Tell HN: How to Think about AI | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: How to Think about AI

7 pointskeepamovin10 comments

Yep, that's the title. Stop thinking of AI like an unfair "cheatcode" and start thinking of it as a new programming language. Maybe in other domains, this analogy doesn't match. But that's okay. You're mostly concerned about coding/sysadmin/etc.

People think that AI lowers the bar too much, eroding the influence of experts, degrading quality. Maybe so. But this is not new. The same was surely said when C threatened the monopoly of B, and machine code, etc. C allowed "not real programmers" to write programs. This was anathema. A violation of the sacred codex! Heretical! And yet, it worked. Now C is beloved of (almost) all. At least revered.

And so on, and so on. AI is just a new programming language. It is not "conscious". It is not AGI. It is barely a form of mechanized intelligence. It is not your friend. It is just a thing. A tool. A very useful, multi-tool. But still (right now), a tool.

That's how you think about AI, and win. You don't get bitter. You don't even need to "get even". You just get on with it. Just do it. Use it. It's a tool. So get to work! :)

> Stop thinking of AI like an unfair "cheatcode" and start thinking of it as a new programming language.

I have never thought of it as a cheat code at all. I also don't think of it as a new programming language (because it's not). It's a tool.

It's not one that I find all that useful, and under ordinary circumstances, all that would mean is that I don't use it. Where the hard feelings come in is that it's being shoved into other tools that I use and so is increasingly becoming an irritation that gets in my way. The constant stream of sales pitches and propaganda doesn't help, either.

That makes sense. If you're so far ahead that you don't need it, it would be seen as a nuisance. However, it's catching up. And one day, will overtake your capabilities. Inevitably. So....you better get on board, or retired/fire first!

> And one day, will overtake your capabilities.

Maybe, maybe not. But that day isn't today.

> So....you better get on board, or retired/fire first!

Just no. This sort of hard-sell is objectionable and manipulative. Perhaps it will become essential at some point, and if it does, then I can "get on board" at that time. If it becomes so great that I find it actually helpful, I won't even need anyone to demand I use it. I'll use it eagerly of my own accord.

Why is it so important to you that people rush into this if they aren't excited by it?

Okay.

If your C code just pseudo-randomly ran the wrong code, gave the wrong results, would you be happy with it? Would having to write half a dozen programs to cross-check each others work to make C efficient? What if you could not write C from scratch and only could hire interns to go find and copy/paste pre-existing C code?

Yes, absolutely, AI is a tool. But it has some serious weaknesses and anyone who isn't educated and open about those weaknesses is going to apply the tool in the wrong places.

Exactly! You got to know what you're doing.. Everyone is acting as if it will "replace us all". Insecure and desparate/defensive. However, AI will go quite wrong unless you do some snow-shoveling/entropy-reduction, too. You need a plan. So plan it, otherwise it will go wrong.

In the next 30 years, more code than has ever been written in history will be written. By AI. But that doesn't make CS less important - it makes it more important! Especially if we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past and exponentially grow the bug-space, we are going to need new approaches. But AI is an inesacapable tool.

You can continue to hand-scribe everything, but in a way, that will be alike to continuing to hand scripe codices after the Gutenberg moment permitted you to just typeset and mass press them. You can choose that path, out of a hermetic stubborness or puritan zeal, but your imapct will be, necessarily, limited. Embrace the scale. It's the only way. I think.

Some more years of PhDs researching, a million GPUs burning the sky and your language may be able to count the number of "r"s in strawberry. Or 3 minutes in C.

Get to work!

This is the right way to think about ai right now.

So get to work!

Work, what's that? -- 25yo CS grad jerking it in childhood bedroom

it's a tool until it's no more

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