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Comment by _usefulcat | Hacker News Reader

> I’m going to make a prediction of my own… In the future we will see more and more companies proudly boasting their “NO-AI” policy as a competitive advantage. And they will be right

I'm going to make my own prediction: this isn't going to happen

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I'll go one further: We'll see companies proudly boasting "no humans" as a competitive advantage and arguing letting humans do certain types of work is unsafe.

Not a lot of shops these days are bragging about hand-writing machine code and a complete lack of automated testing. We had already automated so much before LLMs came into the picture.

Neither of those mentioned is an equivalent in any way.

Seems like a pretty large claim. Why does a binary exist here and not a continuum?

Why would you brag abput this. Most places make perf products do not use llms to write all their code. This isnt rare. You people dont know much outside of webdev. There isnt a single defense outfit doing it lol.

Yep.

Just look at the growing gap in traffic accident rates between human and AI driven cars. Humans are losing.

We should just throw in the towel now then, I guess.

I don't disagree with you, but now what? Seriously - if we accept humans are just generally losing to AI now, what's the right thing for us to do now?

I dunno. Lobotomy? Heroic amounts of debauchery?

Any suggestions?

I think we'll probably get both kinds of companies, but that they will both be fringe approaches, and the predominant choice will be to have humans working with AI tools.

Luddites have existed since the dawn of times:

  "We're not going to use tractors to plow the fields"
  "We're not going to use trucks to deliver our produce"
  "We're not going to use planes to meet with our global partners"
  "We're not going to use computers to run our business"
  "We're not going to open a web shop, brick and mortar forever"
  "We're not going to use AI to make decisions for us"

this has some pretty extreme selection bias though. You could just as easily say

"We're not going to wear Google Glass"

"We're not going to use Blockchain for every single transaction"

"We're not going to connect every single object and device we have to IoT"

It's the same vibe as "They called <insert genius> crazy for his ideas!"

Yes, the also called lots of actual crazy people crazy. In fact the probability of actually being crazy, given people are calling you crazy, is very high.

Im assigning you some reading homework today (or have you totally offloaded your ability to read to LLMs too)?

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/r...

And why are the people calling people Luddite some of the least intelligent people I meet, and seem to be complete sheep fighting some psychological war on behalf of their billionaire lords who own the machinery.

Not wanting to hand off all your labor to a machine does not make you a luddite, nor should it be acceptable to call people that because you dont know how to have a real conversation.

I created a summarizer for that

https://briff.site

Okay. I prefer to read Thomas Pynchon's writing. Y

Thats a really bad website too btw, design and functionality. Maybe use your brain before you lose it.

For a 100x engineer with 40 yrs exp that you claim to have, you make some real basic high schooler projects lol.

I already know how to code proficiently in more than 20 languages, that's the result of 40 years working in the field and being a 100X programmer. The summarizer is just a tool for myself, I build tools every day to simplify my life, not for sale, not for monetization, like tracking gym schedules or pickleball rallies with my friends, like kanban boards for my wife, they solve problems I have, not you, so that's enough for me and rewarding in itself

And AI does it all for me while I sip coffee and play mahjong (built by AI of course)

Saying you do those things when it’s AI doing them for you is akin to saying I cooked a meal while picking up fast food in a drive through line.

I mean this sincerely; the arrogance of calling yourself a 100X programmer is astounding. I don't know how you managed a 40 year career with that kind of attitude.

I was a 10X programmer and now AI has multiplied that by 10X you do the math if you can, or ask your LLM of choice

AI can be a multiplier of both your intelligence and your stupidity, arrogance is a byproduct

The amount of ego and hubris you're displaying is sure something.

I havent met a single honest person who doesn't admit that their use or LLMs degrades their ability to do the same things without them. You're being dishonest.

Hubris.

Another green name posting edgy comments. It's just embarrassing and you're wasting your time.

What was edgy about asking someone to read a Thomas Pynchon essay on the word Luddite? Id argue their weird comment about people who don't like AI being luddites is more annoying and discriminatory.

AI maxxers know they're doing harm to themselves by overusing llms. The way they react so defensively when you point it out to them lets you know its real. Everyone wants to pretending like they have superpowers and are evolving into "100x" engineers, but in reality they're devolving.

It seems like "luddite" is a reasonable description for a strict "NO-AI" policy. You softened it to "not wanting to hand off all your labor" in this comment, but the word "any" would be a more apt way to describe the quote in the comment you replied to.

>Luddites have existed since the dawn of times:

Pet peeve - luddites had never been against technology. They had been against using low paid inexperienced grunt workers to displace well paid experts.

See: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea...

    As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines. But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”

Hardly a pet peeve when it's the most mainstream thing to point out nowadays.

But it's nice to point out to youngins who may not realize how "embrace and extend" worked historically.

The definition you're using is not the definition that people nowadays understand the word for.

You don't go to a magazine website for the current common meaning or understanding of a word, you go to the dictionary And in a dictionary you'll read that a luddite is someone who is opposed to new technology, automation, or industrial change.

There are countless examples where people resist new technology for various reasons other than "using low paid inexperienced grunt workers to displace well paid experts". And this is what we call luddites, not the historical original definition of the word.

I know. I'm still upset about being unable to be "happy and gay".

Were those actual complaints? Maybe the first, maybe the brick and mortar? Who was saying we will never use planes??

You’re both sorta right imo. Some companies are going to try and virtue-signal artisanal AI-free code, and some will just deliver sorta what you asked for, and neither will be perfect.

I remember seeing some companies boast about "no outsourcing". I think 99% of their customers won't care for such things, as long as the customer gets what they want.

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