gspr

> Compilers have never been about producing code in particular, though, even if that is where they are most commonly used. A LaTeX compiler, for example, outputs books. To think they are about code exclusively is a grave misunderstanding of what a compiler is.

And what, pray tell, are those books output by TeX? That's right, PDF or PostScript code.

This is a tired, idiotic analogy. For one, if LLMs are compilers, they're terrible compilers because they can't be reasoned about the way one wants to reason about a compiler (but I assume you have a weird take here since you claim compilers are non-deterministic).

But more importantly, if you insist on treating LLMs like compilers, then the source language – natural prose – is the worst programming language ever invented. Coding the world in brainfuck is a better idea than where you lot is suggesting we go.

Ah, then I understand you. But please, let's stop with this inevitability. If AI decimates, not when.

Minimum wage? Where I live, the plumber median wage is pretty much exactly the national median.

> To be fair, those spikes are rarer now than they were a year ago.

Which, we should remember, is a good thing for society.

This is the kind of stuff AI-skeptics have warned about daily on this very site for the last year or two. We are met with "you'll be left behind" and "you're just coping" and "the future is coming".

This shit is blatantly obvious. And if people keep pushing and pushing for LLMs to generate things that are actually used directly, the problem will grow so large that most people will barely remember a time when their job was something that could be understood.

This is why generative AI sucks.

Only because we let it be. I truly believe that we can wield regulations to make it not so.

Except if the moat is something like "have managed to attract and retain stellar workers who make fantastic products with excellent durability and support at a reasonable price, resulting in such a happy customer base that any upstart will struggle to gain a foothold". The horror!

Right. But viewed differently, that made everyone have to compete at actually making good PCs, instead of relying on customers unable to escape to another vendor due to lock-in.

We want this. Software and other modern tech desperately need this! How many companies are stuck with an absolutely terrible suite of MS products because you can't easily rip out and replace just the IM or videoconferencing part, for example?

In the lawyer's case one might argue that it's just a time quantization inaccuracy. There's no smaller unit of time than an hour for them.

One can argue that there should be, but billing in 10 second increments might also be a bit much to ask.

One would hope that they would at least aggregate multiple smaller-than-resolution time blocks into one before billing though. (Five documents over the course of a week ends up costing the same)

... but the parent makes a good point that software can be malleable, and that it's a good thing.

I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying that products with open APIs are commoditized faster than ones without? Why would that be?

I've been saying this for years – it's a huge societal problem that most people, including powerful people, view technology in general and software in particular as something slightly magical, something that cannot be truly understood. We're seemingly forever doomed to accept that technical things are a bit shitty and that we'll have to do a rain dance every now and then to appease them. Instead of, you know, throwing out the shitty products and making or buying good ones.

Lovely post, and lovely phrase (normalizing of inexplicable failures).

And "getting on with the job" in those professions involves stopping and thinking.

Because these "others" are literal members of my orchestra suggesting we start doing playbacks during concerts!

Agree. It's like people who dream of becoming middle managers in order not to have to do things themselves anymore.

I mean, you do you, I don't mean to shame people for whom management is the dream – I just find it weird and sad that they're trying to pretend that this is somehow how people with a hacker/geek spirit think or should think. To me it's antithetical to the hacker spirit.

I'm becoming more and more certain that there are two kinds of people in the world: those for whom the end result is the main point, and those for whom the journey there is. Generative AI has revealed how stark this divide is.

I'm not saying either type is better than the other, but the recent technological changes certainly have put a lot of wind in the "end resulters'" sails. They must not be allowed to hijack the definition of programmer, hacker, geek.

I think you're onto something. And we're on a fast path to normalizing, even encouraging, this kind of behavior, so I'm very worried.

If you were in need of legal services in a high-stakes case, or if you needed brain surgery, would you want "fast visible progress" or "I need to think this through"?

I'd say both relevant professions are highly regarded.

> Who likes typing code, writing boilerplate, reading bad documentation for nights looking for that small thing, asking around in forums, reading dependency source code, writing trivial unit/ui tests.

Me! I do!

> And who likes planning, architecting, directing a team, steering and giving advice, reviewing code, designing interfaces and APIs. Coding became more mentally exciting.

I'd rather eat rusty barbed wire. I'd avoid your middle manager hellscape even if if doubled my salary, I swear!

> I don't understand what's difficult about enjoying programming now that LLMs are everywhere. It's akin to musicians who still play their instruments despite having the ability to stream any music they'd like. Nothing's stopping them from playing their instrument. Why is programming any different?

Because a great majority of our colleagues and compatriots – people we believed viewed the art somewhat similarly to how we do – have shown themselves willing to replace their cellos with CDs, their tubas with tapes and their vocal chords with voice-overs!

We find ourselves in an orchestra in which it seems the loud majority will happily proclaim that they're proud to just press play! It's heartbreaking.

I can understand pressing play to put food on the table. That wouldn't make me sad and angry. Seeing so many so proud and happy about it, and doing it also when the stakes are zero, does.

Absolutely not unthinkable! We're paid for exactly that in research, for example.

It's terrifying to hear that 5 hours of focused thinking is considered crazy. I can understand a budget battle if it's 5 months, but 5 hours?! Everyone, in every profession (or none), would be better off mentally if they "wasted" 5 hours thinking about something every now and then!

This, too, gives me vibes of cryptobros!

Proponent: EmergingTech is gonna be amazing, it'll at revolutionize everything!

Bystander: Alright. But I'll hold off until I see actual evidence of that happening. Truly revolutionizing tech usually shows clear signs of being revolutionary, and doesn't need evangelists.

Proponent: You're gonna be left behind! Act now, or forever miss out! Here's analogies with things we know in hindsight were revolutionary.

Bystander: Those analogies are bad for these specific reasons.

Proponent: You will be proven wrong!

It's so dumb. At least you AI proponents don't post pictures of yourself with glowing laser eyes when you evangelize, so I guess that's an improvement over the cryptobros.

PS: I emphasize that I'm not claiming that the technology won't have huge effects on society. If that's your take on what I write, you have to read again.

Sure. But HN these days is the epitome of "x but on the web" for the AI era. It's insufferable!

My god, this is the most HN comment of the day. You do know that most normal people buy a house not to resell it at profit, but to have a place to live, right?

You sound exactly like the cryptobros of yore. Just stop.

If you're right, the evidence will bear that out. Stop evangelizing. It's insufferable. And it's paradoxical that so many who believe this technology to be absolutely world-changing also feel that the technology needs to be pushed onto people actively. It reminds me of religious people ("my god is all-powerful, but if you meaningless mortal insult him he'll be mightily upset").

Your analogy is terrible.

The act of verifying that parcel is delivered, that the grain is correctly ground, or that the container is up to spec is far easier than the act of delivering/grinding/making in the first place (and in the latter case, there's perhaps even an argument to be had that the modernized process eases verification).

For a lot of coding, this is simply not the case. And so people will retort that that's fine, LLMs will help with verification and maintenance too. I think you're seriously misguided – you're accidentally trying to turn human prose into a programming language, and it's a terrible terrible idea!

At any rate, I find it extremely worrying that people like you keep reiterating this point as if it's a fact. If it's true, then surely we'll very soon see the evidence. The way you speak of the "near future" with certainty, as if everyone agrees, gives me the same sour taste as cryptobros or MLM conmen. Yuck.

But why? Why do so many companies choose garbage?

Banking regulation is not foreign policy though.

I played it a few times in university (pretty much the only period of life where a group of friends can get together and sink a whole day and night into stuff like this). It's hard to describe this game; as you get going on a round with friends, it's intensily exciting and fun, but as soon as you're done, you never wanna play again (then that feeling fades). Yet somehow, my friends and I to this day refer to things that happened in rounds of this game 15-20 years ago! (Especially that time one of the group was to catch a ride home with another, until the passenger backstabbed the driver in the endgame and had to walk home at 4 am.)

I also tried playing it online with randoms a few times, thinking it would be suitable for play-by-mail style play instead of losing a whole day. Didn't like it at all. The unique fun comes from backstabbing your friends.

Truly a magnificent game, but also one that I'm glad is firmly behind me in a different era of my life. Like a lot of things from uni ;)