Comment by manlymuppet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by manlymuppet | Hacker News Reader

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This issue I have with this post is that it treats time saved with AI like a sunk cost. That isn't the case.

When AI allows you to think less about the how in software, every minute you save is a minute you can spend literally anywhere else. You aren't limited. There is no obligation to remain within the realm of software. You can use your saved time to watch a movie, read a book, or maybe dream of electric sheep. Whatever it is, there are no rules, and you get to choose.

So if you feel a loss of community from the advent of AI, you're completely free to find some other community which fulfills that same need for you. For me personally, AI has allowed me to focus much more on the design side of software, rather than the technical details. That's really meaningful for me, and it makes so that among my fellow design people, I've never had more community.

Anybody can do the same. Or maybe, you can find another outlet that suits you. The point is, you get to choose.

To put this in familiar economics terms, you can't treat your time like a sunk effort. Rather, you have to think of the opportunity cost, and ask yourself "what is the next best thing I could be doing with my time?"

> When AI allows you to think less about the how in software, every minute you save is a minute you can spend literally anywhere else. You aren't limited. There is no obligation to remain within the realm of software. You can use your saved time to watch a movie, read a book, or maybe dream of electric sheep.

Notice how you went from an intellectual, creative endeavour to a list of passive consumption behaviors. That is precisely the point the article was making. AI is killing everything that isn't just pure unthinking consumption.

Apart from the fact that I reject such a harsh distinction[1] between creative endeavors and "unthinking" and "consumptive" behaviors, my examples were just that--examples.

I used book club, or watching movies, but I could've just as easily said writing club, or filmmaking project. By your strict definition, there are still plenty of creative endeavors accessible to most that involve intellectual community. Point being: you're missing my underlying point when you focus on the examples.

[1] Is reading "unthinking"? I think it's the opposite. And I think you misunderstand the creative process when you so strictly separate creating and consuming.

But the point made about programming can just as well be made about filmmaking or writing. What's the point if AI does it cheaper and quicker? I don't see any end state in which humanity doesn't dumb down to just consuming endless amounts of slop, completely robbed of its creative outlets.

First of all, quicker and cheaper doesn’t matter if it’s not better too.

Secondly, AI is still pretty garbage at the humanities, but even if that changes, and AI becomes good at art, I still don’t think AI will replace humans in the arts.

Lastly and most importantly, this is all irrelevant, because it doesn’t get to my main point: your sources of intellectual community are not going anywhere.

Regardless of what AI can do, you and I are not obligated to simply cease all creative outlets. Nobody is robbing you of your creative outlets, nor forcing you to only consume.

Well, the post is arguing that even if you're free to find another community that fulfills an intellectual need for you, intellectual communities in general are growing weaker or being driven underground because AI is poisoning the commons and removing a source of external motivation.

For example, I enjoy blogging, and want to use the time saved from my software job to blog more. But I'm less motivated to blog these days because there's so much AI-generated slop blog content, and less readers as a result.

Part of this is because there's so much output that readers can no longer afford to spend as much attention on each piece of content. Another part is that it's harder to find fellow bloggers who truly care about the craft. When output was hard, anyone who wrote a lot clearly cared a lot. Now we have to use other signals to find kindred souls on the internet. One way is through social connections and private discords. Another way is through new technology which we can use to reclaim the commons, for example via Pangram which can demarcate what content is human-written vs. AI-written.

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