Glyph“These apps will win awards at the next all-hands. In two years they’ll be unmaintainable tech debt some poor soul inherits and rewrites from scratch.”
https://leehanchung.github.io/blogs/2026/04/05/the-ai-great-leap-forward/
JP@glyph the analogy stands on two legs and all but this has an undeniable "american/capitalist looking at something extremely american/capitalist happening and cries 'what is this, the THIRD WORLD??!?'" energy to it
@jplebreton somehow I do not think Han Lee is doing scaremongering about the degenerate Other when he discusses Chinese history. I have some family history with this particular series of events and it is one of my go-to examples for how “capitalism” and its profit-motive worship is a poor explanation for the inherent human trait of wanting to maximize a metric and do a “good job” for authority figures. AI mania is a great example also, because there’s clearly no profit here
@glyph obviously i wasn't calling him racist. the people who died in the Great Leap Forward were doing something they knew was directionally better than the century of colonial exploitation they'd just survived. they were desperate and willing to put faith in leaders - that is the human tendency on display there. the people driving the current bubble are very comfortable but they want more power. these are very different drives and it's a somewhat familiar form of poor taste to compare them.
@glyph Lee and the many other people who have contributed to and profited from the current bubble have all the resources in the world and access to all human knowledge and are driving the world towards a second great depression for no good reason, so him pausing briefly to punch down on a great tragedy and go "haha stupid commies!"... like okay, point for identifying herd behavior. are his values or course of action changing?
@jplebreton the messenger leaves something to be desired here; there is a strong element of “we are all just looking for the guy who did this” here. I am definitely not looking to valorize Han personally. but much of the best research coming out about the harms of this technology is coming from people deeply enmeshed in it. I don’t see this as making fun of communists unless you think he believes the whole AI industry are also “commies” though
@glyph This is very case-by-case for me; I think those deeply enmeshed have some of the most misguided beliefs about it, but others are able to see parts of it more clearly.
With Han I am wary (from looking at the rest of his writing on the subject) that one of his fundamental beliefs is that this is a good and necessary/inevitable social transformation, that is currently being ruined by Stupid people. To me that is both an incorrect (if emotionally satisfying) diagnosis and remedy.
With Han I am wary (from looking at the rest of his writing on the subject) that one of his fundamental beliefs is that this is a good and necessary/inevitable social transformation, that is currently being ruined by Stupid people. To me that is both an incorrect (if emotionally satisfying) diagnosis and remedy.
@jplebreton I feel like the words of the piece on their own are a valuable and correct observation, but your reading is also valid (particularly in context of his implicit priors) and I absolutely agree with you about that diagnosis and remedy. to the extent that the historical comparison works it is BECAUSE it points towards a malign systemic influence on individual behavior. so, stopped clock, maybe.