I come from a UCaaS and CCaaS background and I am very aware of how people act when they believe they talking to machines. GenAI is actively eroding the skills that are need to make human-to-human connections. A perfect GenAI cannot undo that moral corruption.
I think you are right in general thrust, but not totally there on the details.
I expect we will see a divide between the people who use AI to replace their work and those who use it to enhance their work.
ESR, who is not at all a newby programmer, has Xeeted that he has found AI coding assistants to be very helpful in speeding up his development time. But he has also said that to get good results the AI assistants require you to create a proper product spec first which is not something most people can do. If you can create the spec properly then AI allows you to generate the boilerplate code quickly.
Of course if you are struggling to organize your thoughts into a proper spec then AI is going to be of little use unless you are a junior programmer and someone else did that bit for you.
Problem is how many people are like ESR, or perhaps like your PR friend, who can use AI to enhance their work as opposed to people who just use it to replace doing it themselves
I agree with all the pragmatic reasons why gen AI is bad for us but you didn't quite convince me that it would be bad even if it's perfect at what it's for. The way I read it, you seemed to say that even when we think it's good, it actually turns out to be bad in practice, so I couldn't get a grip on this imaginary world where AI is perfect but we should still hate it.
Just to play devil's advocate, I'd ask: how much humanity is there in the jobs that gen AI will seriously replace? Either way, we're looking at a labour market that's structured to make rich people richer. AI is just another symptom of a more fundamental problem.
Needs more references to Sam Altman allegedly sexually abusing his sister, which would be very Horatio Alger of him. The total departure from reality that we are living through is pants-shittingly terrifying.
Finally I've found someone who can put the extreme unease I have about GenAI and AI as a whole into simple words.
Thank you Matthew!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fPUWSv2JCI
I suspect he is with you too.
Wow - beautiful. I wish I had written anything as good as that!
I come from a UCaaS and CCaaS background and I am very aware of how people act when they believe they talking to machines. GenAI is actively eroding the skills that are need to make human-to-human connections. A perfect GenAI cannot undo that moral corruption.
AI is an excuse for all sort of shitty things, but luckily is really fragile, and still avoidable, as I outlined here: https://fossforce.com/2025/03/ai-is-not-unavoidable-not-this-ai-thats-for-sure/
I think you are right in general thrust, but not totally there on the details.
I expect we will see a divide between the people who use AI to replace their work and those who use it to enhance their work.
ESR, who is not at all a newby programmer, has Xeeted that he has found AI coding assistants to be very helpful in speeding up his development time. But he has also said that to get good results the AI assistants require you to create a proper product spec first which is not something most people can do. If you can create the spec properly then AI allows you to generate the boilerplate code quickly.
Of course if you are struggling to organize your thoughts into a proper spec then AI is going to be of little use unless you are a junior programmer and someone else did that bit for you.
Problem is how many people are like ESR, or perhaps like your PR friend, who can use AI to enhance their work as opposed to people who just use it to replace doing it themselves
I agree with all the pragmatic reasons why gen AI is bad for us but you didn't quite convince me that it would be bad even if it's perfect at what it's for. The way I read it, you seemed to say that even when we think it's good, it actually turns out to be bad in practice, so I couldn't get a grip on this imaginary world where AI is perfect but we should still hate it.
Just to play devil's advocate, I'd ask: how much humanity is there in the jobs that gen AI will seriously replace? Either way, we're looking at a labour market that's structured to make rich people richer. AI is just another symptom of a more fundamental problem.
Kind of disagree. AI used wisely adds a lot of value and it’s here to stay.
We need to learn how to write and code alongside it in ways that enhance and not diminish our humanity.
If you let go of intentionality and understanding you mire yourself in a swamp of slop you’ll never escape from.
But I’m going to keep asking cursor to “bro fix these typescript errors plz”
Needs more references to Sam Altman allegedly sexually abusing his sister, which would be very Horatio Alger of him. The total departure from reality that we are living through is pants-shittingly terrifying.