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happytoexplain • yesterday at 11:02 PM • 7 replies • view on HN

It makes me feel actually sick that so many people can't separate their positive feelings about AI from people's misery (it must simply be "complaining"), and vice versa. As if both things can't exist, for some reason. It's a common tribalism problem, but it's been kicked up a hundredfold by AI.


Replies

bibabaloo • today at 2:19 AM

Exactly. I feel both feelings simultaneously.

AI has essentially stolen my career from me. I _liked_ having to solve complicated problems with software, I enjoyed having to get into the nitty gritty to get things done. I never really cared that much about the actual business problems I was solving, so moving up a layer of abstraction to be some sort of bastardized product manager/architect does not scratch the same itch.

OTOH, for solving problems I care about, AI has been a god send. I can achieve things that I would have never had the time for.

jacquesm • today at 12:17 AM

Precisely. I have both feelings simulataneously. I am impressed by what it can do and horrified because I realize what it will do to the job market and society in general. Meanwhile everybody seems to believe that AI will cure cancer and therefore we should let it do all the damage it will do without realizing that people will die because of AI as well (in fact have already died because of AI).

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tengbretson • today at 2:16 AM

Despair is not a tribe.

8note • yesterday at 11:47 PM

if the complaints can be properly pointed at the actual problem - the corporate culture the complainers are actively upholding or the capitalist system at large, id be much more sympathetic

its a tribalism problem, but one of trying to uphold the current tribe system while theres a pretty obvious new tribe system replacing it

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aaron695 • today at 1:33 AM

[dead]

globalnode • yesterday at 11:08 PM

if youre complaining then youre part of the problem buddy. get out of my way while i work on the future^TM /s

pessimizer • yesterday at 11:26 PM

The distinction you're making between "people's misery" and "complaining" is just emotive pandering. You're complaining that people aren't understanding the depths of your misery. That certainly annoys me; everybody has problems.

The amount of sympathy programmers are expecting others to feel about their problems has been kicked up a hundredfold now that its their jobs that have been threatened by AI. Their tribe feels pain more deeply than others, I guess.

My positive feelings about AI are marginal; my feelings about its performance and the power of the people who scheme to control it are very mixed. My negative feelings about the whining of the most coddled profession on the planet outside of finance are intense.

The problem is that making CRUD apps is not creative, and even if AI plateaus at mediocre, it will still replace a Rails monkey. If you are creative, AI has opened up a world of possibility and productivity, and you painfully feel the limitations and the stupidity of the current level of LLMs; but if you're a mechanic, it's over - I'm pretty sure that was the keynote at the last Rails con. Sorry. Hope you didn't spend all of your massive incomes on toys and rent.

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