Comment by cstrahan
25 days ago
That seems like an odd way to interpret what they wrote.
Imagine old school machinists saying to a CNC machinist “Ha! See, maybe you don’t jog the axes manually, but you still have to be involved in placing the stock material, and you have to do the CAD/CAM work - so did it really machine the part for you? No!”
AI is a tool like any other. It has its limitations. It has classes of problems that it is suited to handle, and others it isn’t. If it’s true that they haven’t written (as in “typed out by hand”) a single line of code, why can’t they say that without you making that statement into more than it is?
I haven’t written a single line of code in 6 months, and that’s simply fact. It is also true that I put in a lot of other work to make that feasible, but that work isn’t in the form of writing code.
“it’s mature and the next step of engineering”
Tautologically, it’s mature enough for what it is mature enough for, and it certainly is the next step in the same way that CNC was the next step for machining — if you’re not using it as a machinist, you’re going to produce less compared to those who are.
Same thing with garden hoses. Yes, you can go fetch water from a lake and splash it on your lawn, or, you know, you could just use a sprinkler connected to your garden hose. Doesn’t replace buckets. Buckets just have a narrower scope in a world where garden hoses exist.
I'm sorry but both of these are false equivalences. CNC isn't about making general machining operations faster or necessarily better. It's about making a single machine more versatile. Instead of needing an assembly line of machines you can get a bunch of different operations done on the same part without moving it to a different machine. You can also do compound operations that were otherwise highly specialized (like milling a turbocharger's radial compressor wheel). You can get the same job done with a series of manual operations though.
A garden hose vs a bucket is also the same situation. You can accomplish the same thing with either, but one might be more labor intensive.
AI is nothing like either of those. It would be like instead of a bucket you get a garden hose that points in a different direction every time you try to use it. Or instead of a 5 axis mill that rigorously executes the g-code it just randomly reinterprets tool paths each time it cuts a part. Both of these things would be worse than useless in their respective applications.
AI is different because it plays to the pliability of the software domain. Even fairly shitty, irreproducible results can be good enough for software development, if you don't look at it too closely. Make analogies to the physical world at your peril!
> AI is nothing like either of those. It would be like instead of a bucket you get a garden hose that points in a different direction every time you try to use it.
And also adds a multiplier to your water bill
Seamlessly mutating to an exponent.
If you let garden hose loose it will definitely spray all over the place given enough pressure.
The same with AI you still have to hold it and point in direction to be useful.
There is a reason why such discussions about CNC machines never happened. I wonder what it cculd be? Becausw their output is better than man-made atuff? Because they are reliable? Because their manufacturers generally don't lie?
Globally cnc machines are a little over $100billion.
It also had a logical stopping point in automation tech.
Ai is trying to do everything and wont stop
> Ai is trying to do everything and wont stop
Because it's a solution looking for a problem. All the AI companies lean in to coding because it actually helps with that to some degree but the amount that it helps doesn't justify their valuations. It needs to be good at everything to justify their target IPO price.
[dead]