a little bit - if I install apache2 from a debian package I have at least some sense of warm and fuzzy feeling that it would be a very rare and exceptional event for like, a rogue apache2 binary to go rampaging through my system or uploading everything it finds to god knows where.
Installing "all of this was built in the last 3 months and is cutting edge" LLM stuff is very different than like, installing mariadb and then doing 'sudo mysql_secure_installation', since you mentioned database servers.
It's like comparing FedEx flying cargo airplanes in/out of Memphis in the most boring route way hundreds of times a day vs. some guy in a red bull sponsorship painted pylon racing aerobatic craft performing at an airshow in difference of risk.
and the technology exists to spy on everything you do in every single way, ignore gdpr, ignore all kinds of privacy acts, in fact you can also stalk people and find out where they live and break into their homes and look through their stuff and plant hidden cameras and other fun stuff
you can do that, but you have no clue as to why people/companies don't tend to do those things?
it is sort of funny that most of your examples of things companies "tend not to do" end up on the news fairly regularly.
big tech ignoring gdpr, ignoring or working around privacy protections, their technology being easily abused for stalking or harassment with no effort put into curtailing bad behavior, location data being bought and sold, etc.
i think the only thing from your list i haven't seen in the news in the last couple of months is employees of big tech doing break & enters.
(and this is all before we even approach the topic of data breaches!)
they still don't just completely ignore regulations, like do we really think they just don't apply to them?
we're talking about meta supposedly using facial recognition on the glasses to build a master database of faces or something
like if I was Zuckerberg I would not want to do that, it would lead to a congressional hearing and all kinds of lawsuits I'd imagine.
like where do we draw the line on plausible?
or do we just go and say yeah meta must be spying on everything and feeding everything to a database where they sell everything about you
like what about CCTV backups or robo vac camera feeds? should we assume that companies are deliberately sending all the data so they can sell raw video feeds and they just don't tell you?
I'm not counting in incompetence and data breaches, I'm talking about intentional stuff
and if all the jobs that are available are for bashing puppies on the head with a hammer, you'll do the noble thing and watch your family starve to death, right?
The reaction is not because the OP used AI to create software.
The reaction is because OP's software facilitates the outsourcing of creative writing to a agentic content mill, and many HN users take issue with that.
It seems that the only people who are hating on this aren't even writers themselves.
But very grumpy programmers on HN who probably don't write (except probably documentation) and probably AI anyway in their READMEs and even their docs.
I think that many who are angry on here are angry on behalf of writers, I've seen a writer who is actually interested in this tool, myself included.
> It seems that the only people who are hating on this aren't even writers themselves.
I will gladly be the counter-example, then. I program. I'm grumpy. I also, however, write fiction - and have for well over twenty years now.
Writing is a skill I acquired and honed through hard work, diligence, and practice. I would no more cede "creative" control of my stories to a LLM than I would load a MIDI track onto my piano and claim the piano's perfect rendition as my own.
But feel free to characterise I - and others - as "grumpy coders who probably don't write".
I am also a writer and I would gladly use LLMs in this capacity as well as this tool.
I have better use of my time having writer's block, translating in many different languages and all the boring stuff that slows me down from telling great stories in my writing.
As long as there is a human behind it who is more creative, I think LLMs should be more celebrated when used properly.
The obvious slop is from those who don't put in any of the work and that is the problem.
Every invention is a Faustian pact. It amplifies certain things and atrophies others.
Personally I think the approach I'll take with literature is the same as other things: I'll evaluate it in its merit and not try to guess on its origin. We're already awash in people accusing actual human writing of being "AI" while meanwhile AI writing slips under the radar. It's pointless. It is what it is when it arrives at my eyeballs.
If I wrote a book I would not use the AI to craft prose, not from AI-hate but because to me it kind of defeats the purpose. I would, however, use it as a first pass proofreader and editor, and maybe as a brainstorming "rubber duck that talks back." It's pretty good at those things.
-- From the link:
“This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.”
But Thamus replied,
“Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess.
For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them.
You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."
People are forgetting the basic rules of operating systems. Do not run sensitive programs as a user account - especially not as a root account!
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