My 2¢... LLMs are kind of amazing for structured text output like code. I have a completely different experience using LLMs for assistance writing code (as a relative novice) than I do in literally every other avenue of life.

Electricl engineering? Garbage.

Construction projects? Useless.

But code is code everywhere, and the immense amount of training data available in the form of working code and tutorials, design and style guides, means that the output as regards software development doesn't really resemble what anybody working in any other field sees. Even adjacent technical fields.

AI is in the Radium phase of its world-changing discovery life cycle. It's fun and novel, so every corporate grifter in the world is cramming it into every product that they can, regardless of it making sense. The companies being the most reckless will soon develop a cough, if they haven't already.

I have some trouble reconciling the conclusion of this article with everything else it described. How is "Clearly my coworker just wasn't believing hard enough in AI, and it harms everyone!" the conclusion the author comes to?

It might just be an ESL issue on my end, but I seriously feel some huge dissonance between the explanations of "how the tech was made the main KPI, used to justify layoffs and forced in a way that hinders productivity", and the conclusion that seems to say "the real issue with those people complaining is that they just don't believe in AI".

I don't understand this article, it seems to explain all the reasons people in Seattle might have grievances, and then completely dismisses those to adopt the usual "you're using it wrong".

Is this article just a way to advertise for Wanderfugl? Because this reads like the usual "Okay your grievances are fine and all, but consider the following: it allows me to make a SaaS really fast!" that I became accustomed to see in HN discussions.

A sizable fraction of current AI results are wrong. The key to using AI successfully is imposing the costs of those errors on someone who can't fight back. Retail customers. Low-level employees. Non-paying users.

A key part of today's AI project plan is clearly identifying the dump site where the toxic waste ends up. Otherwise, it might be on top of you.

Everyone who has been told AI is a panacea by executive leadership who barely understand it feels this way.

This is making me gain significant respect for Seattle.

I feel like a lot of people hate AI

I’m never leaving Seattle.

iykyk

The author has unquestioning assumption that the only innovation possible is the one with AI. That is genuinely weird. Even if one believes in AI, innovation in non-AI space should be possible, no?

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.

Tech company leadership sees AI as a shortcut to success. You know how in project planning meetings engineers are usually asked how they can pull in the schedule by x number of months? AI is now that thing. Obviously, this is a mistake.

The cult of AI maximalists aren't helping the situation.