Comment by agentcoops
3 days ago
I have a similar relation to AI with programming -- and my sense is very many HN readers do as well, evidenced not least by the terrific experience report from antirez [1]. Yet it is rare to see such honest and open statements even here. Instead, HN is full of endless anti-AI submissions on the front page where the discussion underneath is just an echo chamber of ill-substantiated attacks on 'AI hype' and where anything else is down-voted.
It's what is, to me, so bizarre about the present moment: certainly investment is exceptionally high in AI (and of course use), but the dominant position in the media is precisely such a strange 'anti-AI hype' that positions itself as a brave minority position. Obviously, OpenAI/Altman have made some unfortunate statements in self-promotion, but otherwise I genuinely can't think of something I've read that expresses the position attacked by the anti-AI-ers -- even talk of 'AGI' etc comes from the AI-critical camp.
In a sense, the world seems divided into three: obvious self-promotion from AI companies that nobody takes seriously, ever-increasingly fervent 'AI critique', and the people who, mostly silent, have found modern AI with all its warts to be an incomparably useful tool across various dimensions of their life and work. I hope the third camp becomes more vocal so that open conversations about the ways people have found AI to be useful or not can be the norm not the exception.
It’s hard to see how the current rate of progress is compatible with, 30 years from now, it being good business sense to pay human professionals six figure salaries. Opinions then split: the easiest option is pure denial, to assume that the current rate of progress doesn’t exist. Next easiest is to assume that progress will halt soon, then that we will be granted the lifestyle of well paid professionals when unsupervised AI can do our job for cheaper, then that Altman will at least deign to feed us.
antirez's success doesn't mean anything since antirez is far, far above average as a developer and is able to wield AI very effectively because of his talents and knowledge. Most developers are not remotely close to antirez's skill level (half are below average, by definition) and are likely going to suffer the problems that skeptics are already seeing.