Hacker News Reader

Comment by 000ooo000 | Hacker News Reader

Probably worth a disclaimer, somewhere:

"I'm the author of Python Crash Course, which is published by No Starch Press: https://nostarch.com/pythoncrashcourse2e" - author and OP

View on HN

I actually thought this might have been written by ChatGPT.

Part of the answer is that "you should learn to code beyond basic syntax, so that you can be better than the computer".

What it doesn't mention is that the state of AI is also going to continue improving, so you're possibly entering an arms race.

It could be sad if one day AI can do anything. One of those cliche "what's the point". No joy anymore in building.

I play chess and like it, even though the computer in my pocket can win every human player.

If you said "hey I'm bored let's add more squares. Let's move some pieces around or maybe change their movement rules" or "let's play checkers instead" then a human could adapt to this situation pretty easily. A reinforcement learning model like AlphaZero would be like "Whoa whoa whoa not so fast. Let's fire up the GPU cluster." Maybe one day we won't need GPU clusters. But ultimately we're the ones who create all of these tools and decide how to use them.

Why do you treat humans so very different from AlphaZero here? Alphazero could badly play other games quickly, just like humans can. AlphaZero is just able to improve beyond what any human can ever achieve for a lot of types of games.

You don’t always need to have a point for your artistic activities or your hobbies. For example , people still use oil paint while photography exists, people learn piano when a computer does it better.

But professionally, we may have to find new activities.

> people still use oil paint while photography exists

It's not at all the same medium. Unless you consider that the whole point of oil painting is to imitate realistic pictures...

OK, people attempt photorealistic art when of course, the best they can hope for is to look as realistic as a photograph would.

As someone else mentioned, people play chess for fun. People do things that they will never be as good at as computers.

I don't buy this idea that people need to be the "best" at something to enjoy it. Living that way dooms you to always being unhappy

People could retreat to the physical world where AI is useless.

That being said, people still do things they're outclassed at. We still have blacksmiths.

I honestly think a lot of people in their twenties already do this. They’re not making much money but seem to be making enough to just have fun and pursue other things.

My brother has figured he can make a great living out of gardening for people. Yes robots will probably do this one day, but will they to the same level ? Really who knows anymore?

I’m actually sure a lot of the more wealthy people he works for kind of also just like him and his company too. He’s a youthful fun guy with a lot of creative ideas.

The silicone value push for eternal life via the singularity and trips to Mars seems to be mostly fuelled by cults and the need to keep shareholder happy / profits coming in.

I don’t know if anyone else cares that much, including the bots themselves. Time will tell.

Transformer models work on data. Text, images, and motor control can all be fed into the pit.

I'm the author of the post. I didn't feel any need to add a disclaimer, because if my book faded to insignificance tomorrow I'd still argue the same points.

It's really clear how useful these tools are to many experienced programmers, but I have no idea what impact they'll have on people who are new to programming. Most of the write-ups I've seen so far have been from people who already know how to code. I think it will be some time yet before we really see how effectively people who know nothing about programming are able to use these tools for learning.

> I'm the author of the post. I didn't feel any need to add a disclaimer, because if my book faded to insignificance tomorrow I'd still argue the same points.

You need the disclaimer. The reason why is because no one can read your intentions, they can only guess your intention from your actions.

By waiting until a 3rd party disclosed this information a little bit of trust was automatically lost.

This is not how a conflict of interest works.

> I didn't feel any need to add a disclaimer, because if my book faded to insignificance tomorrow I'd still argue the same points.

I believe you, but this really isn't how maintaining credibility with a conflict of interest works.

You also don't have to add a "disclaimer". Just mention anywhere that you wrote a book on programming. You can say it abstractly like that if you don't want it to be an ad. Considering how much this experience informs your argument, it should be pretty easy to work in.

And thank you for your book. I've recommended it to many people.

I was really surprised by people's reactions about the need for a disclaimer, and didn't know what to make of it for a while. I also watched the votes on my comment here go up and down quickly, indicating that some people thought a disclaimer was warranted, and some thought there was no need.

I ended up doing a lot of reflecting about the comments people made. I think I've gotten used to writing for an audience that already knows that I'm the author of PCC, and I start to assume that anyone else will see that quickly as well. Do I really need to add a disclaimer any time I write about the process of learning to code, or its ongoing relevance? I'm not asking anyone to respond to that, especially on an old post, but that's the question that I kept coming back to for a while.

I realize that a post like this, shared with a larger audience, at this point in time, warrants a disclaimer. I've been a member of HN for over ten years, and I value my reputation here. I'm sorry if I misled anyone as they went into reading this post. I didn't add a disclaimer right away because I've made a habit of not responding too quickly to feedback on the internet when I'm not sure exactly how to respond.

I ended up adding a disclaimer, but that was well after this had dropped off the front page. I didn't put off adding a disclaimer to mislead anyone, it just took a while to think through all this. I will be more careful about which posts need to include a disclaimer from this point forward.

I know few people will see this, but if anyone sees the surrounding comments after the disclaimer is there I'd like them to see this context. Thank you all for the critical feedback. As uncomfortable as it is sometimes, it's part of what I've always appreciated about HN.

The Substack is called “mostly Python”. I assumed the author is a programming educator or enthusiast of some sort.

I wish HN had pinned comments to save others time

Reply on news.ycombinator.com