Posted by mips_avatar 12/3/2025
And it turns out that there are some embarrassingly solved problems, like rudimentary multiplayer games, that look more impressive than they really are when you get down to it.
More challenging prompts like "change the surface generation algorithm my program uses from Marching Cubes to Flying Edges", for which there are only a handful of toy examples, VTK's implementation, and the paper, result in an avalanche of shit. Wasted hours, quickly becoming wasted days.
I live in Seattle, and got laid off from Microsoft as a PM in Jan of this year.
Tried in early 2024 to demonstrate how we could leverage smaller models (such as Mixtral) to improve documentation and tailor code samples for our auth libraries.
The usual “fiefdom” politics took over and the project never gained steam. I do feel like I was put in a certain “non-AI” category and my career stalled, even though I took the time to build AI-integrated prototypes and present them to leadership.
It’s hard to put on a smile and go through interviews right now. It feels like the hard-earned skills we bring to the table are being so hastily devalued, and for what exactly?
1) "AI" is in many ways like the unreliable coworker so many of us have had in the past - maybe someone who talked a good game in interviews, but after you'd worked with them for a while you realize that you have to double-check everything they do for stupid/careless problems. In the worst case, you also have to do some hand-holding as they ask you for help with things that they should know how to do. They can produce good output but they can't be trusted to produce good (or even marginal) output so they're a net time sink.
2) In a frightening number of companies right now, that problem coworker is the owner's or manager's relative and cannot be avoided.
So boom, there you go, bad coworkers and a toxic culture that not just protects but promotes them.
So what's different between Seattle and San Francisco? Does Seattle have more employee-workers and San Francisco has more people hustling for their startup?
I assume Bali (being a vacation destination) is full people who are wealthy enough to feel they're insulated from whatever will happen.
Seattle has more “normal” people and the overall rhetoric about how life “should be” is in many ways resistant to tech. There’s a lot to like about the city, but it absolutely does not have a hustle culture. I’ve honestly found it depressing coming from the East Coast.
Tangent aside, my point is that Seattle has far more of a comparison ground of “you all are building shit that doesn’t make the world better, it just devalues the human”. I think LLMs have (some) strong use cases, but it is impossible to argue that some of the societal downsides we see aren't ripe for hatred - and Seattle will latch on to that in a heartbeat.
Edit: are -> aren't. Stupid autocorrect.
Anyway. I think you're spot on with the "you all are building shit that doesn't make the world better, it just devalues the human" vibe. Regardless of what employers in WA may force folks to build, that's the mentality here, and AI evangelists don't make many friends... nor did blockchain evangelists, or evangelists of any of the spin-off hype trains ("Web3", NFTs, etc). I guess the "cloud" hype train stuck here, but that happened before I moved out west.
Working for a month out of Bali was wonderful, it's mostly Australians and Dutch people working remotely. Especially those who ran their own businesses were super encouraging (though maybe that's just because entrepreneurs are more supportive of other entrepreneurs).
> I wanted her take on Wanderfugl, the AI-powered map I've been building full-time.
this seems to me like pretty obvious engagement-bait / stealth marketing - write a provocative blog post that will get shared widely, and some fraction of those people will click through to see what the product is all about.
but, apparently it's working because this thread is currently at 400+ comments after 3 hours.
I think its definitely stronger in MS as my friend on the inside tells me, than most places.
There are alot of elements to it, one being profits at all costs, the greater economy, FOMO, and a resentment of engineers and technical people who have been practicing, what execs i can guess only see as alchemy, for a long time. They've decided that they are now done with that and that everyone must use the new sauce, because reasons. Sadly until things like logon buttons dis-appear and customers get pissed, it won't self-correct.
I just wish we could present the best version of ourselves and as long as deadlines are met, it'll all work out, but some have decided for scorched-earth. I suppose its a natural reaction to always want to be on the cutting edge, even before the cake has left the oven.
I'm not sure why. I don't think it's access to capital, but I'd love to hear thoughts.
Microsoft is the same, a generally very practical company just trying to practical company stuff.
All the guys that made their bones, vested and rested and now want to turn some of that windfall into investments likely don't have the kind of risk tolerance it takes to fund a potential unicorn. All smart people I'm sure, smart enough to negotiate big windfalls from ms/az but far less risk tollerant than a guy in SF who made their investment nestegg building some risky unicorn.
I'm being course, but like... it is though.
Second, engineering and innovation are two different categories. Most of engineering is about ... making things work. Fixing bugs, refactoring fragile code, building new features people need or want. Maybe AI products would be hated less if they were just a little less about being able to pretend they are an innovation and just a little more about making things works.