AI Efficiency? Give Me a Break | Hacker News Reader

AI Efficiency? Give Me a Break

luolink.substack.com

12 pointsluolink13 comments

I don't understand the rush to adopt things if they're not really giving you a boost right now, some people still use vi and hammers, both invented by early humans. Adopting a new tool while a new one comes out every week is fishing in a troubled river. It's perfectly fine to wait until things settle and then learn whatever is actually left, I hightly doubt you're going to lose your job because you didn't learn something 2 days ago.

I would say:

1. Spend time on the fundamentally new things through whatever tool provides it.

2. Always try to prevent 'vendor' lock-in. Think about portability and reusability.

A lot of the stuff that now "works well" when working with AI assistants and tools is stuff that was always a good idea and always worked well. Write Once, Read Many; Provide good specification; Communicate clearly; Automate repeated tasks; etc.

If you update your workflow in a fundamental manner and don't jump from investing 100% in tool X to 100% in tool Y redoing a lot of shit, you improve it efficiently.

> My phone pushes at least 20 of these "anxiety generators" daily.

Unsubscribe / opt out / uninstall?

If you set yourself up to be bombarded then that’s exactly what happens

I agree to this oppinion. But I furthermore want to add: It's not just about unsubscribing or ignoring the noise. In fact, unsubscribing or ignoring means to break with the premise sold, to begin with. If it is true, that one must learn this or that to stay employed, he can not just "unsubscribe" from it.

Additionally the notion of productivity in our industry is problematic. While working with machines, somehow we developed their standard of productivity as our ideal. May it be the pressure of competition for companies and employees alike, but the current notion is not sustainable. Exaggerated, but what I think: Turn away from two week sprints and work in a quaterly waterfall. Give developers a break, a constant plan and environment.

Maybe if you are tired of chasing AI hype you could start by not literally AI-generating big clickbait articles about AI for social media?

Interestingly, or rather disappointingly, it looked like the "Fear-Mongering Marketing" is actually working.

YouTube creator ColdFusion recently uploaded a video titled "Gen Z Graduates Are in Crisis" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVc2ZhECTMg), which is about the impact of AI against Gen Zs. In it he talked about how AI is worsening job market.

I'm thinking, since the AI marketers are hyping up AI tools, maybe it has created an illusion that worker might not be needed in the near future, then it propagated outward like that. Considering how sluggish the job market already was, it's not surprising things could went on like this.

My guess is, it will continue the trend, until the moment the bubble pops, if the bubble is not just a joke.

But then I looked at how many people are paying for AI tools right now...

HR paying AI tools to read resume, job seeker paying AI tools to write resume; teacher paying AI tools to review homeworks, student paying AI tools to write homework; Academic journals paying AI tools to scan for cheats, paper factories paying AI tools to "optimize" their "paper"... Oh, and people vibe coding their project on GitHub, etc etc.

Well, at least for now it's fun to watch how things are panning out. Give yourself some laughter before the pain comes.

> "Master This AI Prompt Template and Earn $10K Monthly!" "I Made Enough for My First House in 3 Months of AI Side Hustles!" "Former Google Engineer Reveals How to Surf the AI Wave!"

I once had the displeasure of talking with a guy who essentially sold FOMO "get rich" schemes. What he sold was expensive and imo useless - but mostly suckers signed up, so the inevitable 1/5 reviews were the exception.

He made a decent living with it, but in terms of hours worked it really wasn't a good deal.

But one of the things he was self-aware enough to laugh about, was that in literal years of giving his course to hundreds of people, only once had somebody asked him: "The marketing claims you're rich and successful so why are you still giving this course?"

If you read those headlines and find a tingle of FOMO coming on, ask yourself that question.

Or more general: When would you personally ever write a blog designed to triggers FOMO, and does that match the results promised in the title?

I recently watched an AI expert on stage enthusiastically proclaiming that "AI will liberate human productivity" to thunderous applause. Sitting at my desk, staring at the 37th "Essential AI Tools You Must Learn" popup of the day, I couldn't help but think: Give me a break. I'm ten times more exhausted now than I ever was before.

An Endless Stream of New Tools and Sleepless Anxiety Nights I remember when I first encountered AI tools. When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, I was as excited as an explorer discovering a new continent. I spent an entire weekend mastering prompt engineering techniques, convinced I was finally riding the wave of the future.

And then what happened?

A month later, GPT-4 launched. All those prompt strategies I'd painstakingly learned suddenly felt outdated.

Two months later, Claude appeared, supposedly superior for writing tasks.

Three months later, Midjourney updated to V6, rendering all my carefully memorized parameters obsolete.

Four months later, domestic large language models sprouted like mushrooms after rain — Wenxin Yiyan, Tongyi Qianwen, iFlytek Spark... each claiming to "better understand Chinese."

My bookmarks folder now houses 128 AI tool websites. From writing to image generation, coding to video creation, data analysis to presentation design. Every single one has been shared by someone on social media with the caption "Don't learn this and you'll fall behind!"

The most maddening part? These tools update faster than I change my underwear. Just when I've familiarized myself with an interface, it gets redesigned overnight. Just when I've memorized a workflow, next week brings "revolutionary new features."

My morning routine no longer starts with coffee

I wrote about my reaction to the AI flood yesterday[0]. In short: I'm not participating, but waiting to see what happens. Your abilities will remain intact, so make sure that your mind remains intact as well.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892946

Sounds like overfitting. Ironic!

> All those prompt strategies I'd painstakingly learned suddenly felt outdated.

This is the critical bit, the bit that makes it impossible to "fall behind". There's no actual useful knowledge you can learn right now that'll stay relevant in the future, so don't bother!

Just use these things naively. Investment on your end on how to "use them properly" should be close to 0. If they produce useful output with the most naive prompt imaginable, wonderful. If they don't, do something else.

All those people running an army of agents on their codebase with carefully curated rules file and whatever else? They're vibing their way off a cliff. No need to worry about them. You'll probably get to the same place they do by just using the autocomplete mode in VSCode with a braindead cheap model you get for free.

Ignore them. I’ve played around with this stuff so I have some idea of what it’s all about, but only minimally. I haven’t used it for work at all. Despite this, I remain gainfully employed, and I’m convinced that I’m still going to be fielding offers at the age of 90 because pretty much none of the programmers diving into this stuff will have any idea how a computer actually works. You can keep your toes in the water without much commitment.

Amen!

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