is writing more code than ever and this takes the passion out of it. The algorithms that power sophisticated AI, perhaps the most important code out there, isn't written by humans or even understood by humans. And it's only a matter of a decade or two before nothing is written by humans, code or otherwise. People keep saying that the explosion of progress will just abruptly stop and the encroachments will stop but I can't agree with that no matter how hard I try because it has no basis in logic or fact. Every day I feel bitter about AI.

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> AI is writing more code than ever and this takes the passion out of it.

When you write code, you learn. When you write code, you grow. Your brain is doing things when you solve problems. Programming is not just the destination -- the product -- it's the journey.

I'm sure I can write something to solve my crossword puzzle in less than a second. But you know what, a completed crossword puzzle is pointless. It's the solving, not the product.

When you ask AI to write code, well, you learned you can press a button and get a thing.

> And it's only a matter of a decade or two before nothing is written by humans

We have mass-production and yet people still do their own woodwork, sometimes as a hobby, sometimes professionally.

we have mass production. if you could mass produce fine woodwork then people wouldnt do it professionaly. if you could mass produce clothing then there would be no sweatshops. cloth is really hard to manipulate apparently. i mean, the only things that humans do professionally are things that machines cant do. and all that matters is what people do professionally because thats what keeps us locked into the economic equation. when the task-space of humans is totally saturated by machines, 100%, thats like dividing by zero. everything will change and, in the long term, not for the better. and thats just the economic aspect of AGI.

It hasn’t ruined anything for me.

For now, AI is not good enough for me to use it (I only use Midjourney to generate illustrations)

The day it will be good enough I will just adapt and add it to my toolbox.

Problems will just become more complex.

I have no idea how we will be working but the universe is a vast topic, I don’t think we will all be sitting together, lamenting about how AI still everything.

You’ve convinced yourself that you can see twenty years in the future. That’s not something people can do. You’re just feeding your own anxiety and frustration.

Time to disconnect and take a break from your doom feed, maybe. Make some pies or pitch a tent or something.

in 2017, how confidently would you have predicted that machines would not stand any chance of doing what chatGTP or stable diffusion do now?

Huh? I just said people can’t see the future, right? If anything, you’re making the point for me.

In 2017, I was working on some stuff and traveling a bit. In 2023, I’m working on some stuff and traveling a bit. In 2028, we’ll see when we get there.

your position is illogical. we cant predict the future, therefore we shouldnt try to preempt anything. oh sorry, "worry" about anything. we should stop worrying about global warming according to you. we cant predict if global warming will happen so lets just see when we get there as you say. even if we cant predict the exact time and place of AGI's creation, or even whether or not it will be created, the plain and obvious fact is that there exists the potential for it to happen. the only logical way to respond to these circumstances would be to attempt ****attempt**** ------------------------> attempt <------------------------ to preempt the creation of AGI. did you notice i said attempt? it doesnt matter if it works, we should ATTEMPT to do it.

in 2017 you and many self-proclaimed experts as well as real experts confidently asserted that machines would never, in our lifetime, pass the turing test, generate photo-realistic images based on text prompts, write essays that get As, generally speak lucidly and articulately or whatever else AI is doing now. and now we see people making the same assertion but instead of all that, they are insisting that AGI wont be in our lifetime. its a stupid, silly assertion and without that assertion we are forced to react as i have explained. if we let it just explode in our face the consequences could be devastating. and you will start to react by saying theres no way to stop it and i will comment back saying that we have to try something even if the chance of success is small which it certainly is not at this point. what would you say after that?

When did we go from “being bitter” to needing to “preempt AGI”? I didn’t even say any the things you’re rambling about.

You’re spiraling. If things do need to be done, you’re not putting yourself in a good place to do contribute to that effort.

statistically, you did. or if not, you thought it. i spent many years watching this space and i very, very rarely saw someone who was correct about the next several years in 2017. even in 2018, when it was obvious that something might be up, a vanishingly small number of people realized it. so if you were in that 0.01% then thats great dude.

im spiraling? what does that even mean? what about answering my question? thats just gone now? people always resort to saying that i have mental health problems even though theres nothing in my internet comment that would indicate that. what do you even mean im not putting myself in a good place to do contribute to that effort? it would benefit the effort if i told everyone that AI is nothing to worry about?

yes im bitter. im bitter at having to deal with this stupid issue. i would much rather not have this problem looming overhead. i would even prefer to be blind to it. its very frustrating when people shortcut the whole thing and question my mental health rather than admit they are wrong. i already feel crazy having an opinion that most people disagree with. dont need those comments.

I haven’t even taken a position on the issue. I’ve just said that nobody can predict the future and that it seems like you’re very distressed.

glib

Nothing. It's made many articles and comments here more obviously skippable, and I've seen some generically ugly pictures that are generated. Otherwise, I've ignored it and nothing has changed.

I think this is a bit premature. AI is nowhere close to being able to replace an engineer in almost any role. If that isn't the case for you, take on more ambitious roles.

right but AI was nowhere near passing the turing test in 2017. or doing anything else that it does right now. do you have any proof behind what youre saying? not even hard proof but some kind of axiom or even just some chain of logic. dont point out the limitations of the current systems but actually explain how progress toward AGI is being blocked.

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