Leave Me Behind

There are a number of comments here where people open up about their contrasting experiences of not being a part of a programming community. Those are well addressed, I think, but there is another point to consider.

We need to remember the people, that we may never talk to, that are downstream of all of this software. Not necessarily “the users” as there are many pieces of software meant for other devs, but I think the users deserve consideration nonetheless.

Handing over software quality to the stochastic code extruder is causing a sharp drop in the quality of software put out into the world. This is on top of all of the problems that existed before LLMs, like human error and perverse financial incentives. Shipping poor quality and user hostile software actually hurts people. Real people. Harm is caused in both big and little ways to living, breathing actual people. This “inevitable” slide into generative AI harms every single person it comes into contact with. The devs, the users, the investors, everyone. Those harms may happen at different times and in different ways and the creeping nature of it all might make it easier to ignore, but it’s happening.

“AI” is a blight. You can leave me behind as well.

My experience programming is so much different than theirs makes me wonder what I missed out on. I have always programmed on my own, and I can't even think about a single time I have talked to a person in depth about programming (both online and in person). It sounds fun and exciting, but unfortunately I have simply never had the opportunities in life to do so.

For me, AI is the first time I have ever been able to get something resembling an opinion on specific problems/situations that I encounter. I can ask it a very specific question about what the best approach is for what I am working on and it can give me an answer that I read over and consider before deciding on what approach to take. I still frequently get answers that are nonsense, but even then it helps me think deeper on how I should approach the problem because I can ask myself "Are the statements made by the AI true?".

Its a lot more fun when you start playing around with finetuning different models, learning basic differences in their architecture and co.

You can experiment with different agent harnesses (pi, hermes, opencode, goose, ..) do experiemnets with gastown and paperclip ai.

I also get a lot of fun at experimenting with ideas i have and had were the focus is not the pure programming language but the application.

But i do think and we will see, as soon as there are clear winners of agentic platforms, we will finetune and adjust these agents.

Mario Savio said a few lines when the industrial revolution peaked:

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious Makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it That unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all

Even then we have machines doing it all and yet we all function well. I think eventually this would be a tool usage which will take human intelligence to another pinnacle.

This article was very eye-opening for me. I think I understand the author's pain and I could certainly feel it while reading the article. The fact that it was "the people" that made the difference kind of surprised me, and then I realized it was because I have seldom had the experiences he's had and that this might have a major impact on the way I (and others) view the technology.

For me, building software has often been a solitary process in which I was far more obsessed with it than those around me. I'm not in a tech-heavy area and I don't have a ton of well-informed people to talk to about programming, software engineering, or AI. I have had experiences like the author in which I needed to learn a new technology or a new language but ended up doing so on my own at home, not with the assistance of a much more knowledgeable developer with significantly more experience.

To me LLMs have left us in a situation where the following things are true and moving forward lies somewhere in figuring out how to reconcile / resolve these things:

- You can use LLMs and learn things or not learn things; this is a result of the approach, desire, and willpower of the user.

- There is a level of skill associated with using LLMs much like nearly everything else in existence. The user's skill level impacts their perception of the technology and also affects the way those around them view the technology. Unskilled users will generate more negative sentiment.

- Some people love to do the things the machine is good at and do not want the machine to do them, while others hate to do the things the machine is good at and want the machine to do them. I realized at some point this year that I don't love programming anywhere near as much as I love building and designing systems and solving problems.

- Software development is many things wrapped up in one and talking about it as a single thing makes it more confusing. Some people like to think through the logic of the application and have an LLM write the code while others want the LLM to think up the solution, implement it, and test it. These are two very different people with likely different goals and different desires.

- When someone else looks at Claude or ChatGPT they might see something completely different than what you see.

I hope some of this resonates with others.

The problem with (propietary AI) is that they (anthropic/google/openai/etc) gain more from the usage of AI than you. Other tools like postgres, gcc, git, HTTP, emacs, etc. don't "gain" anything if you use them (well, they gain popularity and perhaps more contributions, but that's it). The more you use Claude, the richer anthropic gets and the easier for them to position themselves in a place of power, power to dominate the programming of the world. That's sad. So even we all like so much propiertary AIs, we should think twice what we are giving in exchange (and no, it's not just the $200/month what we are giving)

I'm all for open models, open source agents, etc. I don't want to give more power to the big corps, though. Imagine what software engineering could become in 5 years if all thse big corporations gain even more power over us. It's a terrifying scenario (e.g., pay more so we don't show you ads in between claude code prompts; pay more so that the produced code doesn't incrust ads in your app...). Do you really want the same shitty experience we have now in the global internet, but deeply ingrained in your software engineering workflows?

I am a senior php dev, and I was recently transferred to a Ruby on Rails project. It's completely foreign to me. Our client has advised us to use LLMs as much as possible. The problem is that it's virtually impossible to learn a codebase when you're using AI to do the coding. You never see more than a few lines of code at a time unless you purposefully dig in, but you might not have the time given velocity demands. And yes, it also results in nobody on the team really knowing any area of the code inside-out. It's very very different from my previous 25 years of coding, and I do enjoy it less, but...

>>It (software development) is sincerely an art form; A craft that takes >>dedication, perseverance and especially, a strong community to endure. >>Software was built by humans, for humans.

100 years ago, you could only buy furniture made by crafts people. Real artisans. Now you have a choice: IKEA or hand made Most people choose IKEA because they don't care how it was made, as long as it does the job There are still those who prefer hand made furniture, and they pay a pretty penny for it. I think that's where this is heading, and I agree it's unfortunate. Software development will become a hobby (many people do wood working in their spare time). There will be a few real experts left, who largely do consulting. Maybe they create training data? Maybe they design frameworks for the AI to master. I don't know. But things sure are going to be different from here on out, and not entirely for the better.

>>If it’s not built by humans, then who is it being built for?

Right now it's built by AI for humans (and sometimes other AI). Very soon it'll be built by AI for other AI (and sometimes humans). Later it'll be built by AI primarily for AI (rarely humans).

I think this post is either LLM-written, or written in a standard blogpost style of today which is increasingly becoming LLM-like. Sam Kriss had a good recent post pointing out some of the "tells": https://samkriss.substack.com/p/if-you-let-ai-do-your-writin...

Most humans derive their purpose and meaning from their work. Has always been that way. What do you think happens when you remove meaning from people’s lives at scale? It won’t be pretty.

I can relate to this article. My reaction to what is happening is also: "Leave me behind".

However, missing the joy of the old-school way of growing as a developer is not only the wrong reason, but also very dangerous according to Darwin.

Our customers don't care about how it is made after all, but they do care about long-term support, costs, and predictability, etc.

But I'm not sure whether we can say we made a real net positive progress in the industry. The whole thing is a big mess. In many cases, AI moves us in the same direction in turbo mode, making it not only messier and more expensive but also dangerous.

I tell them, "Leave me alone", as I see this mess as an opportunity if you think the right way, starting from the first principles.

This really resonates with me, and reminds me of all that I've missed in the years since COVID and going full remote. There's magic in a room when a mob programming session results in a breakthrough that just can't ever be replicated remotely. Not sure I'd jump to sign up for a daily commute again, especially where I live now, an hour away from a major city without traffic, but I do miss that.

One of the things I really don’t understand about the “learn or youll be left behind” sentiment is it also comes from people saying “we’re building PhDs in a box!” It cannot both be the case that AI is something challenging enough to use that a current software engineer can’t learn how to use it and that the promises of these tools are fulfilled.

Just do it the way you want to do it and have fun [1] (I've recently started doing streams where I showcase a mix of AI + manual coding and why I think that's best).

The "powers that be" would prefer if you sideline yourself. Instead, pop a bird and say "thank you kind sir, but no."

[1] https://youtu.be/KqQpYgvrEqM?si=gfGCOqgmF4iy4077

> “If you don’t learn how to use AI, you’re going to be left behind.”

I don't subscribe to that even to begin with. Learning "how to use AI" in a a dev workflow takes less than a month, just by practice. Assuming "how to use AI" refers to using agents, rather than just a more advanced auto complete, once you've made the couple of mistakes you can make a couple of times (mainly, leave the coding agent to do something too big for too long), you're caught up. Maybe it take a little more time to get the habits into your workflow.

Leveraging a LLM for coding is orders of magnitude simpler than the code it's writing, and the skills you need to review said code.

We we all be left behind my friend. Soon enough.

I don't think AI changed anything at all to the possibility of communicating between humans. This is a job that you've always been able to do alone in your cave.

Like the artisans/craftsmen in many places (especially Japan), hand craft will always carry enduring meaning — machines ultimately can't replace everything humans shape with their hands. But historically at least, they can replace over 99.9% of it.

I absolutely understand this sentiment. I've been working in tech since the late 90s and I have had MORE than my share of let-me-off-this-ride moments.

But this post (and the many I see like it) feels like giving up. And now's not the time for empathetic people to give up.

Technology is how we expand human capability. We are well within our rights to pick and choose how we interact with that capability. But it's starting to terrify me how it seems that the worst people in the world are more than willing to wield this power, while good people opt out. Billionaires are doing a remarkable job at making their vision of the future seem inevitable. Don't fall for it.

If more people aren't willing to help us steer this capability towards a better future, then we all know how this ends.

The lack of humanity or ability to empathize with someone else’s feelings displayed in these comments, instead labeling the author’s personal experience as “main character syndrome” or “cope” demonstrates to me that the author may be correct that AI usage degrades the human experience.

It also is a great example of why AI has such a PR problem among normal people.

Summarize this text into one or two paragraphs.

Oops, wrong input field.

Its classic HN to dismiss the emotional cost of change as sunk cost stages of grief. A person is allowed to love their work and miss deep understanding, and allowed to be nostalgic for a preferred way of working. It's human and everything they have shared in this post is unequivocally true about software dev and moving into a career, arguably even before LLMs took over.

What I mean is that the thrilling buddy system coding starts to happen less frequently over a career, and the time for deep exploring and side projects is organically maximized early and during school.

While LLMs have forced that divide to be more stark, the human connection and sense of wonder has always required maintenance, and it's best to get into the habit of maintaining it before your 36th JIRA triage meeting in a week completely destroyed your love of the industry.

Well before LLMs I went through exactly what TFA describes when I had to adapt from grad school labs to industrial labs, then to project management or task leadership (even just filling in for my boss), and each new job has required me to say goodbye to great friends and colleagues and make new ones.

Its just inevitable to fall out of love of the craft, we all could probably write this post for our own reasons.

> but it is a necessity to maintain humanity in software development

Seems like I'm reading the pope encyclical

Nice read, and agreed, leave me behind. I have been telling people that I am running a John Henry experiment with LLMs. I don't use them just so I can prove the human is better than the machine, even if it leaves me in the dirt like John.

> These LLMs are prediction machines. They are text generators that are ultimately a bunch of fancy statistics

Yeah yeah back to Reddit

For real though: you can keep doing artisanal hand-written code as a hobby. Just like you can still write a web server in assembly if you really want to. But that’s just not how professional software development is done anymore. Just a new tool, I don’t think it’s as deep as the author is making it out to be.

people need to reframe coding agent usage. i see a lot of framing in zero-sum terms where it's either all dev or all agent, and then people start dooming and glooming over the latter. in reality it's like that one post on here a few days ago about it being like an iron man suit. it is a glowing, bright white power that can be incredible when wielded properly. unfortunately, people characterize it as an adversarial power that can and will take over your soul.

how about some true synergy instead of boring zero-sum people? smh. the true poetry here is that zero-sum thinking will become more of a thing of the past so there is some natural comedy with this title

Per learning from others after encountering an unfamiliar problem, I think there are rose-tinted glasses here. 90%+ of the time, either someone else had already provided the relevant answer at Stack Overflow or I could find it on a documentation page, a blog. There is no social engagement then. Just search. That also hasn't gone away, as LLMs can also provide sources to justify their answers.

Per the human element, the author is in part relaying about formative experiences from youth that you won't easily repeat, and also experiences that are not decoupled from the work as it still exists, unless you are entirely remote, which is not a LLM-specific problem.

All of which to say, the emotional element behind it is valid, but the diagnosis is off the mark. I think the human element, should it be jeopardized, is in part through the complacent convenience of remote work and disinterest in community participation. But, communities still exist, and tech communities historically were always niche. As it stands they're probably bigger now than they ever were.

There are still new frontiers with software where LLMs will be less effective. Yes, there is less friction than before for learning technologies, but all this does is move the goalpost as we can accomplish more with our time.

Instead of hacking things out through trial and error on mature stacks (with or without others), you'll be closer to the cutting edge and have different problems. Many of which will still be technological in nature.

This will inevitably lead to tired discussion of “there are two types of developers, those who care about the craft and those who want to get things” done. I believe that to be a false dichotomy, and will link to someone else’s comment in another thread who makes the argument that caring about the craft is part of caring about the product.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47591796

More specifically to the submission, I’ll say I agree with the author. This “being left behind” fear mongering is an exhausting uncritical talking point. Life isn’t about rushing through the end and killing yourself to be “productive”. “Being left behind” is only bad if what’s “ahead” is an improvement to your situation, and that’s not a given. Humans aren’t built to be pushed to 11 without rest. Stopping to smell the roses is good. Immediatelly thinking “how can I kill these to package the smell to sell to others at a profit” is not.

  These LLMs are prediction machines. They are text generators that are ultimately a bunch of fancy statistics,

Always a shame to see good meaning, smart humans let their anxieties and fears drive them into empirical falsehoods.

Anyone still have some hope for humanity? Or yourselves as a person? Asking for a friend who thinks that the dark horizon has already swallowed all but our eyes, leaving us the brief observers of our oblivion

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AI is repulsive. You either feel it, maybe not immediately, or don't. When you feel it, you'll rationalize it one way or another. The rationalization does not matter that much. It's essentially arbitrary and is a product of whatever experience you've accumulated so far. (E.g. could be a Communist rationalization of alienation under capitalism.) Yet the underlying feeling is true. Stick to it.

“So leave me behind.”

That’s easy to say for someone in their 50s who built wealth under favorable conditions.

But it’s quite ignorant and inhumane to say that to someone in their 20s who is just starting their career.

Too bad to see these boomer antics continue to be perpetuated.

The funniest thing about this post is that Java Android programming circa 2014 is somehow romanticized as "real programming." 2014 Android code has got to be peak corpo-slop with the most inane abstractions, unintuitive paradigms, and copy-paste boilerplate syndrome. Ironically, exactly why we need AI these days, since like 90% of the code you wrote didn't technically do anything.

> These LLMs are prediction machines. They are text generators that are ultimately a bunch of fancy statistics, trained on the years and years of dedication by brave engineers willing to learn and build in the open. Building in the open meant we were not gatekeeping technology, but creating tangible examples for young engineers to explore, understand, and learn from.

Another grief-post with people unable to cope with the fact that the whole structure of learning and work is going to change so they resort to pseudo nostalgia and romanticism. Not to mention that "They are text generators that are ultimately a bunch of fancy statistics" is basically incorrect and belongs in 2024.

Not gonna pretend that this is anything other than the author's personal gripe with this whole thing, but this is really just the sunk cost fallacy with extra steps.

Even by trying to reassure (the reader? Himself?) that LLMs are just a tool for humans, he asserts in the final paragraph that software is no longer made by humans. Something something linotype operators.

For me it's incomprehensible how a tool that allows you to be 100 times more productive is derided as something we should never use for the sake of craftmanship. Same as shoemakers or horseback messengers 100 years ago. Those who fund the next Nike or FedEx will be the winners of this new race. AI is a tool, an exceptional tool for providing solutions.