4,905 karma · joined December 1, 2020
email: contact at robbyzambito.me
bksy: @zambyte.robbyzambito.me
zambyte.at.hn
Edit: this is obviously assuming they literally meant robots.txt, but from a qyick skim of the site, it doesn't look like that was mentioned at least. I guess you meant it metaphorically :P
Luckily, AGI is pretty boring. It's a tool that does it's job. It seems like very wishful thinking to expect the same of ASI.
Trains need infrastructure, but a lot of the train infrastructure is already there, it just needs to be repaired and modernized. The USA freight network is one of the most comprehensive train networks in the world. The problem is that is has gone through decades of neglect, and trains are required to crawl through a large portion of the network so as to not derail. Urgent modernization of the rail network could happen in years instead of decades.
I'm sorry to shatter the dreams of most Americans, but the world has finite resources. Buying a car when you're poor is hard, because cars are expensive, because they are extremely resource demanding. Even with all the subsidies drivers receive, they still usually struggle with the cost.
By the way, you don't have to look at public transit schedules when your public transit works. I recommend visiting countries outside the US that have functional infrastructure.
Early programming in assembly mostly involved telling the computer how to do things that you want it to do. You instruct it in terms of the mechanical capabilities of the machine.
Compilers and interpreters came along and raised the layer of abstraction that programmers work on from the "how" domain to the "what" domain. Instead of saying how to move bits around to solve problems, we tell the computer what to do, and it would do it. Even languages like C in which programs seem like a description of how to compute something, they are more of a vague suggestion to the compiler, which will do what you told it to do, how it wants to do it.
Now in the era of agentic programming, the "what" isn't even the domain that programmers are operating in, it's "why". Why should we use these technologies? Why should certain architectural decisions be made to support future development? Why should protocols have or not have certain information in them? The relevant "what" questions are handled by the LLM, just like the "how" is handled by the compiler.
I really like using spec-driven development to capture the "why" as artifacts. I personally use the tool openspec, and I like it because it explicitly captures my reasoning in the documents it produces, but I'm sure there are other solutions. I also have a prompt that will generate a commit message for a change that captures "why" instead of "what", based on the conversation history. This is better than just describing what changed, because the diff already does that, and if you're looking at a commit to understand it, generally you'll be confused by the "why".
No matter how you do it, find some way to capture "why" as a material artifact. The "what" is the code that basically anyone can make now. Why will maintain your purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
https://www.academia.edu/115164883/Car_harm_A_global_review_...
Windows philosophy: don't get sued by AT&T
At this point, roughly all the code I push is generated by AI. I find the code itself to be mostly an implementation detail of what I'm trying to do. However, I do not trust AI to write sustainable software that I can easily extend in ways that I know the project should eventually head.
I have found using openspec (no affiliation, just enjoy the tool) to be useful for raising my interface to projects up a layer of abstraction, from code to natural language. I use my agent to help me author specifications before firing it off to implement something. The key for me has been exercising the discipline of reading every single word of the specifications, and making sure that it aligns with my understanding and intent. This is where I have moved my attention now.
I think this has parallels with AI in art contexts. I think AI can be nice for getting to the part of art that you actually enjoy doing. Maybe you like making films, but the part that brings you joy is creating story boards. Recording, scripting, editing, etc. are chores to you, and maybe you don't have the resources to find people to fill those roles. AI can help you focus on the part that matters to you.
In the case of knitting, OP seems to find value in doing something with their hands, and sees the problem solving portion of it as a bonus. The latter can be inhibitive though; some may not push through that wall, and just not get the benefits of making something with their hands. I think AI is reasonable in this case, because they're not offloading the part that brings them joy.