I've noticed that most AI-related posts here receive a lot of anti-AI commentary. Why is that? Are people not finding these tools useful, even with the significant investment and hype in the space?
Practical AI vs hype AI is what I see the biggest distinction on.
I haven't seen people negatively comment on simple AI tooling, or cases where AI creates real output.
I do see a lot of hate on hype-trains and, for what it's worth, I wouldn't say it's undeserved. LLMs are currently oversold as this be-all end-all AI, while there's still a lot of "all" to conquer.
> Are people not finding these tools useful, even with the significant investment and hype in the space?
That sounds like there's a flawed assumption buried in there. Hype has very little correlation with usefulness. Investment has perhaps slightly more, but only slightly.
Investment tells you that people invested. Hype tells you that people are trying to sell it. That's all. They tell you nothing about usefulness.
Disgust at all the hype. Worry over being made obsolete. Lazy negativity ("merely token predictors") in an attempt to sound knowledgeable. Worry over not understanding the tech. Distress over dehumanising AI use in hiring etc. Herd psychology.
1. Failed expectations - hackers tend to dream big and they felt like we're that close to AGI. Then they faced the reality of a "dumb" (yet very advanced) auto-complete. It's very good, but not as good as they wanted it.
2. Too much posts all over the internet from people who has zero idea about how LLMs work and their actual pros/cons and limitations. Those posts cause natural compensating force.
I don't see a fear of losing job as a serious tendency (only in junior developers and wannabes).
It's the opposite - senior devs secretly waited for something that would off load a big part of the stress and dumb work of their shoulders, but it happened only occasionally and in a limited form (see point 1 above)
The Turing Test didn't anticipate super-parrots that converse nicely, instead assuming that an AI would actually reason to participate in a conversation.
and yet it fails to fix any real bug e2e in a large enough codebase. It require a lot of babysitting to the point that actual performance boost is very questionable
I'm not really anti-AI. I use AI every day and is a ChatGPT pro user.
My concerns are:
1) Regardless of whether AI could do this, the corporation leaders are pushing for AI replacement for humans. I don't care whether AI could do it or not, but multiple mega corporations are talking about this openly. This is not going to bode well for us ordinary programmers;
2) Now, if AI could actually do that -- might not be now, or a couple of years, but 5-10 years from now, and even if they could ONLY replace junior developers, it's going to be hell for everyone. Just think about the impact to the industry. 10 years is actually fine for me, as I'm 40+, but hey, you guys are probably younger than me.
--> Anyone who is pushing AI openly && (is not in the leadership || is not financially free || is an ordinary, non-John-Carmack level programmer), if I may say so, is not thinking straight. You SHOULD use it, but you should NOT advocate it, especially to replace your team.
A lot of the hype is very short-term and unrealistic, such as AGI. On the other hand it's easy to underestimate the impact in a million mundane things.
On top of this, I'd add also: for me personally, the writing is on the walls for many things (like AGI) - now the tech is clear and people can vision out timelines on things, it becomes grating to hear about every tiny incremental update.
> Are people not finding these tools useful, even with the significant investment and hype in the space?
How exactly would someone find hype useful?
Hell, even the investment part is questionable in an industry that's known for "fake it till you make it" and "thanks for the journey" messages when it's inevitably bought by someone else and changes dramatically or is shut down.
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I haven't seen people negatively comment on simple AI tooling, or cases where AI creates real output.
I do see a lot of hate on hype-trains and, for what it's worth, I wouldn't say it's undeserved. LLMs are currently oversold as this be-all end-all AI, while there's still a lot of "all" to conquer.
That sounds like there's a flawed assumption buried in there. Hype has very little correlation with usefulness. Investment has perhaps slightly more, but only slightly.
Investment tells you that people invested. Hype tells you that people are trying to sell it. That's all. They tell you nothing about usefulness.
Deleted Comment
1. Failed expectations - hackers tend to dream big and they felt like we're that close to AGI. Then they faced the reality of a "dumb" (yet very advanced) auto-complete. It's very good, but not as good as they wanted it.
2. Too much posts all over the internet from people who has zero idea about how LLMs work and their actual pros/cons and limitations. Those posts cause natural compensating force.
I don't see a fear of losing job as a serious tendency (only in junior developers and wannabes).
It's the opposite - senior devs secretly waited for something that would off load a big part of the stress and dumb work of their shoulders, but it happened only occasionally and in a limited form (see point 1 above)
The "AI" we have now isn't actually "I".
My concerns are:
1) Regardless of whether AI could do this, the corporation leaders are pushing for AI replacement for humans. I don't care whether AI could do it or not, but multiple mega corporations are talking about this openly. This is not going to bode well for us ordinary programmers;
2) Now, if AI could actually do that -- might not be now, or a couple of years, but 5-10 years from now, and even if they could ONLY replace junior developers, it's going to be hell for everyone. Just think about the impact to the industry. 10 years is actually fine for me, as I'm 40+, but hey, you guys are probably younger than me.
--> Anyone who is pushing AI openly && (is not in the leadership || is not financially free || is an ordinary, non-John-Carmack level programmer), if I may say so, is not thinking straight. You SHOULD use it, but you should NOT advocate it, especially to replace your team.
How exactly would someone find hype useful?
Hell, even the investment part is questionable in an industry that's known for "fake it till you make it" and "thanks for the journey" messages when it's inevitably bought by someone else and changes dramatically or is shut down.