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> It does amaze me that the people who don't use these tools seem to have the most to say about them.

You're kidding, right? Most people who don't use the tools and write about it are responding to the ongoing hype train -- a specific article, a specific claim, or an idea that seems to be gaining acceptance or to have gone unquestioned among LLM boosters.

I recently watched a talk by Andrei Karpathy. So much in it begged for a response. Google Glass was "all the rage" in 2013? Please. "Reading text is laborious and not fun. Looking at images is fun." You can't be serious.

Someone recently shared on HN a blog post explaining why the author doesn't use LLMs. The justification for the post? "People keep asking me."



Being asked if I'm kidding by the person comparing Google glasses to machine learning algorithms is pretty funny ngl.

And the "I don't use these tools and never will" sentiment is rampant in the tech community right now. So yes, I am serious.

Youre not talking about the blog post that completely ignored agentless uses are you? The one that came to the conclusion LLMs arent useful despite only using a subset of its features?


> And the "I don't use these tools and never will" sentiment is rampant in the tech community right now

So is the "These tools are game changers and are going to make all work obsolete soon" sentiment

Don't start pretending that AI boosters aren't everywhere in tech right now

I think the major difference I'm noticing is that many of the Boosters are not people who write any code. They are executives, managers, product owners, team leads, etc. Former Engineers maybe but very often not actively writing software daily


> I think the major difference I'm noticing is that many of the Boosters are not people who write any code.

Plenty of current, working engineers who frequent and comment on Hacker News say they use LLMs and find them useful/'game changers,' I think.

Regardless, I think I agree overall: the key distinction I see is between people who like to read and write programs and people who just want to make some specific product. The former group generally treat LLMs as an unwelcome intrusion into the work they love and value. The latter generally welcome LLMs because the people selling them promise, in essence, that with LLMs you can skip the engineering and just make the product.

I'm part of the former group. I love reading code, thinking about it, and working with it. Meeting-based programming (my term for LLM-assisted programming) sounds like hell on earth to me. I'd rather blow my brains out than continue to work as a software engineer in a world where the LLM-booster dream comes true.


> I'd rather blow my brains out than continue to work as a software engineer in a world where the LLM-booster dream comes true.

I feel the same way

But please don't. I promise I won't either. There is still a place for people like you and me in this world, it's just gonna take a bit more work to find it

Deal? :)


Sounds good, thanks!


> So is the "These tools are game changers and are going to make all work obsolete soon" sentiment

Except we aren't talking about those people, are we? The blog post wans't about that.

> Don't start pretending that AI boosters aren't everywhere in tech right now

PLEASE tell me what I said that made you feel like you need to put words in my mouth. Seriously.

> I think the major difference I'm noticing is that many of the Boosters are not people who write any code

I write code every day. I just asked Claude to convert a Medicare mandated 30 page assessment to a printable version with CSS using Cottle in C# and it did it. I'd love to know why that sort of thing isn't useful.


> Being asked if I'm kidding by the person comparing Google glasses to machine learning algorithms is pretty funny ngl.

I didn't draw the comparison. Karpathy, one of the most prominent LLM proponents on the planet -- the guy who invented the term 'vibe-coding' -- drew the comparison.[1]

> And the "I don't use these tools and never will" sentiment is rampant in the tech community right now. So yes, I am serious.

I think you misunderstood my comment -- or my comment just wasn't clear enough: I quoted the line "It does amaze me that the people who don't use these tools seem to have the most to say about them." and then I asked "You're kidding, right?" In other words, "you can't seriously believe that the nay-sayers 'always have the most to say.'" It's a ridiculous claim. Just about every naysayer 'think piece' -- whether or not it's garbage -- is responding to an overwhelming tidal wave of pro-LLM commentary and press coverage.

> Youre not talking about the blog post that completely ignored agentless uses are you? The one that came to the conclusion LLMs arent useful despite only using a subset of its features?

I'm referring to this one[2]. It's awful, smug, self-important, sanctimonious nonsense.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=xF5rqWueWDQsW3FC&v=LCEmiRjP...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294633


I'm so confused as to why you took that so literally. I didn't literally mean that the nay-sayers are producing more words than the evangelists. It was a hyperbolic expression. And I wasn't JUST talking about the blog posts. I'm talking about ALL comments about it.


Sure, that's fair, though tone is difficult both to communicate and to detect in writing. I have just the literal meaning of your words. And I'm a very literal-minded person. :)


Agreed. I am, too. So I get it.




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