The lucky normies have work to do, and they use their attention to meet the challenges. Us unlucky different-brained folks operate more like we have a lot of attention, and we have learned to fill it with computer stuff. AI is great for filling it but it’s often ultra processed weirdness and doesn’t seem to leave a trail of learning and productivity.

Wrote about what I think is the root cause of all the mania the other day [1]: we're addicted to speed, "moving fast," and anchor it all to a vague sense of "productivity."

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48326501

Your car can drive 100+mph, but it’s probably not a good idea to drive around corners, in town or in your neighborhood at top speed. LLMs are the same. They can go 1,000+MPH, but what you need and what’s safe is 20-80mph. Practice restraint and focus and LLMs will make you more productive and give you some good results.

What if you then use AI to try and maintain only one, a single product into which you’ll put your care and craft to try to make something that’s better than “some dopamine hits”?

"The output was unbridled garbage. Because the effort was removed, so was the commitment, and with the commitment the focus, and with the focus any meaningful product at all. " -- i've noticed that fact first when I started to use linux. It didn't click untill I've built Gentoo from handbook. The commitment: i've asked on Gentoo IRC and it turns out a lot of people had a similar story.

Then, I've built a keyboard for myself and I'm still using it. I liked the process and started to build them basically for giveaway. My hope was that it will help people who eager to switch to ergonomic keyboards but the bar is too high for them to build, to figure out things etc.. But it turned out that people who get it without this effort they just try, fail, and leave it dusting on the shelf. They lack commitment, nothing fuels their enthusiasm.

Chatbots are social media of work. In Meta’s platforms you can pretend to be social and chase meaningless dopamines hits that appear similar we get from genuine interaction, whereas with AI agents you get dopamine hits from similar to doing good work and achieving your goals, while actually you just fried your brain doing making money for huge corporations. Similarly both you can use for genuinely good things, but one has to be extremely disciplined to do it and conscious of the trade off.

I think the answer is simply to not use LLM’s to generate much anything at all. When writing code I only use Claude chat (in separate virtual desktop on a browser) only when I can’t grok the documentation or the bug really kicks my ass. I rarely want it to even write the code, just to explain what I am doing wrong.

When I write the initial idea might be just me having a discussion with Claude (“What exactly was Marcia Williams’ hold on British PM Harold Wilson”) about a topic I am interested in and want a quick overview of the literature, but if I end up writing about it none of it is generated.

Claude just helps me to refine my thinking like a rubber duck that has in its palmate tips most all of information saved online. It is simply an extension of my intellect. The thinking and the work remains my own.

> On that last point, this technology is horrific for attention. It's a thermonuclear ADHD amplifier and I have seen the same effect in every single one of my adult friends. Folk running 3 screens simultaneously working on totally unrelated "projects" they have little hope of maintaining, and such little commitment to the outcome that the time is obviously wasted.

This part reminded me of a recent article and it’s interesting that he brings up ADHD because that’s probably the bigger issue then. Because what I got from the article and the related conversation, specifically the top comment:

> > Sometimes, tools don’t move the needle because there’s no needle to move.

> It reminds me of something my old CS mentor, now elderly, had said about LLMs a few months ago: "it's a force multiplier, but there has to be some force to multiply."

From: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48254336

The fact that it turned out that “Human Bottlenecks” post was written by the same person who wrote “Notes on Managing ADHD” which I had printed and studied for tips not that long ago made sense.

So, to connect the dots, the fact he made all of those things without them being part of a bigger plan is, I think, the problem. In the framework of the above quote, there’s no needle there, nothing to multiply.

I’ve been trying to think more about whether what I’m doing is going somewhere, or if I can skip it and simplify things.

I think they got most of it right. Whenever there is a tool that helps one super active, it is a one off cliff. Smart ones will figure that out and get back to using it for meaningful purpose. A small percentage weaker ones will get addicted.

Nothing different from all innovations.

Quoting:

"Because the effort was removed, so was the commitment, and with the commitment the focus, and with the focus any meaningful product at all."

This is the truth. Otherwise known as "easy come, easy go".

i feel like regardless what you're doing, consistency is key, aside from actually learning right? you mentioned people running three sessions at once on projects they have no hope of maintaining. very fair point, it's just gambling at that point. however, working on the same project or few projects, you DO hope to maintain (even with ai) for 8 months to a year straight is an entirely different experience than trying to powerhouse anything and everything just to have it? or something, i'm not really sure what the point in this would be. it isn't applicable on a resume or impressive to anyone with any real technical experience. at least if you're staying consistent you're learning something about the process, how to improve it, everything it does, etc. i've seen it time and time again, previously nontechnical or barely technical people "getting into coding" (i.e. using ai), creating something that would've taken time 10 years ago and marveling at it like they've done something. meanwhile, without thinking.. "if i had no prior experience and was able to quickly throw something together with AI, how valuable is the thing i threw together really?" to be clear i'm not saying you're doing this, but this is certainly what a LOT of the people you described are doing. this isn't even delving into the bugs and security flaws their programs are most likely full of. never mind they're learning practically nothing. anyway, i generally agree with your sentiment.