mnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago

One reason that it’s hard to take anti-ai discourse seriously here is the underlying assumption that everybody using ai is somehow all-in and uncritical about the technology. Yet the llm for coding discourse on X looks like this… everybody was dunking on Claude code too, for example, except the takes were usually informed and funny.

I can actually have productive discussions there, about labor, about ethics, about technical quality, about novel ideas, about concrete uses, and even have fun and good laughs (do I like that the main timeline is a hellhole? Of course not). There’s a reason most people don’t switch over to bluesky or mastodon, if even mentioning that you use llms just gets you abuse in the comments, or the assumption that you aren’t thinking about the consequences of your actions.

#llms #genai #llm #vibecoding

Show threadprom™️4d ago
@mnl i do not understand why you expect a sane conversation, when there is so much threat in the air. this is precisely why we should not have a hype, and as long as there is one i would not expect a sane conversation, because certain proponents make insane threats.
Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago
@promovicz because I don’t believe in giving up. Because I think that the best way to counter anxiety and fear is to take action. Shouting at people that are in a similar situation as you could be on your side is not action. You think I don’t experience anxiety and fear, as a software developer that believes that llms can replace pretty much all software development labor, as somehow who left their job over ai slop?
Show threadprom™️4d ago

@mnl This sounds perfectly sane, but you will get bunched in with people who act naively, and the political situation around us makes it very hard to dinstinguish your behavior from a stan, because most people are less competent and experienced about these things than you are?

You are a privileged early adopter. Why does it surprise you, that this is not an equal position?

Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago

@promovicz that’s exactly my point lol. The discussion we are having is the ones I want to have. It’s been 3 years now, everybody knows what ChatGPT is, there’s front page articles about Claude code in the nytimes. Yet the discourse here is often still “AI is useless” because people assume that we’re still in the gpt-3.5 times or something. That’s _on them_, honestly. I don’t have some super privileged starting position besides being someone working as an engineer and able to afford a $20 sub. I’m just a dude with a computer. I barely have friends in tech, I’m not in a tech hub, i don’t have a degree, I don’t have a secret network of insiders.

Because taking a knee jerk anti ai stance makes it impossible to discern signal from noise, and thus take meaningful action. All that’s left is diffuse fear.

Show threadprom™️4d ago
@mnl No, the fear comes from "we're going to destroy half the tech industry" and "watch us buy all your RAM, even if we don't even promise to pay for it". You really should consider how this acts on other people, who do not share your early-adopter privilege.
Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago
@promovicz right, those are real fears, because they are true. You can’t ostrich and shout your way out of them. I’m not sure what your point is here, I am an early adopter for a product that had the biggest MAU growth ever when it was launched. I was an early adopter when 90% of the discourse here seemed to be about AI and LLMs. That’s not privileged, that’s just me actually not shutting off my brain and yelling like the rest of the crowd, but digging in and applying my hacker mindset.
Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago

@promovicz I wrote this 3 years ago: https://the.scapegoat.dev/llms-a-paradigm-shift-for-the-pragmatic-programmer/

I was called delusional (still am) and told I have no clue about software engineering. I could more easily forgive it then because models were really difficult to wield. That’s not the case anymore, anybody using even opensource models running on my local i7 (I don’t even own a gpu!) is miles ahead of where things were. And yet the discourse on mastodon doesnt seem to have progressed an inch…

LLMs: a paradigm shift for the pragmatic programmer

the scapegoat dev I have always been a software development aficionado: I love all the tools, I love all the paradigms, I love all the languages, I love...

the scapegoat dev
Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago
@promovicz think about that, models running on my 8 year old computer with no gpu are _miles ahead_ of where things were 3 years ago. !! How is that for independent control !!
Show threadprom™️4d ago

@mnl I don't really disagree. Locally run models would be cool, but you don't have the training data - right?

I also think that text-based LLMs may get beaten by token/construct-based approaches? It's not like this whole subject has no interesting angles... :)

Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago
@promovicz I don’t have the source to my wifi firmware either but it’s a compromise I’m willing to make. That’s the type of discussions I would like to have, though. Im definitely an outcomes based person. If gpt5 allows me to reverse engineer iot cameras and open source their firmware, im ok with giving Altman and co some money, for example. I think of it as “I’m perfectly ok with driving a fossil fuel powered car to deliver a batch of junk bicycles to the local bike repair club”. I could disassemble them and awkwardly carry them one by one on my own bike, but that doesn’t really help all that much, because I’ll maybe deliver 5 and not 30 and my back will hurt and I probably won’t do it again all that soon.
Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago
@promovicz but that’s very different from “you can’t fit 30 bikes in a car” (true, that’s why we have trailers and vans) or “you fossil fuel industry shill that only wants to cover the planet with asphalt and burn more oil” (not true). I’m just a dude that wants more people to have free bikes and a local bike repair club.
Show threadprom™️4d ago
@mnl In politics, this reduction argument does not work. It can work on a personal level. But the discussion you're annoyed about, is a political discussion following political logic ("all politics are about compromise through trading of concerns", "if you argue concerns, you must try to behave consistently with your argument").
Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl
@promovicz so should I by your logic shut up, stop using llms, in fact just stop using cars computers food electricity altogether? Where’s the reductionism? I am annoyed that this seems to be the only acceptable stance.
Apr 9 at 4:41pmWeb
Show threadprom™️4d ago
@mnl Welcome to politics. When I was a teenager, the state had an interest in me, and most people in public thought that hacking is "evil". That wasn't fun, but it was very real.
Show threadmnl mnl mnl mnl mnl4d ago
@promovicz the state is not calling me brainrotten on mastodon though, that's what is so upsetting.