Comment by utopiah

3 months ago

I called it "software".

It's so strange to me that since the 1960s with BASIC then later on dozens of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_educational_programmin... including Logo by Feurzeig/Papert/Solomon there is effort to precisely help beginners program software.

The effort was not to onboard future professional software developers but rather to make the personal in personal computer, or PC, meaningful. It's YOUR computer, you can put YOUR software on it. In fact even pocket calculator do that.

We keep on re-discovering the foundations.

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utopiah

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customguy  3 months ago

To me this doesn't seem like a step towards those foundations, but another layer of of loss of agency. You can run "a" model locally, but you cannot make it locally (at least not for the purpose of just talking software into existence). You need to slurp up all the internet first, so to speak. And even if you could do that, you still depend on people putting new things onto the internet for you to slurp up. So is it really my software? What if it breaks or I want a new feature and AI corp nuked my account? How much did I learn during my time having it done for me?

And before anyone mentions it, I don't think the fact that I need a compiler and a manual and some example software to learn from is quite on the same level. I might be wrong but I would need some convincing.

  • darkwater  3 months ago

    You can also run a computer at home but you cannot even make a 486 from scratch at home, let alone something released more recently.

    I agree on the SaaS side of the story, that's why it is so important to have open models.

  • utopiah  3 months ago

    Agreed, I wasn't advocating on using LLMs, even "open" or "local" ones.

    • onetom  3 months ago

      i think "self-hosted", "home" or "company"/"office" should be the term we use, instead of "local", since

      1. every LLM is _local_ in relation to the location the storage and/or the computers hosting/using it

      2. the LLM running in your home is only _local_, until u step out of the door, but if you have some tailscale or zerotier VPN setup, u can still access it _remote_ly...

  • luma  3 months ago

    How does any of that impact a user who just has a specific task they want to accomplish and who doesn't have a CS degree?

    Is it "their" software? Sure, if it meets their needs. What if the AI changes? Who cares, I already have the software. All the what ifs are solved by taking the current code, stuffing into into any AI you like today, and getting the new version.

    As a user, this all sounds like a great deal. Devs can continue wringing their hands over code quality and long term support and architecture and preferred framework, meanwhile the user who had an itch got it scratched and didn't need nor care about any of those things.

    • customguy  3 months ago

      > What if the AI changes? Who cares, I already have the software. All the what ifs are solved by taking the current code, stuffing into into any AI you like today, and getting the new version.

      It's just dismissing the question. If the AI changes, just use one that didn't change. If it gets 1000x more expensive, just use one that remains cheap.

      Apart from the fact that without new input to learn from, things will probably stagnate in new exciting ways, on top of the stagnation, bloat and slop we worked so hard to make a culture over the last decades.

      > Devs can continue wringing their hands over code quality and long term support and architecture and preferred framework

      I mentioned none of those things.

      > the user who had an itch got it scratched and didn't need nor care about any of those things.

      And I don't care about that user when it comes to the question of my agency and autonomy. It's like people discussing how to make cats do tricks and someone going "just get a dog".

Ygg2  3 months ago

> It's YOUR computer, you can put YOUR software on it. In fact even pocket calculator do that.

I'm pretty sure this exists. It's called OSS or, more ubiquitously, Linux.

The problem is, of course, no one wants to publish software for your PC/handmade OS. Which makes it a huge problem. You can't write every piece of your OS, without wasting huge amount of time. Nor do people generally want this.

  • utopiah  3 months ago

    OSS/Linux is "our" software. It's made by us for us (or others if you don't contribute).

    Your software can be made by you, for you. It can be open source/free software if you want. Others can contribute to it, if you want but it can be open source without accepting external contributions also.

    My point was to highlight that having software made by you for your machine is not new. Arguably the way to do so changed but I would say the principle remains.

    • Ygg2  3 months ago

      > Your software can be made by you, for you.

      Yeah, but it's probably derived from OSS software anyway either via license or LLM. That said, you can customize your Linux/BSD/Haiku/TempleOS as much as you want.

      But consider the following: even in the better case of an OS making 1% of OS userbase (vs. 0.0000001%) no one wants to support it.

      Want to play Diablo? Better to sit down and waste your time.

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