Mastodawn

Unpopular opinion and I expect there will be a lot of pushback on it, but what's a good (polite) debate if not enlightening?

Do you know how your washing machine works? (If yes, keep quiet for those who don't.)
If the answer's no, you do know one thing though I suspect. You know that you trust it to wash your clothes because well, that's what it's designed to do.
If you're not a mechanic and yet you drive, you trust that when you do all the right things and push the right buttons, your vehicle is going to move forward and get you to places. If something breaks, do you attempt to tinker with it and fix it? Maybe, but more likely you go to someone who does know.
What's my point then?
AI coding. Humans made a thing that allows non-programmers to have an idea. They can write that idea in great detail and from there, have something returned that they should of course test thoroughly and if they like it, maybe they share it.
The washing machine is similar but not the same. If you put in your powder/detergent and the right colour of clothes and tell it to start, you let it do it's thing. It washes your clothes and hopefully when you're wearing them at an important meeting, they don't suddenly fall apart, because someone beta-tested that machine ahead of you getting it, and made sure that it didn't rip the seems of your clothes silently, deadly, badly.
AI programs need to be tested the same as your expensive machine, probably many aren't. That is a problem, but the underlying idea of AI code itself being dismissed out-of-hand seems an odd one, at least to me.
Maybe because there's more scope for badness, maybe because you only ever hear the results of all the bad things going on. Like Amazon reviews, the majority of what you see are people unhappy with the product. For every unhappy person there's probably a thousand that just get on with it.
Same for AI badness. For every bad experience, there's probably a few hundred situations where someone made a thing, it just works, nobody cares but you'll never know.
Basically I feel that we maybe need to take a step back, review our hate, our personal biases a tiny bit and stop crapping all over people for doing things a different way that isn't *your* way.
Before automatic washing machines we had manual ones that took a lot more effort, and before that, people washing by-hand. They probably felt exactly the same. The cycle (if you'll pardon the pun) repeats throughout the centuries and will continue to do so, likely forever.
New thing comes along, people hate it, old way was better.
New way becomes old way, new thing comes along, people hate it, old way was better.

Shout at me as you wish.
PS. Wasn't written with aI.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj The analergy is a little flawed because you're comparing an end user to a developer. If I create a washing machine and have no idea how it works and give it to people and things break and I then have no idea how to fix them, that's on me. Any end user using any program may not know how it's going to work, but they can go to the manufacturer, outline their problems and hopefully get fixes, work-arounds or bug fixes.

@JustinMac84 You can go back to your coding agent and outline the problems and if done right, get fixes too. Not always, and not always well, but that's what testing's for isn't it?

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj So you receive a support ticket, negotiate with your user, while simultaneously submitting a support ticket to your AI of choice and negotiating with that. If you can't duplicate the problem the user is having, what would you do? You wouldn't know how to advise them and would have to pass on every piece of possibly incorrect, possibly unsafe advice the model gave you and await feedback from the user. Exponentially grow that problem for every bug

@JustinMac84 Yep, but if there were such a thing as fiver for coding instead of music, same thing would apply there. Humans could be just as devious, make something that looks good and works on the outside, steals your crypto on the inside. Not nice.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj I don't understand the point. There is Fiver for coding. You can commission people to produce software for you. Thing is, human-coded software, the culpability can be traced back. Imagine my shock, my horror, my outrage, when you told me the software I had my model produce for you introduced vulnerabilities! However did that happen? there's no way for you to prove that I didn't do it on purpose or that the model didn't mess up.

@JustinMac84 Sure, but I think you're doing what most people do right now, absolute, absolute worse-case scenario. I don't know why people do this honestly, other than if it scores points, but OK, point made. It could be terrible. It could be catastrophic but... What if it just isn't? What if it simply does the job it's intended to do?

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj would you still pass on the magic 8-ball solution?

I'm sorry you feel that these arguments are an attempt to point score. They are not. In fact, your post is very topical. there is an article, just today, doing the rounds about Amazon having a high level meeting about a spate of outages affecting its business due to AI coding. A trillion dollar company is suffering because of this.

@JustinMac84 And that's on them. If those higherups are too stupid to properly test, that is a they problem. I can only speak for myself but I spend hours, sometimes days after getting a thing made, testing to the very best of my ability and I always ask my, as you put it, 'stochastic parrot' to write out a document detailing all steps.
I'm even more than happy to share the chats I have with it, I hide nothing.
I'm not doing this seriously, more for fun and that's it.
I'm just so tired of the massive amount of negativity around a thing. If one lives life like that, I pity them. I can't do it.
There's more to life than hate, than sadness, than negative vibes.

@JustinMac84 You're not even wrong, because clearly you've done all the reading, read all the bad press, and it vindicates your own bias about it (which goes back to my post in itself) and that's absolutely your choice to make. I'm not going to change your mind. I just think it's sad that before we can enjoy a new technology, we have to crap all over it first. It happens in all sectors when a new thing comes on the scene.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj If Microsoft, a staunch proponent of AI itself is publishing studies demonstrating that AI causes cognitive atrophy, a reduction in critical thinking skills; if Amazon itself is falling over badly generated AI code; if the BBC is testing chat bots and noting sometimes a 50% failure rate; if proper programmers are noticing the cumulative and most importantly hidden errors AI coders are generating...

@JustinMac84 I rest my case. You just made all my points for me right there.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj that is missing the point of my argument. The issue is not that you might screw up. Bugs, with all the permutations, compatibility issues etc are absolutely and completely inevitable. It's not the screw-ups that worry me. It's how the screw-ups happened and how the screw-ups are dealt with, as appropriate, that concern me.

@JustinMac84 If you let it concern you. If people don't fix things they're putting out, if what they're putting out sucks so bad it hurts, kills people, don't go near it. ever. You're absolutely not wrong for that.

Noel Romey Mar 10

@Onj @JustinMac84 Thing is, I think you can have it both ways. If I write code, I make sure I know how it works and how it's created. AI is a tool for me. It saves me time. But I do know how it works, I'm an engineer and I've coded stuff by hand. I play piano ... not as good as you. I know you've used Suno or other tools to play with AI and its creativity. Would you accept a piece of music that AI made as yours? When I make things with code, I involve myself with the process, but I know I don't have time to do what I did today and write 5000 lines of it. I give it attribution as my assistant to as a writer in my code and in my application. I do, however, and will always, be able to break it apart, know what code was written, and be able to solve the problems that inevitably will come. Because I use AI as a tool to make something of the form of an application work. Without some knowledge of programming though, I would never release it because I know that it or some portion of it will break. What I'm saying is that Ai should be used with care. Know what it's maaking. Understand how it works. And for goodness sake, don't do what I know you don't do but others often do and rather than going to Google to search if something has been made that solves your problem, you employ AI to write you a program to do it. For me that's too risky, and if I've found an application that has had thousands of people run it, try to break it, push it to its limits, I'll use it more fully. I can write svupport for said app. But for the person who would rather AI a solution but does not know how their new solution works, eventually they'll get a call, know nothing of why its breaking on person B's computer, ask AI about it, be confused because AI no longer has the background that allowed it to make the thing. To make this ... thing ... shorter, just be careful. Learn about your code and how it works, you'll thank me later.g or

@ner @JustinMac84 No because I'm probably a hypocrite. If I prompt Suno to make something based on an idea it isn't mine but I could probably learn to play it. Coding feels different. It's not. I know that in my head but it feels more wholesome. I cannot explain why, and I have zero reason for thinking so.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner Props for the honesty. But then we come to the interesting question of at what point does something become yours. Hans Zimmer, John Williams, they write pieces. They tell the orchestra what to play. At what point is the prompt detailed enough for the same ownership to be legitimate, when you're just telling the AI what to play?

@JustinMac84 @ner Lol that's too deep and I don't know. What I know is that AI coding is fulfilling a mad dream I had as a kid to have a thing made that I wanted made, even if I couldn't do it. People say the same about music with Suno. If it makes them happy, why not?
Musicians often worry they'll be put out of a job. Not me.
I know what I can bring to the table. I know my skills, the way I play is mine, and even if an AI trained on my material I could still switch it up, so I don't fear, honestly. I know many do.
Nothing to do with this discussion really but adjacent.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner I've always wanted to know your take on this. Take live gigging out of the equation completely because AI can't do that yet. Pretend I don't know you. How do you feel about the following attitude and imagine it becoming more prevalent. Why would I want to listen to, much less buy Andre's music, when I can just generate my own? Why should I hire him for a project requiring recorded music for the same reason?

@JustinMac84 @ner Great question and my take on it is this:
You listen to whatever makes you happy, and you buy whatever makes you happy. If that isn't me, that's absolutely fine.
I am one of hundreds and thousands of musicians that learnt to play a particular way, and sometimes it's hard to break out of that way. AI can do what we cannot because it's trained on us hundreds and thousands, and approximate/amalgamate what it learnt, into something you want to hear.
You may not like the sound choices, so you can spend time directing it and hope it produces what you want, and if that makes you smile, that's what music should do.

I'm in a very small minority when I say that, but AI music is here to stay. The good, the bad and the terribly ugly. I've heard it all.
Eventually it will become so good you won't be able to tell it apart from real-made stuff but real made stuff is still going to get made anyway, regardless because some of us love what we do and will keep doing it.

I'm not angry, I'm not mad, I'm not arguing. I only speak for myself when I say all of that, but truly, having had AI create some stonkingly good bangers from my own uploaded material, I'd be a terrible liar if I said I hated it.

@JustinMac84 @ner I hate the shit stuff. Utterly loathe it. The thing is, a lot of pubs and clubs use AI-generated stuff now because they don't have to pay copyright on it, but it's all generated from what seems to be the same generic 'Musac in a lift' template, never anything really groundbreaking. That pisses me off. It really does. It could be the good stuff but it never, ever is.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner I hadn't even thought of that application. Losing out to a better or different musician, that's fair competition. Don't you feel mad that a robot that can soullessly churn out a thousand units to your one might dent your income stream and devalues your effort?

@JustinMac84 @ner I felt like walking out of the place when, after just 30 or so minutes, the beginning of their shit playlist came around again. If I wasn't playing (live music on the stage in there) that night, I'd have taken my business elsewhere.
As for me personally, I make such a pittance from music, it hasn't bothered my bottom line. The people that do like my stuff is a very very small crowd but they're my biggest and bestest fans and I'm honoured and privileged that they exist at all. I make more teaching one student for one hour than I make across my entire catalogue probably in a month.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner I admire your resilience and open-mindedness. I think I'd feel an existential crisis if I thought no-one might care what I had to say any more.

@JustinMac84 @ner Have you ever tested making sounds with Eleven Labs? I have. It's fun, but not gonna take away from what you/I do. I still get commissions to make things, so make things I do and I sincerely hope you are too.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner Yeah I've messed with Elevenlabs. It's good at some things. I guess it's what forms the basis for my objections to AI coding though. It's just an unreliable partner. Make this. That's nothing like what I wanted or it's wrong in this way, crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch, that'll do I guess.

@JustinMac84 @ner It's not a touch on Suno. I recently deleted my Suno account not because I didn't like it, but because I hate how they break accessibility hour by hour, no other reason. Eleven Labs voice stuff though, nothing comes close, so I maintain a paid account over there.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner I have used ElevenLabs voice stuff for projects, not least because the artists are at least compensated, a pittance, but they're still compensated. When you're sound designer director and your producers don't have the budget for extra dialogue that is still needed, ElevenLabs does fill that hole. Doesn't make me feel great though.

@JustinMac84 @ner I just use my own voice, nobody else's. I compensate myself.

Noel Romey Mar 10

@Onj @JustinMac84 You don't actually get compensation monetarily if you use your own voice do you? Just wondering how that piece works.O

@ner @JustinMac84 Nope.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner I'm not comfortable giving ElevenLabs my voice. Don't trust what they'll do with it without my consent, which is a shame because the whole "teach me how you want this said by saying it" is a fantastic feature.

@JustinMac84 @ner Put on a different voice, different accent then. James Berry has been doing that with interesting effect. I hope you don't always go through life jumping at shadows though man. I mean that in the nicest possible way, genuinely. I feel you're just... Way too cynical for your age. It must be quite headache-indusing to be staring around corners before you take them sometimes. I'm not even patronizing you, I'm being deadly serious. Sometimes you gotta live my guy. Live.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner Same tools, different hands. Seeing what's happened over the last year and two months, I think I'm right to be cynical.

Noel Romey Mar 10

@JustinMac84 @Onj I can't imagine your politicians being as stupid as our idiot in chief. Truly.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@ner @Onj They're not. They're doing fascism smarter. Crack down on encryption and peaceful protest first, before you let the fascists in. Where you guys went wrong, where Project 2025 went wrong I mean, is the stage wasn't set quite properly. We're lining up the powers for Reform UK to abuse when they get in first.

Noel Romey Mar 10

@JustinMac84 @Onj Damn project 2025 into hell

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@ner @Onj Not thinking people like You and Andre, but society as a whole. Attention spans are declining. My son struggles even having long conversations, comprehension is declining. They're all worrying trends that unregulated AI could well exacerbate.

@JustinMac84 @ner I don't know how old your son is, but mine's 16 and surprises me. When he was growing up, there were fewer screens, far less AI and I wonder if that has a part to play? I have an interview with him on the end of a recent podcast episode worth hearing if you have a quarter-hour spare. I found it enlightening and I know him. We talked about E-Waist, AI, fixing things instead of throwing them away and technology in general.

Justin Macleod Mar 10

@Onj @ner see this is the thing. Young people care about right to repair, all that stuff. It's just not proffitable for those making money to listen to them. So, as I say, this circles back. It's not AI per se that I object to, just its unethical, irresponsible, wreckless use and exploitation.

Jamie Teh Mar 10

@Onj @ner @JustinMac84 IMO, it's partly about deliberate parenting choices. My kids are the same, but we have always openly talked to them about the importance of values, of caring for others and for the world as a whole, about how tech is just a tool like anything else that can be used for good or bad, about the importance of truly understanding things rather than always taking the easy path, etc.