With any of the "high power experiment" folks on YouTube, I'm always glad when they upload again... you start to worry after a few years!
I love how this video has a modern "podcast" setup, yet the lighting and camera quality are still consistent with a decade ago when I started watching the zany experiments.
I had similar question as you and conclusion as OC.
My answer maybe abstract in some ways, but:
- something that requires network effects, e.g social media, even twitter with megahitler stuff is going strong. Even though twitter's base app model could be done in 30min by LLM;
- something that maps to infrastructure in someway. Good luck copying Cloudflare, residential proxy provider, established email provider or VPS with LLM in a weekend. Though parts of it are definitely easier;
- something that is a platform (adjacent to first point). Google's search platform, ads, docs, youtube, music, email, business tools, etc. Similar to Meta (seemingly half of the world's small businesses control their business with whatsapp) and others. Though parts of those platforms can be disrupted with LLMs;
Why this is flagged? Because it's deemed AI-generated? No one is sympathetic to this?
I am (un)lucky to be in a team that for a ~year did not write code by hand almost at all. It's literal vibes, by true sense of the word, i.e. no one truly knows what's up - we only know what we have talked about with LLM.
Some anecdotes:
- I wouldn't consider any project/service done in last year - a success. Everything turned up either in trash bin or unused by anyone. Some things get usage, but it's hardly usable, inefficient and clearly an AI slop;
- Code is definitely a mess. PRs are often too big of what you'd think it would make sense, i.e. hiding one feature under one flag was a `+260 -60` size PR. Any minor change is hundreds lines of code change;
- We are locked to an LLM, only LLM will be able to fix a bug if hotfix is needed;
- We inadvertently step on each others toes or rewrite subsets of features, i.e.: is someone asks "How feature X works?" , we as a team have multiple different answers. This is because it's easy to (re)write some features and no-one cares too deeply. Developer A implemented feature in Way A, then Developer B got an idea and rewrote half of the feature in Way B, etc. In the end all developers think that same feature works in multiple different ways. In "old days" there would be at least some discussions or knowledge sharing as usually you would consult with developers who implemented something about some of its details;
- IMHO it's a management issue that swallowed AI pill, though for some reason they're happy, because PR output is only increasing. A team produces in a week: dozens PRs a year ago, then ~50-100 after `claude` subscriptions, to 500+ PRs now. For them it's literal 10-20x improvement, even though there's no value added to product IMO. And this metric is the only that matters if you want to keep the job (something about metric becoming a goal...);
I am not anti-AI luddite. I try to use it as a learning assistant on my free time and try to find some middle ground for coding (i.e. between ease of coding and understanding what's being created).
EDIT: I sometimes feel like in a fever dream. Biggest tokenmaxxxers in company complaining that some competitor/other project is AI slop, when we our slop firehose is open at 110% 24/7. How would you feel driving a car made (or flying on an airplane or walking over a bridge) by such practices? Oh we forced AI to use TDD, SOLID and other "best-practices"? Like that made any difference in all things we did last year.
> The one forced to do their work for them, are the teammates. Not the manager. The manager only care of it to be done. How it is done: doesn't matter.
I am happy for you that you weren't exposed to such managers.
What I've seen personally, together what some friends have told me and also what's here in HN (e.g. PR metrics from Anthropic, OpenAI, et al.).
The managers that swallowed the AI pill seemingly genuinely and non-ironically believe:
- 10x performance is possible now. Literally - 1 dev must do 10 developers work, also cross disciplinary. Dev will do full-stack: FE, BE, DBA, UI, UX, PM, you name it.
- Projects that have previously taken months of consideration, planning and development, now must be done in a week, by one person or at best very small team;
- Those managers don't have any tools how to measure performance - only tools are PR/commit counting mechanisms and shadow quotas of multiple hundreds PRs per week, that you will be remind of during next 1on1 or whatever;
- PR reviews? What reviews? Code quality/efficiency? What code quality/efficiency?
- Definition of done is ever changing. "You must do 10x slop", but by the end of the week "Why product looks like AI slop?". "Deliver project/task/feature", but by the end of the week "Why there's not every feature done that I could've thought of on the spot right this moment?";
Some even dared to say that asking questions to team-mates face to face is a waste of everyone's time, "just ask Claude instead". Though they will mandate return-to-office "to encourage collaboration" at the same time.
Exactly. Downvotes on your comment just proves your point.
OC says Huang is a victim. For real?
Owner and CEO of a TOP 3 company by market cap.
At that point he's not a private person, his actions have global consequences (his wife, kids most likely still are private persons, that's true, but I don't know about them).
He's in an incredible position of power against the majority of world leaders, but he's apparently "a victim" in an eyes of HN oligarch apologetic crowd?! Because he was allegedly seduced by Chinese spy? What in the sinophobia and oligarchophilia is this?
If Huang wouldn't be of ultra-billionaire class and the woman would truly is a spy - he would be in prison for treason in a heart beat. I can bet - nothing will happen and by next Monday this all will be forgotten, washed by best PR firms he can buy.
side-topic: why trucks are so popular (especially USA)? Is it all in the fake testosterone virtue signalling and pretending to be hard working country people?
To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine.
If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.
If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).
No, you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.
If you want truck adjacent vehicle, get Toyota 4runner or Highlander. Humongous cars, vast and closed cargo space. It will pull a trailer, it will haul all your stuff and family.
Because vehicles are a compromise. A truck can do everything a sedan can. A sedan cannot do everything a truck can. A flatbed truck can do more than a smaller truck - but it also is bigger and not easy to drive because of the size. The costs to own extra vehicles is very high and so people won't own different a vehicle for each use (renting is not a good answer - too often I've gone to rent something and it was sold out. Also most rentals have restrictions on use)
> To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine. If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.
Minivans and trucks get similar fuel mileage. For the average family there are not enough kids to need a minivan.
> If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).
Obviously you are not in the trades and don't know anyone in them. I've heard plenty of people in the trades debate the merits of truck vs van. They are compromises and there is no clear winner.
> you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.
If I need to tow something even once every two years then I need to own a truck. I've tried to rent a truck to tow something - turns out most rental contracts don't allow towing. There are exceptions, but the cost is so high, and finding a place to rent is so inconvenient that I will just own my own truck instead - it is worth it.
> Obviously you are not in the trades and don't know anyone in them.
Well bold of you to assume anything about me.
Where I am from:
- not a single trades person came to my place or anyone I know of - with a truck. It's either van or box truck all the time;
- only personal connection for legitimate truck use I know is electricity line repair, because of true off-road needs and often start-stop type of work;
Only trucks (ala F150) I've seen are emotional support trucks with 6L V8 gas guzzling engines taking 2 spaces in the parking lots and constantly jumping over curbs due to abysmal turning radius and their ridiculous size, that never have seen a spade in their bed.
> If I need to tow something even once every two years then I need to own a truck.
No you don't. Any conventional SUV/wagon can have a hitch and easily tow. How do you think half of Dutch or British tow their mobile homes every July on their summer holidays? It's not 5.7L small block V8 - that's for sure.
I wasn't pro truck until I lived on an island with limited infrastructure. Once you need to take care of some of your own infra, a truck is a great tool, beating your full list. That said, a beater truck is generally preferred -- you want reliable, cheap and something that you don't care if it gets banged up.
Not a “truck guy” but I have a cybertruck because it’s the only self-driving electric car that has enough room to carry my family’s stuff when we go to the lake, ocean, camping, etc. My ideal car is a van or large SUV but there aren’t electric self-driving versions of those yet.
eh, compared to salaries even shiniest macs wouldn't register in USA, especially hubs like SV. Especially if it's issued once a couple or four years.
With AI spend - especially at Anthropic/OpenAI API prices - spending 0.5-1 macbook a month worth of tokens per employee seems normal (from what I've seen, heard, what happens in this forum and thread and what my employer does).
Tokenmaxxxing (followed by commit/PR-maxxxing) is celebrated. Don't think - just launch orchestrator that will create dozen child agent sessions to do useless work to impress your superiors. If buy the end of the day you will ask to increase your token allowance - you're a superhero.
I don't think this is accurate minority power on HN to flag posts is very high. Flagging is a costless power move to surpress "off-topic" / off interest stuff. I basically can't stand looking at HN without the /active filter. The conversations usually are way more interesting
Compare this thread to one two years ago announcing Trump's Presidential victory. That wasn't flagged; thousands of comments; still US politics. No, it's clear partisanship that's hidden behind an implausible veneer of anti-politics rhetoric.
I think the majority of people that actually post on HN are left leaning, but flaggers appear to be disproportionately right leaning, given the permissiveness for retaining right leaning topics and rejecting non-right leaning topics, which makes a kind of sense because historically the right has tended to censor opposing ideas rather than debating them. And I say that as having been a republican for half my life.
One thing to note is that mods can shadowban people from flagging. You can still hit the flag button but it doesn't get counted. (I'm pretty sure this happened to me at some point.)
It would not surprise me one bit if more left-leaning users got shadowbanned from flagging than right-leaning ones.
So you’re proposing user flagging intent may by evenly divided, but the bias could entirely be the mods inhibiting the left-leaning flaggers disproportionately? Is there evidence of the flag shadow ban mechanism/biased application or is that mainly suspicion?
Yes. And I’m not saying the mods are secret right-wingers who are trying to shape the discourse, but I am saying that their implicit biases may come into play when they decide who to flagshadowban. (And also which articles to manually remove flags from: anecdotally, this seems to happen more frequently with right-aligned topics.)
This site desperately needs a public moderation log.
This is the biggest midterm shellacking that has ever happened in US history. That's worth talking about regardless of the forum.
Texas went from almost entirely Republican cabinet to almost entirely Democrat basically overnight (in the "spending ten years to become an overnight success" kind).
Republicans in that state lost --- by very wide margins --- _every single key seat_ after a 30-year run. Nobody expected that.
Okay, fine; too political. Consider that the Railroad Commissioner, who is responsible for oil and gas policy in the state, also switched parties today and that Texas is a key state for AI datacenter and EV development.
Or that "reigning in AI" is a lynchpin of the Democrat strategy...and they now control both the House and the Senate.
Or that Kansas became a Democrat-run state for the first time in NINETY FOUR years.
Or that Mississippi, a state that everyone assumed was a Republican stronghold, STILL hasn't been called because the race is too close to call by like 50 votes.
The man has absolutely bit the dog here. This is Boston Tea Party levels of historic in my opinion.
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