dumas ijit

mf

settle down bobby singer

is it just me, or is the dread around what is coming with ai not as pronounced as it should be

am i the only one who has gone from intrigued to interested to excited to amazed to terrified?

it's competing in a pretty busy landscape of dread

Measles, Nazis, Skynet.

The fear should lie in the motives of those pushing the technology and in the people who has no understanding of what the technology really is, how it works, and what it is/isn't capable of.

What's being called AI, isn't, and "AGI" likely isn't possible without revising the way computers have functioned on the most basic level since they first existed. I would be genuinely excited for actual AI to be a thing, but anyone telling you we're close is badly mistaken or lying.

Most of the current risk is, like so many other things, a capitalism problem. A huge and exploding investment in LLMs, data centers, etc. for a technology that is currently losing money and doesn't deliver what is promised isn't sustainable. The few people controlling the technology can't afford to have it fail no matter what the human or ecological collateral damage is.

The other, more immediate problem with it is that it has turbocharged the disinformation and misinformation engines.

*who have no understanding

Also, the people heading the LLMs don't understand how a brain works if they think the way their systems are built can achieve intelligence. Even those who specialize in neurology won't claim to know precisely how the brain works. The Sam Altmans et al don't even understand how their own LLM's function on a certain level. Couple that with their inability (and in most cases unwillingness) to install effective guardrails on even the limited LLM models that exist now, and we have a recipe for disaster. Still, they will push the technology in a frenzy to extract wealth and vie to be the first to reach AGI regardless of consequence, while users flock to it without considering the negative impacts.

oh, too be clear, i wasn't saying ai was the only thing to be dreadful about, but i dont hear the worry i have from others i interact with save for a few around ai specifically.

furthermore, i am not at all worried about ai in the terminator/dystopian extinction level threat in any way. my worry is 100% around

Most of the current risk is, like so many other things, a capitalism problem

and those that control it, or at least the ones currently making the biggest leaps

my worries are around the changes to the job market, economy, and the social impacts for younger generations like my son who will grow up not knowing the pre ai world

parts of my job are (almost) becoming trivial for anyone with a $40 month copilot subscription, and as fast as this is moving, it won't be long before the majority of my job wont make sense to pay someone to do. the prez of the company is already on a cost-cutting/productivity-doubling tirade, and as long as ive worked here, i dont think id be immune to a layoff (maybe, im still on the fence about this).

willsmithspaghetti1.gif and willsmithspaghetti2.gif were only 2.5 years apart. shits moving faster

My career is definitely on the clock.
Maybe a few more years... I worry about my team TBH. Maybe they'll have me stick around to drive, but they're not going to need all of these devs.

The even crazier thing, and what tanked our stock... is that it's not really so much "Hey we don't need these devs anymore..." but increasingly it's trending towards, "Hey we don't need software anymore"
So... it could be the whole product and company, not just the developers, that becomes unnecessary. But that would be further out than a few years.

Yesterday I did 2 months worth of work. It was planned out prior to Claude Code adoption.
I already wanted to rework the tasks that were made by another developer because they were too granular and the estimates were high because of that... but as I was doing that with AI help, it sort of became just, "Eh, let's just do it all right now." .. and we did.

Bernie Sanders interviews Claude

i get some heavy criti-hype vibes from that video

i'm curious to hear from people who actually handle code
when LLMs are generating huge amounts of it for a project
what happens when there's an error? are these LLMs able to understand the code and figure out errors, or do they just pretend to and shit out more code to "fix" it?

because from where i'm sitting it kinda seems like a house of cards that's going to come crashing down, and then they'll need devs and nerds who can actually understand the code they're looking at and fix it

AI is aliens. They’ve taken over. Just roll with it

yo these aliens are dumb as hell

LLMs are great at generating a base level code to work off of but terrible at troubleshooting without human guidance.

it's not really so much "Hey we don't need these devs anymore..." but increasingly it's trending towards, "Hey we don't need software anymore"

this is what i started to think too. knocked out a highly configurable and flexible file import service we desperately needed for an accounting dashboard, and somewhere along the way i was thinking that in not too long, nobody would need this service because an agent could just be told what to do and automated. no need for a semi complex configuration wizard or dashboard to monitor for errors... just have the agent do it and let you know if there are problems

same with the accounting dashboard. instead of me setting it all up and trying to think of all the functionality they need, just let the cfo converse with an agent every morning...

im just a temporary middle man

and i dont know what models you guys are using, but the troubleshooting and approaches it takes to fixing things has come a long way from 6 months ago

the last 2 decently sized projects i threw at claude were finished in one pass. it did the build checked for errors and tested the apis and fixed things before i even had a chance to look at it

its really insane

Ransome said:

LLMs are great at generating a base level code to work off of but terrible at troubleshooting without human guidance.

yeah, but WITH guidance, they can do a lot...
like, i've taken to making claude code write bat files for me
just because i hate bat syntax
and i pretty much always have to remind it that it can't use enabledelayedexpansion when it's working with strings that have ! in them
which is basic basic stuff that i SHOULDN'T have to tell it
but as long as i can catch its dumb mistakes
and tell it how to fix them
it does well...

what it does NOT do well is being given a pile of code and just being told to fix it.
it spins around and around more and more absurd and kludgy ideas, completely failing to recognize whatever root cause it's trying to blindly work around
unless you point it out specifically.

so, like, if you think of it as a "tool" with capabilities and limitations, it's good at being that tool.
if you want it to be a magic genie that solves your problems for you, it's terrible at being that.

stile said:

so, like, if you think of it as a "tool" with capabilities and limitations, it's good at being that tool.
if you want it to be a magic genie that solves your problems for you, it's terrible at being that.

the problem i foresee here is that management doesn't understand that it's a tool that requires someone to drive it
and thinks they can fire all the drivers and tell the tool to do it

threephin said:

i'm curious to hear from people who actually handle code
when LLMs are generating huge amounts of it for a project
what happens when there's an error? are these LLMs able to understand the code and figure out errors, or do they just pretend to and shit out more code to "fix" it?

The way I use it, there is no error... or I should say there is no error beyond the point that I would have made an error myself.
I don't let it check-in, and I don't even let it compile, though it could do both.
I tell it what my goal is, I put it in planning mode and I guide it in creating the plan along the way. We switch to implementation mode, I approve each change... if I don't like the change I tell it why and what to do instead.
It's very much me sitting over the shoulder of another never-tiring very-fast developer and telling them, "No, not like that. Do it like this." Which was already my job.

what it does NOT do well is being given a pile of code and just being told to fix it.
it spins around and around more and more absurd and kludgy ideas, completely failing to recognize whatever root cause it's trying to blindly work around
unless you point it out specifically.

While it certainly can do that... That's not been my experience. I actually point it at our entire codebase, a suite that's over 25 years old, a mixture of C++, VB6, C#, ASP.NET, Angular, Java and even within those a whole different set of patterns and standards, etc. etc. and it figures it out just fine.
I have an MD file that stresses that matching the existing pattern of the area you're in is the most important aspect. I ask it to analyze the patterns of nearby code, and if confronted with a decision about which is the standard, "Hey class A did it like this but class B did it like this." It is to ask me which is the better example, etc..

I've found that dealing with the giant pile of code, understanding it, knowing what needs fixed is where it excels at. It's funny seeing it hop around the code base using the same tips and tricks that I've been teaching my developers for 15+ years without me telling it how. "Okay, we're on the client and it's making a call using MT8/MN1 to the VB6 app server, so I need to look into the handler for MT8/MN1 on the server. Found it." Like, it didn't look at the 100 layers of infrastructure inbetween, the tried and true stuff that is relevant to the issue. It certainly could have, it's fully capable of following the calls and often does so. But it knew just to hop over to the final destination on the server, exactly how I tell new devs not to get mired in "breakpoint debugging" as I call it. New devs will be like, "Then it goes into, then it calls, then it does, then it goes..." like... I don't need the full fucking stack of our messaging tech.

"tried and true stuff that isn't* relevant to the issue"

Like I said, I'm constantly guiding... but the first prompt gets the ball rolling. Here's an example of what I would ask it to do:

Please analyze the way that XXXX works from the old WinForms XEntry.cs form. Keep in mind that that form itself was a re-write of a now gone older VB6 form that you won't have
access to, the shell of that old VB6 form now encompasses our WPF new X form (XEntryShell, XEntryView, XEntryViewModel). I suspect that the way Xs interact
with XXXX systems and forms in our software could probably be simplified, and I don't just mean direct interactions but the whole process itself as it relates to XXXX. But we also don't
really want to make changes to the XXXX forms or classes outside of XEntry, since those are likely used for modules than just Xs. So first, explore and explain how the
existing XEntry works, and then pitch an idea for how it should work for the new WPF X form... On one end of the spectrum I would expect us to re-use existing VB6
MessageType/MessageNumber calls and have most of the logic outside of DotNetInterop code, and on the other end of the spectrum would be like a complete rewrite solely inside of
RecordsInterop and DotNetInterop.

Then it starts investigating and cooking up the plan:

● I'll start by exploring the codebase in parallel to understand the XXXX integration with Xs from multiple angles.

● Explore(Explore new WPF X form)
⎿  Done (60 tool uses · 114.2k tokens · 8m 21s)
(ctrl+o to expand)

● Great, I have a thorough understanding of the XXXX infrastructure now. Let me launch a Plan agent to design the recommendation.

● Plan(Design XXXX X simplification plan)
⎿  Done (80 tool uses · 97.8k tokens · 8m 34s)
(ctrl+o to expand)

● Good, I have detailed analysis from all three agents. Let me verify a few key details in the ViewModel before writing the final plan.

It present the plan and I tweak... we do some iterations of that. Then onto implementation, which will also require tweaks. But I don't look at these tweaks like, "Oh it did something totally wrong/stupid," but they're more small quibbles or preferences usually.

If I was to expand that first Explore bullet point and see the instructions it gives itself:

● Explore(Explore new WPF X form)
⎿  Prompt:
I need to understand the new WPF X form structure and any existing XXXX integration. Very thorough exploration.

1. Find and read files named XEntryShell, XEntryView, and XEntryViewModel (these are WPF files)
2. Look for any XXXX-related code or references in these WPF files
3. Search for how the WPF X form currently handles or plans to handle XXXX operations
4. Check for any VB6 shell code that hosts the WPF X form (the VB6 form that now acts as a shell)
5. Look for any commands, buttons, or UI elements related to XXXX in the WPF X context

Search broadly across the codebase.
⎿  Response:
Perfect! Now I have comprehensive information. Let me provide you with a thorough exploration report of the WPF X form structure and XXXX integration.

Comprehensive WPF X Form Structure and XXXX Integration Report:

And following that is huge (but also summarized/concise) list of its findings for just that little sub-research task itself. This is what it will use to feed into the actual implementation later. It has very detailed notes and understanding built up which allows it to execute efficiently later.

I gave you a small amount of what was actually a ton bullet points, only expanded one of the bullet points, and then only showed you 10% of the interior of that bullet point. These are very similar to both the formal/planned and informal/unplanned research that a developer would do when faced with a task. We often even make items on board specifically to give a developer time to research the code base and come up with a plan. Increasingly that's not necessary. Even using the AI to do that part doesn't really seem that worthwhile anymore... why are we going to copy that plan out of the AI terminal, put it in an item... that we're just going to feed back to the AI anyway? Just do the task at this point. It's a few minutes to hours away.

threephin said:

stile said:

so, like, if you think of it as a "tool" with capabilities and limitations, it's good at being that tool.
if you want it to be a magic genie that solves your problems for you, it's terrible at being that.

the problem i foresee here is that management doesn't understand that it's a tool that requires someone to drive it
and thinks they can fire all the drivers and tell the tool to do it

yepyepyep
it's not a magic bullet
but the people who are most excited to use it THINK it is
which is just an absolute time bomb
literally and figuratively

it's pages like this I'm glad i can't read

this is all just conspiracy theory stuff anyway

im sure it’ll all blow over and go back to normal when this fad runs its course

it's possible, but i do think this is somewhat of a game-changer, even if the people pushing it don't have any clue what they're pushing.

i know there's a lot of technical distinction and whatnot over the distinction between LLMs, AI, etc.,
but from most peoples' perspectives, it's all irrelevant because they just want to ask the computer things and be told things.
the capability to ask a computer a question in natural language and get a response in natural language
is a goal humans have been consciously pursuing for a hundred years
and now that it's here
i don't see us as a species willingly giving it up.
for better worse or for worst.

about the best thing we can do right now is try to mold the thing-that-answers into something that we WANT to have answer,
and also do anything we can to help people understand what it can do, what it can't do
and most importantly
what it can't do BUT IT CLAIMS IT CAN DO

nah, it’s all bullshit

i predict everyone just forgets all about it by june

I tried to “Bobby drop tables” it but no luck

oh yeah shit the natural language thing

i hate it so much

i like talking to the computer in shorthand and getting answers efficiently without a bunch of glazing

if i want something to make shit up and lie to me using too many words i'll just talk to a person

"You're definitely on to something here, let's dive in" shut the fuck up

i trained that out as fast as i could.
fucking grating

Over time it started being sarcastic
and i had to beat that loose too

he AI Safety Expert: These Are The Only 5 Jobs That Will Remain In 2030! - Dr. Roman Yampolskiy

https://deathbyclawd.com?url=slorm.net

Sorry y'all

yikes, that site is something else

bad tagline timing lol

- Maintain an air of mysterious rebellion
- Never clarify what the product actually does
- If pressed, pivot to existential philosophy

lol

exsqueeze me

did ai come up with that

the stuff around anthropic's Claude Mythos is wild

https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/53566bf5440a10affd749724787c8913a2ae0841.pdf

section seven if you want to skip to the 'oh shit' parts

https://x.com/goodalexander/status/1953998907505315886

Here's what appears to me a credible perspective on what's coming.

ive been saying that for a while

learn all your shit because you taught our agents for 20 bucks a month and oh guess what, we just raised the price to 20k per month

dont like it? one of our agents just created your competitor from scratch in an hour

good luck!