11 ms·

Maybe building something? It doesn't matter much that the programming language was English and built by an LLM and a harness. They created something they wanted

Maybe building something? It doesn't matter much that the programming language was English and built by an LLM and a harness. They created something they wanted that wasn't there before.

mostlysimilar 3mo ago
It does matter. Drawing a stick figure and having a machine print over it with a realistic image doesn't make you an artist, and no, you shouldn't be proud of it.
- senordevnyc 3mo ago
  Or we could, you know, let people feel proud of whatever they want?
  - mostlysimilar 3mo ago
    Call me old fashioned but I take pride in things I work hard to achieve. I think it's embarrassing to be proud of AI output of any kind, be it software or art or writing.
    - acheron 3mo ago
      Hope all your programs are written in machine code. Wouldn’t want to be proud of compiler output.
      - mostlysimilar 3mo ago
        I mean yeah? Wouldn't you be more proud of your ability to write a program in machine code than you would in assembly? Or more proud of assembly than of C? Or more proud of C than of Python? Each stage takes greater effort, effort which creates skill. Those hard-earned skills are accomplishments to be proud of.
      - bigstrat2003 3mo ago
        When LLMs are remotely comparable to compilers, your analogy might hold water. But in the world of today, it holds none.
    - rpdillon 3mo ago
      But you're acting like everything that you use AI to build is easy to achieve, and that doesn't seem to be true.
    - senordevnyc 3mo ago
      And I’m sure ctoth’s non-coder friends will be just devastated to hear that some random online account is embarrassed because they’re proud of a little app they created for fun.
  - jplusequalt 3mo ago
    Sure, you can feel proud of whatever you wish. But don't share that shit with others and expect them to feel similarly proud of what you did.
    - senordevnyc 3mo ago
      lol, you’re literally talking about non-coders that GGGP said they know. No one is sharing their AI stuff here asking you to be impressed.
      - bigstrat2003 3mo ago
        > No one is sharing their AI stuff here asking you to be impressed. That actually happens all the time on Show HN these days.
- john_strinlai 3mo ago
  is there a list somewhere that i can check what i am allowed to be proud of and what i am not allowed to be proud of? edit: if anyone wants to enlighten me, why do you care if someone is proud of something? does it hurt you somehow?
  - mostlysimilar 3mo ago
    No, but come on. If you insert a computer into your brain and wake up tomorrow speaking German, would you be proud you could speak German? Wouldn't you rather work diligently to learn the language and be proud of that effort?
    - john_strinlai 3mo ago
      would i? no. would i care if someone else is proud in that scenario? also no.
      - mostlysimilar 3mo ago
        Alright, we’re each entitled to our opinions on the matter.
    - QuantumNomad_ 3mo ago
      Depends on why the person is wanting to be able to speak German. If you only want to speak German for its own sake, then maybe it does seem silly to be proud of what the brain computer did for you. But there are many other reasons to want to be able to speak German. Thanks to his brain computer, a French cheese maker could travel to Germany to promote his cheeses in a new market to great success without having to rely on the German speaking skills of expensive to hire people, and without wasting years to learn German on his own when all he wanted to do was to make cheeses and grow his customer base for his cheese. German in and of itself was never a goal to him. Just like computer programming is not a goal in and of itself to a lot of people, and who would otherwise have to spend time to learn programming instead of doing the thing they want to do, or having to hire software engineers that might cost more than they could ever hope to afford. And even though the computer is doing something for the person, they are leveraging that for something that they feel pride and accomplishment in. Such as for example to use German (done by the computer) to expand your cheese customer base into Germany (your own accomplishment that was only possible thanks to the existence of the German speaking skills of the computer).
the_af 3mo ago
I get where you're coming from, but for completely non-technical people, it seems to me the more precise analogy is not "building" but "ordering online". Or hiring someone to do something for you. If you order a pizza from an app, and assume you can pick ingredients from a checklist, would you consider it "making" a pizza? Would people get the feeling of accomplishment?
- mostlysimilar 3mo ago
  That's a better analogy than my dumb drawing one. You can be happy you got your pizza and you can enjoy the taste but it is not an accomplishment to be proud of.
  - rpdillon 3mo ago
    It's mostly that how much you decide to involve AI as a spectrum. To extend to the pizza analogy, I feel like you're telling me that because I used dough that I bought at the store, I shouldn't be proud of the pizza I made, even though I made the sauce and cut the pepperoni and the sausage and baked it myself on a peel covered with cornmeal. That's not the same as just ordering it on DoorDash.
    - the_af 3mo ago
      Agreed there are nuances, but in the context of this conversation about TFA, the suspicion is that this is mostly on the "100% AI" side of dial. There's also a "high volume, low quality" aspect to the PRs, as evidenced by the fact that the bots (or humans) don't read or follow the repo's contribution guidelines. The very concept of "reverse centaur" implies a balance towards the "order pizza online" side of the equation.
  - ctoth 3mo ago
    The pizza analogy smuggles in this idea of cheep/mass-produced. I'm talking about blind people who can now prompt their way to an accessibility mod for their favorite game, the sort of thing which literally would have never been written before. How you know it wouldn't've been written is by counting the accessibility mods pre and post LLM. Now generalize this. Every tiny community, every person with a disability, everybody for whom the default software doesn't work right? Can now change it specifically for them. Not add peperoni, that's far too low-dimensional to capture what is happening. Actually build their own interface, be able to use something they simply didn't have access to before, and critically not depend on another programmer (there are like a dozen of us blind ones!) to build something for them.

Maybe building something? It doesn't matter much that the programming language was English and built by an LLM and a harness. They created something they wanted that wasn't there before.

mostlysimilar 3mo ago

It does matter. Drawing a stick figure and having a machine print over it with a realistic image doesn't make you an artist, and no, you shouldn't be proud of it.

senordevnyc 3mo ago
Or we could, you know, let people feel proud of whatever they want?
- mostlysimilar 3mo ago
  Call me old fashioned but I take pride in things I work hard to achieve. I think it's embarrassing to be proud of AI output of any kind, be it software or art or writing.
  - acheron 3mo ago
    Hope all your programs are written in machine code. Wouldn’t want to be proud of compiler output.
    - mostlysimilar 3mo ago
      I mean yeah? Wouldn't you be more proud of your ability to write a program in machine code than you would in assembly? Or more proud of assembly than of C? Or more proud of C than of Python? Each stage takes greater effort, effort which creates skill. Those hard-earned skills are accomplishments to be proud of.
    - bigstrat2003 3mo ago
      When LLMs are remotely comparable to compilers, your analogy might hold water. But in the world of today, it holds none.
  - rpdillon 3mo ago
    But you're acting like everything that you use AI to build is easy to achieve, and that doesn't seem to be true.
  - senordevnyc 3mo ago
    And I’m sure ctoth’s non-coder friends will be just devastated to hear that some random online account is embarrassed because they’re proud of a little app they created for fun.
- jplusequalt 3mo ago
  Sure, you can feel proud of whatever you wish. But don't share that shit with others and expect them to feel similarly proud of what you did.
  - senordevnyc 3mo ago
    lol, you’re literally talking about non-coders that GGGP said they know. No one is sharing their AI stuff here asking you to be impressed.
    - bigstrat2003 3mo ago
      > No one is sharing their AI stuff here asking you to be impressed. That actually happens all the time on Show HN these days.
john_strinlai 3mo ago
is there a list somewhere that i can check what i am allowed to be proud of and what i am not allowed to be proud of? edit: if anyone wants to enlighten me, why do you care if someone is proud of something? does it hurt you somehow?
- mostlysimilar 3mo ago
  No, but come on. If you insert a computer into your brain and wake up tomorrow speaking German, would you be proud you could speak German? Wouldn't you rather work diligently to learn the language and be proud of that effort?
  - john_strinlai 3mo ago
    would i? no. would i care if someone else is proud in that scenario? also no.
    - mostlysimilar 3mo ago
      Alright, we’re each entitled to our opinions on the matter.
  - QuantumNomad_ 3mo ago
    Depends on why the person is wanting to be able to speak German. If you only want to speak German for its own sake, then maybe it does seem silly to be proud of what the brain computer did for you. But there are many other reasons to want to be able to speak German. Thanks to his brain computer, a French cheese maker could travel to Germany to promote his cheeses in a new market to great success without having to rely on the German speaking skills of expensive to hire people, and without wasting years to learn German on his own when all he wanted to do was to make cheeses and grow his customer base for his cheese. German in and of itself was never a goal to him. Just like computer programming is not a goal in and of itself to a lot of people, and who would otherwise have to spend time to learn programming instead of doing the thing they want to do, or having to hire software engineers that might cost more than they could ever hope to afford. And even though the computer is doing something for the person, they are leveraging that for something that they feel pride and accomplishment in. Such as for example to use German (done by the computer) to expand your cheese customer base into Germany (your own accomplishment that was only possible thanks to the existence of the German speaking skills of the computer).

the_af 3mo ago

I get where you're coming from, but for completely non-technical people, it seems to me the more precise analogy is not "building" but "ordering online". Or hiring someone to do something for you. If you order a pizza from an app, and assume you can pick ingredients from a checklist, would you consider it "making" a pizza? Would people get the feeling of accomplishment?

mostlysimilar 3mo ago
That's a better analogy than my dumb drawing one. You can be happy you got your pizza and you can enjoy the taste but it is not an accomplishment to be proud of.
- rpdillon 3mo ago
  It's mostly that how much you decide to involve AI as a spectrum. To extend to the pizza analogy, I feel like you're telling me that because I used dough that I bought at the store, I shouldn't be proud of the pizza I made, even though I made the sauce and cut the pepperoni and the sausage and baked it myself on a peel covered with cornmeal. That's not the same as just ordering it on DoorDash.
  - the_af 3mo ago
    Agreed there are nuances, but in the context of this conversation about TFA, the suspicion is that this is mostly on the "100% AI" side of dial. There's also a "high volume, low quality" aspect to the PRs, as evidenced by the fact that the bots (or humans) don't read or follow the repo's contribution guidelines. The very concept of "reverse centaur" implies a balance towards the "order pizza online" side of the equation.
- ctoth 3mo ago
  The pizza analogy smuggles in this idea of cheep/mass-produced. I'm talking about blind people who can now prompt their way to an accessibility mod for their favorite game, the sort of thing which literally would have never been written before. How you know it wouldn't've been written is by counting the accessibility mods pre and post LLM. Now generalize this. Every tiny community, every person with a disability, everybody for whom the default software doesn't work right? Can now change it specifically for them. Not add peperoni, that's far too low-dimensional to capture what is happening. Actually build their own interface, be able to use something they simply didn't have access to before, and critically not depend on another programmer (there are like a dozen of us blind ones!) to build something for them.