Comment by simonbw
7 hours ago
I actually don't think her reasoning has to do with other people at all. I think it's that given she wants to make an image of a poorly designed object, she knows she could either do it herself, or she could do something that takes 99% less effort but produces a result that's 90% as good. Her brain says "the easier way is obviously more efficient, clearly that's what you should do". But using AI isn't actually a satisfying process so even though it's way easier, she doesn't have a desire to do it. Of course the option to do it the way she's always done it is still there and would be just as satisfying in the end. The difficulty is that now there's a little part of her brain that would be going "you're acting inefficiently/irrationally", which just makes the process less pleasant and harder to convince herself to continue with. To me it seems like
I know I have experienced this, and I bet a lot of people here have experienced this, with writing code by hand vs having Claude do it. I genuinely enjoy writing code, but now to get that joy, I have to commit to writing code _for the sake of writing code_, since it's no longer necessary to do it to achieve the end goal I have.
That's how I read it too, and how I relate to it.
I have the exact same feeling as you towards coding AI for hobby projects. Though this sentiment isn't new, and AI is just a detail.
I'm not a musician, but I'm attracted to synthesizers and bought a couple in the past just for fun. I immediately get caught in a quicksand of DAWs and plugins and whatnot, which kill the fun for me (it's too similar to work), but at the same time I can't ignore the tools because now the synth is too "bland".
It's a weird kind of FOMO paralysis.
I am a musician and electronic music is my primary jam. I once bought way too many plugins on Black Friday because there were so many incredible deals. The next day, I opened my preferred DAW and I was just overwhelmed with options. It caused my creativity to short-circuit. I didn't make music again for months because of the sheer sense of drowning in new tools.
Of course, every time I've ever added just one tool I've been fine. I explore it and learn it and figure out the limitations and how to make it do what I want (or decide I don't like it).
The brain is funny. It's not always possible to rationally explain our motivations and blockers in a way that feels satisfying. I'm a big believer that words help us understand feelings / reality. Not being able to articulate the things that are blocking us satisfactorily makes it harder, or possibly impossible, to work through them or try to tackle them or work around them.
And then there are the times when we can perfectly explain our feelings in a way that accurately represents the inner turmoil but it's just a crappy new reality. I think that's a lot of what people are feeling wrt coding agents.
> The brain is funny.
The brain is inefficient - at least, in regard to planning work.
There’s so many feelings etc getting in the way - when the real thought should only be:
“what’s next to properly fulfill my chosen goal?”.