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Comment by ghusto | Hacker News Reader

> But show me something that has become so critical in your day that if I took it away tomorrow, your work would actually fall apart. Show me something truly life changing.

- I no longer look at log files. If there's an MCP that gets access, I don't even download them

- I don't look up implementation details, just say "I want this bit to do X". In general, I don't concern myself with technical details anymore

- I don't try to debug

The way in which these examples are life changing, is that I now solve abstract problems, not technical ones. Of course I could still do my job if AI disappeared tomorrow, but a road sweeper could also do theirs if the sweeping trucks went away too.

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> - I don't try to debug

Just today I wanted to add to my nvim setup some validation for Kubernetes YAML. Asked Claude why it wasn’t looking at schemas correctly. After 30 minutes of prompts and nudges, during which it went on multiple wild goose chases, I just gave up and did it myself.

Other times I did have more success but it’s not rare to encounter this infinite loop style drill-down, which ultimately wastes more time than if I did it myself from the beginning.

> show me something that has become so critical in your day that if I took it away tomorrow, your work would actually fall apart

> Of course I could still do my job if AI disappeared tomorrow

So then you agree with TFA, it’s not so critical that if taken away your work would not fall apart.

It feels a little disingenuous to ignore the second half of his final sentence/conclusion. Feels like you're trying to do some kind of "gotcha".

The main thrust of what he was saying is in the second half: "a road sweeper could also do theirs if the sweeping trucks went away too" - you could do your job tomorrow without an IDE auto-completing common syntax, but it's a useful tool for many people. OP is saying that AI, for him, is similarly a very useful tool that he considers to be close to "critical in [his] day".

Why not actually address that instead of playing word games?

The original intent of TFA was "Show me something truly life changing" (emphasis mine). "No longer look at log files, or look up implementation details, or don't try to debug" are marginal improvements to already existing processes, not truly life changing. It's just more of the same but more efficient.

The point is that with this AI technology, we're putting up with a lot of shit -- everything is getting worse across the board -- on the promise of incredible upsides, so where are they? "I'm X% better at my job" is not seriously responsive to "Show me something truly life changing." That kind of technological progress is routine, so why do we have to put up with all the shit for routine technical progress we could get in any number of other ways that don't enshittify everything.

OP hadn't been responding to any claims about being "truly life changing" he was addressing the point regarding what parts of his day are now reliant on AI such that his work would be more difficult without it.

You're the one holding him to a standard that it be "truly life changing" when that was never what he was addressing in his comment. (You're also the one adding emphasis that increases the requirements to overcome the authors, and your own, doubt). And who are you to say that these things didn't truly change the OP comments life? Not having to look up implementation details could be a time save for them on the order of hours per week. That could free up time for him to develop a new hobby, start working out, or any other manner of things that could literally change his life. You're not the only one who gets to decide what life changing means.

Also, it really is worth reflecting on the fact that we are where we are as a society because of a bunch of cumulative "I'm X% better at my job" advancements. That's literally one of the main through-lines in technological advancement since the stone age. Another through-line is that technology (even "truly life changing" technology) is frequently over-hyped. There's really nothing new going on here.

> You're the one holding him to a standard that it be "truly life changing" when that was never what he was addressing in his comment.

Then maybe he shouldn't have quoted a portion asking for "truly life changing examples that can't be done without AI" with examples that are not lifechanging, and then concede that yes, his job can still be done without AI.

No one argues that AI provides marginal benefits and makes some people's tasks more efficient. But people are noticing that leaders of AI companies have promised everything from "universal high income" to "universal basic compute" and none of that is really happening.

Meanwhile, the big negatives are here now -- job losses, pay cuts, data centers taking over land, poisoning water, and straining electricity grids. If we're going to put up with those downsides, it's reasonable for people to ask where the truly lifechanging upsides are (the whole point of TFA and this entire Hacker News thread), and "I don't have to debug my PRs anymore" is decidedly not that.

>>> show me something that has become so critical in your day that if I took it away tomorrow, your work would actually fall apart

>> Of course I could still do my job if AI disappeared tomorrow

> So then you agree with TFA, it’s not so critical that if taken away your work would not fall apart.

That's ungracious, at best. Your interpretation is something close to the death of the position, while theirs is the moderate interpretation of "causes chaos".

> I don't concern myself with technical details anymore. I don't try to debug.

To brag about this openly...

Technology was and always will be a means to an end, not the end itself.

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