I love that Eisenhower quote which I feel is quite relevant here.
"plans are useless, planning is essential."
Readit Newswcfrobert commented on Checklists are hard, but still a good thing utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/spa... · Posted by u/zdw
The results are obviously predictable, but it's nice that the authors took the time to prove a thing everyone already knows to be true with the rigors of science.
I wonder how the participants felt writing an essay while being hooked up to an EEG.
wcfrobert commented on The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine cnn.com/2025/05/30/busine... · Posted by u/lwo32k
> If AI makes everyone 10x engineers, you can 2x the productive output while reducing headcount by 5x.
Why wouldn't you just 10x the productive output instead?
I don't think it would be trivial to increase demand by 10x (or even 2x) that quickly. Eventually, a publicly traded company will get a bad quarter, at which point it's much easier to just reduce the number of employees. In both scenarios, there's no need for any new-hire.
wcfrobert commented on The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine cnn.com/2025/05/30/busine... · Posted by u/lwo32k
Maybe someone can help me wrap my head around this in a different way, because here's how I see it.
If these tools are really making people so productive, shouldn't it be painfully obvious in companies' output? For example, if these AI coding tools were an amazing productivity boost in the end, we'd expect to see software companies shipping features and fixes faster than ever before. There would be a huge burst in innovative products and improvements to existing products. And we'd expect that to be in a way that would be obvious to customers and users, not just in the form of some blog post or earnings call.
For cost center work, this would lead to layoffs right away, sure. But companies that make and sell software should be capitalizing on this, and only laying people off when they get to the point of "we just don't know what to do with all this extra productivity, we're all out of ideas!". I haven't seen one single company in this situation. So that makes me think that these decisions are hype-driven short term thinking.
If AI makes everyone 10x engineers, you can 2x the productive output while reducing headcount by 5x.
Luckily software companies are not ball bearings factories.
wcfrobert commented on Beware the Complexity Merchants chrlschn.dev/blog/2025/05... · Posted by u/kiyanwang
Past a certain scale, complexity is mostly unavoidable.
Accidental complexity is compressable, but essential complexity is not. At some point, you cannot compress further without losing nuance.
In compiler design, there's a concept called the waterbed theory of complexity which states that you can try to abstract complexity away, but it'll just show up elsewhere.
Reinventing the wheel is the best way to learn. But imo that's really the only context where you should.
I love my rabbit holes, but at work, it's often not viable to explore them given deadlines and other constraints. If you want your wheel to be used in production though, it better be a good wheel, better than the existing products.
> The fun has been sucked out of the process of creation because nothing I make organically can compete with what AI already produces—or soon will.
So the fun, all along, was not in the process of creation itself, but in the fact that the creator could somehow feel superior to others not being able to create? I find this to be a very unhealthy relationship to creativity.
My mixer can mix dough better than I can, but I still enjoy kneading it by hand. The incredibly good artisanal bakery down the street did not reduce my enjoyment of baking, even though I cannot compete with them in quality by any measure. Modern slip casting can make superior pottery by many different quality measures, but potters enjoy throwing it on a wheel and producing unique pieces.
But if your idea of fun is tied to the "no one else can do this but me", then you've been doing it wrong before AI existed.
I think the article is getting at the fact that in a post-AGI world, human skill is a depreciating asset. This is terrifying because we exchange our physical and mental labor for money. Consider this: why would a company hire me if - with enough GPU and capital - they can copy-and-paste 1,000 of AI agents much smarter to do the work?
With AGI, Knowledge workers will be worth less until they are worthless.
While I'm genuinely excited about the scientific progress AGI will bring (e.g. curing all diseases), I really hope there's a place for me in the post-AGI world. Otherwise, like the potters and bakers who can't compete in the market with cold-hard industrial machines, I'll be selling my python code base on Etsy.
No Set Gauge had an excellent blog post about this. Have a read if you want a dash of existential dread for the weekend: https://www.nosetgauge.com/p/capital-agi-and-human-ambition.
Deleted Comment
wcfrobert commented on Three Felonies a Day (2013) kottke.org/13/06/you-comm... · Posted by u/zekrioca
>- Not reporting large cash transactions (over $10,000)
If you're talking about Currency Transaction Report, only financial institutions have to file those.
>- Using someone else's ID can be interpreted as identity theft (sharing student ID discount, Costco cards, epic passes)
Is "identity theft" actually a distinct crime? Or is it just fraud? If it's the latter, it's not a felony unless you're getting absurdly high amounts of benefit.
>- torrenting copyrighted content (textbooks, music, movies, TV shows, audio books). I'm sure most if not all of my classmates in school torrented some of those $200 textbooks.
Copyright infringement is a civil infraction unless you're doing it commercially (eg. burning bootleg DVDs to sell)
I was thinking form 8300.
Could seeding a torrent be interpreted as distribution?
You're right most of these would result in a slap on the wrist or fines. Perhaps 3 misdemeanors a day? But I think the overall sentiment still stands - that it's hard to be a saint.
Replace Ferrari with Rolex and it's basically the same article. Veblen is such a good business model and place to work, if you can hack it that is.
Imagine you're a sales guy at Honda dealership, well you have to work hard to convince the middle aged dad why buy a CRV instead of a Toyota RAV4.
However, if you work at a Bugatti dealership, you don't need to convince the oil-rich Sheikh why he should buy the 2 million dollar car, he already wanted to buy it before he even stepped in. So not only is your job easier than the guy in the Honda dealership, it's also much better paid. The very definition of inequality. The same is true for other businesses. It's much easier and profitable selling Azure /Office 365 subscriptions to businesses, that some SW solution from a mom & pop shop.
Luxury brands spend millions on marketing and brand awareness. In some sense, all the "sales work" have already been done before a person sets foot into a Bugatti dealership. Reputation takes decades to build but just a few missteps to destroy. Brand is way more fragile than people think. As soon as Bugatti stops making great cars, they'll fall into a place where they can't compete in the luxury market, nor the mass market Japanese car brands like Honda or Toyota.
In that sense, luxury fashion seems to be a easier market than watches or cars. You don't need an innovative engineering team. Just spend millions on marketing to uphold the common narrative you are a luxury brand. And that shirts with your logo on it costing 10x more than a similar product at say H&M, is not only justifiable, but sensible.