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There's no such thing as Just a Tool (deadsimpletech.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] 6 points 2 months ago (4 children)

This is one of the many showcases of how AI is "not like any other technology". A knife is constructed in such a way that using it to cut comes natural. Making a wheel turn on a road feels natural.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    In some respects, agreed, but in the sense that it can have both positive and negative effects, there are certainly precedents. The article mentions guns, for example. When wielding a gun, the natural mindset when someone pisses you off is, “I don’t need to take this bullshit—that mofo is about to get a bullet”. When you’ve got alcohol nearby, the inclination is to think, “I don’t need to suffer through these negative feelings—I can have a drink and make it go away”. When you’ve got a LLM, the natural inclination is to think, “I don’t need to do any tedious mental work—I can just let the machine do it”.

    In all of these cases, it takes discipline to avoid the negative sides of the tool. I say this as someone who likes to drink, owns guns, and self-hosts open weight LLMs.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    When you’ve got a LLM, the natural inclination is to think, “I don’t need to do any tedious mental work—I can just let the machine do it”.

    For me it's a bit different. I think: "Hurray I can focus on doing all the fun mental work - and let it do the tedious typing"

    I give it architecture, UML diagrams and specs, unit tests for the most important functions (all written by me by hand). Then I let the LLM do the typing and read the output.

    Just wanted to add some differentiation to your statement. I'm sure there are lots of people out there that fit your description.

    I'm in a shitty place in regards to LLMs tbh, on one hand I can't stand all the negatives (rich elite stealing and exploiting, shitty planet destroying companies, AI "art", people getting dumber and more radicalized etc. etc.). On the other hand, I'm a lazy dev and I hate typing, but I also can't make a career move to architecture rn. I just love solving hard problems with my brain and LLM lets me do that without having to grind through the parts I hate where my adhd is making me want to kms.

    I got into SE because I had fun with it in my free time. But work is not fun. Since LLMs I'm enjoying my job (read: corpo slave hamster wheel of endless shoveling money from the pockets of other people to my boss and my landlord) for the first time in my life.

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