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Comment by rileymichael | Hacker News Reader

did all of the devs leave?

https://www.businessinsider.com/github-ceo-developers-embrac...

> Instead of selling products based on helpful features and letting users decide, executives often deploy scare tactics that essentially warn people they will become obsolete if they don't get on the AI bandwagon. For instance, Julia Liuson, another executive at Microsoft, which owns GitHub, recently warned employees that "using AI is no longer optional."

So many clowns. It's like everyone's reading from the same script/playbook. Nothing says "this tool is useful" quite like forcing people to use it.

It definitely feels like the imbecility of the corporate class has reached new levels.

AI is not for developers only!

AI is not for developers, it is for people that do not want to learn how to be developers but want to be paid like them.

> It's like everyone's reading from the same script/playbook.

I'd assume that many CEO are driven by the same urge to please the board. And depending on your board, there might be people on it who spend many hours per week on LinkedIn, and see all the success stories around AI, maybe experienced something first hand.

Good news: It's, from my estimate, only a phase. Like when blockchain hit, and everyone wanted to be involved. This time - and that worries me - the ressources involved are more expensive, though. There might be a stronger incentive for people to "get their money back". I haven't thought about the implications yet.

It's not like blockchain. Blockchain legitimately made things slower and less useful for dubious benefits.

AI is more like the early web. There is definite value that people can see, but no one really knows how to monetize beyond the incredibly obvious 'sell people access to it', so everyone is throwing spaghetti at the wall waiting for it to stick. When someone gets it to stick, there will be a giant amount of money coming at them, but until then there will be a ton of people with sauce all over their faces looking like idiots.

Upvoted to save you from the negatives because I too am tired of seeing the comparison to blockchain. I'm not sure where it even comes from other than just being another recent hype train people remember, but blockchain settled into a relatively tiny niche. The most basic deployment of LLMs / AI by comparison is instantly, obviously more useful than that.

As soon as it starts returning to me factual, confirm-able answers consistently. Then I'll use it. I just had to fix something a co-worker fucked up by asking ai how to do it. The responses are so confidently wrong it's like watching Kash Patel tell me that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.

> As soon as it starts returning to me factual, confirm-able answers consistently. Then I'll use it.

Humans don't behave this way. Yet, we still employ humans. AI is unreliable. We all agree. But that does not make it useless.

Ok, how about: Once AI is less overconfident than a median teammate, it may be worth something. It's not there yet.

I agree. Overconfidence and sycophancy is the real problem. This should be the focus of development energy. The models are already capable; now they need to be reliable.

That's why we introduced computers. If they aren't reliable anymore we can stop using them.

People say this a lot, please the board. But why would so many boards be hype-driven and CEO's be rational? It might just as well be the C-suite themselves who are the source of it.

The CEOs and execs also seem to be feeding and sustaining the hype themselves:

CEO1: "This technology is the biggest technical leap in my lifetime!"

CEO2: "Oh yea? Well, this technology is more useful than electricity!"

CEO3: "Oh yea?? This technology is more impactful than the invention of fire!"

VP1: "This technology is going to really help improve productivity!"

VP2: "Come on! This technology is going to let one person do the work of 100!"

VP3: "Surely you jest! Without using this technology, you might as well not even try to earn a living!"

People are biased to using tools they are familiar with. The idea that if a tool was useful people would use it simply false. In order to avoid being disrupted, extra effort needs to be made to get people to learn new tools.

You're presupposing utility.

A few people will use said new tool. If they start writing software that is sustainably better for half the cost, eventually others will take notice. Early adopter sort of thing. Switching takes energy, yes, so many will be resistant. But when you find yourself the last person doing things the old way and it's taking more time and effort... It might be time to spend the effort and get with the times.

Not necessarily saying this AI is worth switching to yet. It could fizzle out, we'll see. But I'm saying if it's truly worth it's salt, it'll take off because it's good, rather than die despite being good.

Things that this aren't true for are things that are only marginally better. if A is 5% better but B is 95% more popular.. A might yet die because it's not worth switching to. AI is claiming a lot more than 5% gains though

From the CEO's article referenced in that post [1]:

> the rise of AI in software development signals the need for computer science education to be reinvented as well.

> Teaching in a way that evaluates rote syntax or memorization of APIs is becoming obsolete

He thinks computer science is about memorizing syntax and APIs. No wonder he's telling developers to embrace AI or quit their careers if he believes the entire field is that shallow. Not the best person to take advice from.

It's also hilarious how he downplays fundamental flaws of LLMs as something AI zealots, the truly smart people, can overcome by producing so much AI slop that they turn from skeptics into ...drumroll... AI strategists. lol

[1]: https://ashtom.github.io/developers-reinvented

Reminder that Github _still_ does not support IPv6: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/10539

I contacted GitHub support about this and they assured me they understand it's a priority and are working on it. Three years ago.

Surely their LLM can work this out

cheaper than layoffs.

Devs leaving can often be a stability boost :)

Right up until it isn't.

But if that's what they want, they may be driving out the exact wrong subset of their devs.

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