Comment by encyclopedism | Hacker News Reader

Comment by encyclopedism | Hacker News Reader

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I find it interesting, the comments on this post (not just this particular comment per se) and the sheer inability to relate or ATTEMPT to relate to another persons experience or feeling. The post itself articulated a viewpoint and experience, your having a different one does not negate the other. Nor does your perspective mean the other does not exist. I'm dumbfounded at many of the comments.

Here are some clipped comments that I pulled from the overall post

> I don't get it.

> I'm using LLMs to code and I'm still thinking hard.

> I don't. I miss being outside, in the sun, living my life. And if there's one thing AI has done it's save my time.

> Then think hard? Have a level of self discipline and don’t consistently turn to AI to solve your problems.

> I am thinking harder than ever due to vibe coding.

> Skill issue

> Maybe this is just me, but I don't miss thinking so much.

The last comment pasted is pure gold, a great one to put up on a wall. Gave me a right chuckle thanks!!!

When I read the article, I feel the same emotions that I feel if someone were to tell me "I keep trying to ride a bike but I keep falling off". My experience with LLMs is that the "lack of thinking" is mostly a quick trough you fall into before you come out the other side understanding how to deal with LLMs better. And yes, there's nothing wrong with relating to someone's experience, but mostly I just want to tell that guy, just keep trying, it'll get better, and you'll be back to thinking hard if you keep at it.

But then OP says stuff like:

> I am not sure if there will ever be a time again when both needs can be met at once.

In my head that translates to "I don't think there will ever be a time again when I can actually ride my bike for more than 100 feet." At which point you probably start getting responses more like "I don't get it" because there's only so much empathy you can give someone before you start getting a little frustrated and being like "cmon it's not THAT bad, just keep trying, we've all been there".

If I can 'speak' for the OP:

> I keep trying to ride a bike but I keep falling off

I do not think this analogy is apt.

The core issue is that AI is taking away, or will take away, or threatens to take away, experiences and activities that humans would WANT to do.

The article is lamenting the disappearing of something meaningful for the OP. One can feel sad for this alone. It is not an equation to balance: X is gone but Y is now available. The lament stands alone. As the OP indicates with his 'pragmatism' we now collectively have little choice about the use of AI. The flood waters do not ask they take everyone in their path.

I think the disagreement is over what exactly will be taken away. Certainly, like any technology that came before, AI will automate something. A programmer that finds joy in the raw act of coding- thinking of how to solve a problem and crafting the resulting logic line by line will indeed have something taken away by AI.

But there is a spectrum here. AI is a cruder, less fine-grained method of producing output. But it is a very powerful tool. Instead of "chiseling" the code line by line, it transforms relatively short prompts along with "context" into an imperfect, but much larger/fully formed product. The more you ask it to do in one go, usually the more imperfect it is. But the more precise your prompts, and the "better" your context, the more you can ask it to do while still hanging on to its "form" (always battling against the entropy of AI slop).

Incidentally, those "prompts" are the thinking. The point is to operate at the edge of LLM/machine competence. And as the LLMs become more capable, your vision can grow bigger.

I think if OP had said "I miss getting paid for (a particular type of) thinking hard" I would find it to be a lot more agreeable. But he's just saying he misses it in general. I think that's what I (and, from OP's summary, many other people) find confusing. Can't you still do it? AI is not physically preventing you from thinking hard.

It's honestly just an example of ego and coping. These people are trading temporary gains in pseudo-productivity for training their replacements and atrophying their skills.

The truth of the matter is that the people who will choose to partake already weren't thinking; otherwise they wouldn't have chosen. This is the same with every bubble or major revolutionary thing that ends up having negative effects in the long run. GLP-1 is another great example of one that is still on the upward arc.

Sheep will always be sheep, and, in my opinion, this is the reason for the changes in hiring and the large scale encouragement of folks that obviously are not smart enough for this career to suddenly join in over the past 10 years.

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