If it primarily targets infinite scrolling and autoplaying videos, those are straight-up dark patterns, and having less of them is good in my opinion. That said, I have no idea how likely any of this is to withstand the inevitable lawsuits.
This is by far the most perplexing part of this article for me:
> People at Git has started to work on a proposal to make the Rust programming language mandatory. I don't like Rust and, above all, I don't like its community of little extremist characters who are trying to make everyone swallow their crap by rewriting projects that have been working for decades, doing social media brigading, and other nice little gems worthy of any tiny group with totalitarian delusions. That's why when I see that a project aims to "force" the use of or the switch from C to Rust, to the extent of my possibilities, I flee from it as if I were pursued by the Balrog of the Lord of the Rings with his whip.
I've been programming for a longish time, and I've acquired my own set of opinions about programming languages, but I can't think of any that I dislike so strongly that I would need to boycott projects that use them under the hood. Moreover, even if we accept the "community of little extremist characters" claim for the sake of argument, is that at all relevant to the Git situation? I haven't seen any evidence that introducing Rust into the code base is the result of extremism, rather than just a mundane technology choice. Finally, when Rust is made "mandatory," it does not mean you must use Rust now, it just means that Rust is required to build the source code. The vast majority of people wouldn't even know that Rust was used. Even most Git developers wouldn't need to use Rust, since after more than a year from the original proposal, the Git source tree is still almost entirely written in C and shell scripts, and the amount of Rust code is basically a rounding error.
The whole Rust issue seems like a big nothingburger, and this reaction seems completely irrational to me.
Okay, but I fail to see how this eventuality results in the end of ads. Owners of websites, at least the popular ones, won't stop running ads just because they don't strictly need to. We've seen this play out repeatedly with companies pushing ads to paying subscribers who are not paying a small amount to access their services.
The other unfortunate outcome I immediately foresee is that by adding an element of risk to visiting a new site (of wasting money on something useless, even a tiny amount), people will be even more inclined to stay within walled gardens they already know rather than explore the internet. This takes a problem we already have and makes it way worse.
> Okay, but I fail to see how this eventuality results in the end of ads.
I'd bet it goes down to 0 for 99%+ websites. A few big websites might keep it, but anything that inhibits the site from generating (meaningful) data, like users posting, sharing product feedback, describing fun things to do, showing pictures of an area, etc. will be reduced. What I am betting on is most sites opting for monetizing as data generation, rather than ad serving.
Please don't filter your writing through AI or use it to revise your writing. Learn to write well in your own words. Leaning on AI will make you a worse writer, not a better one.
Revision is an integral part of the writing process. I won't say it's the majority of the effort, since in my experience finishing the first draft takes more work than anything else, but I'd estimate revision is still like 25%. If you want to be a good writer, you need to learn how to do it yourself.
I think it's okay to use external tools to find spelling errors and typos. Ideally you fix them yourself, so you train yourself not to make them in the first place. Grammar checking should also be fine, and again, ideally you fix your own words. These are all things with pretty clear right/wrong answers most of the time (although rules of grammar can be broken occasionally by good writers).
You could also have an LLM review your work and give feedback, basically having it play the role of an editor. This might be okay, but I'd advise extreme caution. How well do you understand the biases of the AI model? Studies have shown that people tend to put way too much trust in LLMs, and anecdotally talking to people I know who use AI for various things, I've been shocked at how much they trust it. In any case, in this mode of interaction with the LLM, you keep your own words at the end, but it still won't necessarily make you a better writer unless you can pretty deeply reflect on what it tells you.
However, anything else where the AI directly makes edits to your work is by definition changing your voice unless it's really small stuff. You are no longer writing in your own words at that point.
> I love building startups, and they love writing code. For me, building projects is a way to make money. For them, programming is art.
At its very high points programming approaches art, but programming is primarily problem solving, which isn't fundamentally artistic because its main goal is correctness and fitness for purpose, not aesthetic value. I'm pretty sure for most of us the choice to use LLMs or not has nothing to do with it being art or not art. If I estimate a cost-benefit analysis, the true cost of using the LLM is much more than it would likely ever provide, so it makes little logical sense to use them except in very limited situations.
By the way, I have to say this is a really strange type of article, an explanation of the supposed opinions and attitudes of non-AI-users written by an AI user, seemingly without any input from the former group. It reads a bit as if it's building a strawman to justify the author's own views.
I don't know. I have a fascination with code structure which is definitely primarily aesthetic, not practical --- which is a compulsion I have to suppress when doing code professionally for practical reasons. (Sometimes you have to deliver.)
I find it incredible when the concepts in a system fall into place and start lining up and you get these unexpected relationships that "just work". It's beautiful in the same way mathematics is beautiful. It's lovely when something is made of lots of pieces at first and then suddenly collapse and simplify into a single structure.
I also enjoy other bits of programming. I like the flow state, I like the act of creation, I like feeling like I have an impact, I like being paid. So it's not like people fall into one category or another, and it's not like programming is one single thing. There's room within any discipline for creativity and for art.
I think many professional artists probably spend much of their time problem-solving, too --- authors trying to fit plot points together, sculptors working out which materials will work with which ones.
> problem solving, which isn't fundamentally artistic
I would argue that problem solving is actually what makes any art art. When making "traditional art" you are constantly solving problems. For example, how do I make this piece of rock look like a greek god, what parts to chip off, what tools to use etc.
Art is not always made for aesthetic value, most traditional art is probably created for profit. That doesn't make it not art.
I think you might have the (in my opinion wrong) notion that there is only one "correct" way to write code. This is not true, so much so that you can identify a programmer by their signature style. Similarly to how you may identify a writer by his writing style.
Mathematics also strives for correctness before aesthetics, but is often considered an art. Programming is little different imo.
When you have scoured your deepest understanding for hours - or days - in order to rewrite a function so that it is easier to read, shorter, more correct, and a thoughtful expression of your own insights and understanding; then you will see how programming can be art.
It is more than that in the sense that I have a lot of obligations to understanding the code. The reason is that if I don't understand the code, I will not be able to answer questions that are asked to me. And those answers are generally very important for the future of the business.
Code is art in the sense that I need to arrange it such as I can actually make it maintainable, readable, easy to add new features and make it that I can answers questions very easily.
LLMs remove this ability because it doesn't let me the time to absorb the change as such that I can guaranties those 4 requirements. It just concentrate on adding new features without making sure it doesn't break the other 3 requirements.
To guaranties those for 4 points, I need a mental map of the code which llm generally remove. The more we use llms, the less of a mental map you have of the code
I agree about the cost-benefit of LLMs being negative from a logical perspective, art aside.
I'm bothered by the exact quote you pulled from the article, although I didn't mention it, because it's reticent of a certain hypocritical hot take among founders and business/marketing types who can be "generous" toward their engineers because they believe that their own artistic contribution to the project is some messianic vision of it that far outweighs the quotidian questions about how it's actually built. I didn't really want to weigh in on what I felt was that tendency in the post, because I do work successfully with a lot of people like that and I often admire the sweat and work they put into their own side of running things... but those kinds of statements do come off as somewhat patronizing if they're not backed up by truly massive amounts of hard work.
I'll also paraphrase what I said then: I like the idea in principle, but there's a fundamental problem that makes me think it would be really difficult to use on my website. The problem is that code autoformatters typically work great in like 90% of cases, but the last 10%, they make worse. In "real" code, the programmer can often opt out of autoformatting in problematic cases by adding special comments in the code, but that's a non-starter for code samples on my site because it would look tacky.
So what I actually do is manually format my code and break lines at about 64 characters. This doesn't completely solve horizontal scrolling, but hopefully it's good enough.
That's not to say I would never use this idea. There's a threshold of "good enough" where it could become worth it even if occasional workarounds are needed.
I agree that there can be a tendency to conflate the two things: how advanced the technology is, and how aesthetically pleasing what it produces is. It's also important to remember that we're not obligated to like something just because it's "pretty" or has high aesthetic value in some abstract sense.
I'm having a little trouble understanding what you mean.
> I agree that there can be a tendency to conflate the two things: how advanced the technology is, and how aesthetically pleasing what it produces is. It's also important to remember that we're not obligated to like something just because it's "pretty" or has high aesthetic value in some abstract sense.
You're right that my problem is people conflating two things, but I have no issue with how people interpret the "aesthetic outputs" as you put it. The part I'm having trouble with is the obligation you imply, that we have to "like something just because it's 'pretty' or has high aesthetic value in some abstract sense."
I for one, think that LLM art looks terrible--the output is something I often dislike aesthetically. This is a matter of taste, and similar to the question of "do I like it and want to engage with it", you're free to make your own judgements here. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer with aesthetics.
However, with the questions of "do I like the technology" and "has the technology advanced", whereas one is similarly a matter of taste, the question of "has the technology advanced" is one that can be answered objectively. Of course it matters what your trying to measure, but take realism for example--something that AI image labs often try to perfect. The fact that the AI labs have gotten drastically better at generating realistic content is undeniable. While it's up to you if this matters, whether realism has advanced can objectively answered yes or no, without bringing taste into things.
I am making no claims here concerning the "high aesthetic value in some abstract sense". I don't think such an objective value of aesthetics exists. Does this clear things up?
A lot of the stuff you wrote about is not what most of us are talking about when we call it intellectual catfishing or say your intellectual fly is open. For example, I have few problems with people using LLMs in private for purely personal things. I still won't go ahead and recommend it, but it's a decision we can all make for ourselves. Also, writing an email to your city is something you could ask your assistant to do if you were super rich, and using the LLM to do it isn't that different, so I'm not going to judge you for that.
As a more nuanced case, someone could dictate a long rambling stream of thoughts full of contradictions to an LLM to transcribe and summarize, and then they could reflect on the summary and write the real thing themselves. That's like talking to someone about a subject and writing about it afterwards, and also not something I would really take issue with.
That's my partial answer to the cognitive prosthesis question: keep it off to the side as a tool to help you do the work. There are still many caveats here, and the more complex the demands you make of the LLM, the greater the risk of some kind of break down. For example, continuing the example in the previous paragraph, if I did have the rambling conversation with an actual person who helped me refine and clarify my thoughts, I have some kind of mental model for the dialogue partner that can help me correct for some biases. With an LLM, anything resembling a mental model I could have would be very far off the mark, so I would need to be aware that I can't treat its output the same way I would treat something written by a person.
(By the way, for myself I have a stricter rule: I would only use an LLM in a way that made me a better person independently of the LLM and not dependent on the LLM, and thus I don't use them at all. That's what I actually recommend, but I don't expect everyone to adopt that rule.)
My main problem with having the LLM just do your writing is that it's simply a misrepresentation. It's wrong to claim you wrote something unless you chose the words. I really empathize with the struggle of expressing oneself clearly, but there's just no getting around this. And to be clear this isn't something pedantic or just a technicality, since the act of formulating a thought in an actual human language with valid syntax does require a level of care and attention that simply is not there unless you do it yourself.
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