What I think is also good about the piece is that it shows how using this tech eventually funnels people down a particular direction. This is captured also by this exchange on lobste.rs: https://lobste.rs/s/7d8dxv/i_used_ai_it_worked_i_hated_it#c_7jirfk

The story that people start with vs where they go is very different:

- They're really just for experts, and are assistants, they don't write the code for you
- Okay the write a lot of the code for me, but I personally don't commit anything without reviewing
- YOLO mode

Which eventually leads you to becoming the drinky bird pressing the Y key from that Simpsons episode. (Funnily enough I wrote that in my comment on lobste.rs in reply to someone else before I had even gotten to the point where I saw that @mttaggart literally had that gif)

And at that point, you're checked out. All that's left is vibes.

And unfortunately, these systems don't survive that point very well. And neither do you, in your skills and abilities.

There are a lot of other concerns but I think since a lot of people on the fediverse are opposed to these tools, they might not be very familiar with where they're currently at ability-wise. @mttaggart provides a good description that they *are* capable of solving many problems you put in front of them... and that doesn't remove the other problems they generate or involved in their process.

The slop part isn't just the individual outputs, but the cumulation, and the effect on society itself.

Is that pushing the goalposts? It may be. I think "slop" used to be easier to dismiss when it came to code because it was obviously bad. Now when it's bad, it's non-obviously bad, which is part of its own problem. And cognitive debt, deskilling, and etc don't get factored into the quality of output aspect.

But unfortunately, the immediate reward aspects of these things are going to make it hard for society to recognize.

@cwebber

It kind of feels like its going to something big happening in the press to get people to stop.

I was thinking an AI caused Therac 25, but maybe a copilot worm that wipes all windows 11 computers might get some outlawing AI code legislation.

@alienghic @cwebber

The thing most likely to get people to stop is the end of the massive subsidies for its use that the VCs are currently pouring in.

Already firms are starting to panic a little about token use for things like Claude Code, and are putting limiters in their workers that really defeat the purpose of all of the "YOU MUST USE THIS OR BE FIRED" diktats. But operating indefinitely at those prices will bankrupt Anthropic soon.

So at some point the private equity love affair with everything AI will dry up (possibly because of a Iran war-induced financial crisis), and at that point it's going to be "my org can spend $50k annually on my personal Claude tokens to make me 20% more productive . . . or it could just hire a junior dev?"

There's a chance they manage to optimize this, or get it to work using a lighter weight model. But I think it's unlikely.

@ocdtrekkie @alienghic @cwebber

And I think when that happens, there's enough sunk capital into the models and built data centers that there will be a desperate search for some way to put those to effective use, and I think they'll find something. But I don't know what it's going to be (if I did I could make myself very, very rich, probably).

But I think the downsizing/de-skilling of this period that we're in the middle of is going to leave a gaping hole in the US's tech sector capacity, and I'm not sure it's going to recover.

@cwebber @MichaelTBacon @ocdtrekkie

What I want to know is can an agent fill out my expense report, order more toner for the lab printer, or hunt my boss down for an account number.

I want it to do the boring sucky parts of my job, not the parts I like.

Oh god, the most horrifying idea.

An agent that pings you to say, "I just wanted to mention that your actions look a lot like a micro-aggression, perhaps you should take a break and calm down".

(Clippy for office behavior)

@ocdtrekkie @cwebber @MichaelTBacon

Though I'm not sure a transformer LLM is the best tool for analyzing logs.

Maybe there's a way to get to be a more forgiving parser for logs? But the analyzing logs for something exceptional that needs to be responded to is probably some other technique.