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Posted by citelao 11 hours ago

How I use AI (Oct 2026)(ben.stolovitz.com)
113 points | 101 commentspage 2
lbrito 9 hours ago|
>I spend about ~$3,000/ month in tokens.

...

>In case you’re wondering, I’m subscribed to: > Claude Pro ($17/ mo) > GitHub Copilot Pro ($10/ mo)

Nothing wrong there at all, amirite?

Maybe AI scrapped basic arithmetic and now those numbers are totally fine

citelao 9 hours ago||
OP: my company pays for my work tokens, which is the source of the $3,000/mo. I don’t use substantial tokens with my personal subscriptions, so I didn’t factor that into my number. But good point, I’ll clarify.
simianwords 2 hours ago||
I find that AI should be used more extensively for System Design. I have seen a lot of people not use AI for that and come up with frighteningly complex designs and let their agents run loose to implement it.

Retroactively speaking, I engaged with the already agreed designs and used AI to find much better ways to do the same thing.

Overall, I wish people used AI even for System Design as that seems to have a higher impact.

imhoguy 10 hours ago||
TIL: AI Doompop
skydhash 9 hours ago||
> since agents write everything, it is simple to propose sweeping changes to my teammates during code review, or even write my own versions — both things unthinkable in the era of hand-written code.

That is both untrue, and should be something that occurs rarely.

Past Mid level, most dicussion in code review is centered around the conceptual level. Code is mostly use to highlight the point being made. I’ve never seen the need for someone to rewrite a patch proposed by another person. Add to it or correct misunderstandings, but never sweeping changes.

suddenlybananas 10 hours ago||
>I’m really enjoying some AI music

I think I would rather shoot myself in the head

stickfigure 10 hours ago|||
Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

I walked into a paint store recently and there was some interesting music playing on the PA. It was some sort of spanish-language 80s new wave I'd never heard before. It had a nice groove. I asked the guy at the counter about it and was surprised to find out it was AI.

So... was it as good as great music? No. But it beat the hell out of muzak. And it was genuinely novel in a way that pop music isn't. I will sacrifice a lot of pride for novelty.

recursive 10 hours ago|||
Seems weird to contrast AI music with auto-tuned music. Most of the AI music I've heard has been tuned perfectly. And I don't generally have a problem with music being in tune.

For my part, I mostly dislike AI music. But if there was to be some AI music that I didn't already dislike for its content, then I would dislike it specifically for being AI. Call me close-minded if you will. Some people don't really like music at all. In general, I love music.

0x20cowboy 10 hours ago||
Angine de Poitrine
recursive 8 hours ago||
What about it? Microtonal music can be perfectly in tune. Further, when people talk about auto-tune, they're normally talking about vocals, notably absent from Angine de Poitrine.
footy 8 hours ago||||
okay but the only choices are not "an AI simulation of music" and muzak. Actual music exists.
computably 10 hours ago||||
> Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

> And it was genuinely novel in a way that pop music isn't. I will sacrifice a lot of pride for novelty.

For one thing, "interesting" and "novel" are not particularly the point of art. An infinite TikTok feed of AI slop is in some sense infinitely interesting and novel.

But also, those concepts are subjective. Pop music has a ton of evolution and innovation if you break it down. Sure, not every hit is doing something clever, but plenty of them are. You might not find those features to be interesting but it takes ingenuity to stand out in an era where the barrier to entry is so low.

viklove 10 hours ago||||
AI music is far less interesting than anything any person could create. Even if it's acoustically interesting, it's hollow and pointless because it contains no human expression.

AI music is a complete waste of compute. It exists only to further enrich an already wealthy stakeholder, and we should all be ashamed to have ended up in a place where it even exists.

dale_glass 9 hours ago||
It contains plenty human expression. It's ultimately made by people.

And I think it can be uniquely fun, because it allows for the very rare combination of truly off-beat ideas with excellent execution.

In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat. Because there are risks to that. Destroying your image, having to find people that are on the same wavelength, having to justify the time and money it costs to record something weird and not marketable.

Sure, people make weird stuff once in a while, but very rarely, and generally it takes unique individuals that find some particular weird niche to work in, like Weird Al or Max Raabe. And even then they tend to pick something relatively tame and marketable and stick to that.

But AI can bypass all that, and that makes things interesting.

JDups 1 hour ago|||
The vast majority of music is made with no regards to marketability, it's just people doing whatever they personally like. An incredibly small amount of artists have any sort of "image", that necessitates being popular already.

And often the weirdest artists are also the most prolific because they tend to like experimenting for experimenting's sake.

vconnor 3 hours ago||||
You need to listen more than the Top 10 charts my dude. The fact that you use Weird Al as an example of experimental musician says it all about your depth of knowledge.
viklove 6 hours ago|||
> In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat.

My jaw literally dropped. Do you really believe this?

I think you just don't spend much time around people who love music.

It makes sense that someone like you would like AI music, I guess. You are clueless.

dale_glass 4 hours ago||
> My jaw literally dropped. Do you really believe this?

Sure. It happens in every field. When you invest a lot into something, it becomes risky or unprofitable to do some things.

Tech often drives things in the opposite direction. As it gets easier/cheaper/faster to create something, doing something odd and risky becomes easier to justify because there's less invested into it and there's fewer people whose cooperation is needed.

I'm not saying nobody does anything risky traditionally of course. But there's barriers to it, which become lesser once tech trivializes a good part of the process.

> It makes sense that someone like you would like AI music, I guess. You are clueless.

I like music in general, and am fairly indifferent as to how the goose is cooked. I listen to almost everything. There's no reason to exclude AI music. If it sounds good, it's good.

plastic-enjoyer 10 hours ago||||
>Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

Controversial take: AI shows that people simply don't give a shit and just confirms that mass culture is a mistake and the death of everything that is good and sacred.

yuye 4 hours ago||
>Controversial take: AI shows that people simply don't give a shit and just confirms that mass culture is a mistake and the death of everything that is good and sacred.

Controversial take: For ages, it's been clear that most people have never given a shit, it just took AI for most to realize it.

suddenlybananas 10 hours ago||||
>80s new wave

>it was genuinely novel

Look, I don't know the song so I can't say how novel it is, but to me, it completely misses the point if its made by a music generation model. The point of music is not to make a bunch of novel sounds. Music is a means by which a human can express themselves, the whole _point_ of art is human expression.

Liuser 10 hours ago|||
Art is subjective. It sounds like AI music did evoke an emotional response from OP, which IMO is also just as important of what we define as the purpose of art: evoking emotion and awe from consuming art. A connection is being made from the creator to the consumer. I view AI as merely another tool to that means.

Human expression with art can go both ways from producing and experiencing.

Jtarii 10 hours ago||||
Just because its not art doesn't mean its not funny or interesting to listen to.

Bird's aren't making art when they sing, I still like listening to birds. Why can't the sounds AI make be in the same category.

computably 10 hours ago||
Well, anybody can enjoy anything. But I personally would say birdsong is of infinitely higher value than genAI music.
chasd00 6 hours ago|||
Discussions about music always boil down to “stop liking what I don’t like!”.
verdverm 10 hours ago||||
try Jazz, infinitely more interesting than anything Ai could make

I saw a live band last week (daft punk meets prince), they wrote a song about Ai and used an auto tuner for it

keybored 10 hours ago|||
1. Find some truism, like that corners pop culture are trash

2. Call it slop

3. Claim victory

iugtmkbdfil834 10 hours ago|||
shrug

I don't know what to tell you, but me and my kid are having a blast writing ridiculous songs and plopping them with song descriptions and some of those make it to our drive playlists.

i1856511 6 hours ago||
Respectfully, the primary thing you are describing here is spending time with your children. Same could be said for spending time and attention discussing children's drawings.
Coill 7 hours ago|||
AI music is much better than manufactured boy bands, which are pure marketing products hacking teen girl brain. Pop-slop.
AlexCoventry 9 hours ago||
Try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HrlDMK3hXQ
MiiMe19 8 hours ago|||
Maybe I'm intensely schizophrenic or something but I can just clearly hear the AI in this and it sounds grating to me.
stronglikedan 9 hours ago||||
The problem with AI performances is that they're too perfect, which leaves them flat. The dynamics and imperfections of human performance have yet to be replicated. That affects every human performance whether or not you notice you're noticing (but you are). AI is still in the uncanny valley here.
kenjackson 6 hours ago||
This sounds like CD music 40 years ago. All my friends said that it was not like a record and left an empty feeling in the room. I feel like this is not talked about any more. People listen to digital music and have forgotten there was an alternative. I suspect that in the coming years no one will think twice about AI generated music.
spacechild1 1 hour ago||||
Ugh...
basilikum 7 hours ago||||
Does anyone actually like this?
vconnor 3 hours ago||
Philosophical zombies.
runarberg 7 hours ago||||
Yes, no... You made your parent’s point perfectly. This is worse then any pop music I have ever heard, by a significant margin.
mr_toad 5 hours ago||
Sounds exactly like the currently-most-popular female pop singer from the last two decades; they’ve always sounded manufactured.
johndhi 9 hours ago|||
Nice. You make it?
johndhi 9 hours ago||
Nice post!
stego-tech 9 hours ago||
It’s kinda nice seeing more nuanced takes from folks as the bubble kinda deflates and both sides realize their idealized vision isn’t coming to pass. AI isn’t going to replace all the jobs, but it’s also not going away; finally, it is merely a tool in our toolchest.

What does amuse me to no end, however, is how many craftsfolk in AI circles are loudly rejecting AI imagery and video in favor of humans. The only folks who seem fine with that are the grifters looking to slop out a bunch of adverts quickly for commercial gain rather than do actual art, or folks who want “art” but don’t want to pay a human to make it for them or learn the skills themselves. Both of those camps are viewed with disdain and loathing by both sides of the AI Boom/Doom arguments, so I’ll take whatever allies I can get on those fronts.

AI music…man, I live with artisans and musicians and we have a number of “artists” we suspect are AI but whose music is pretty solid. We’re waiting for the shoe to drop, but I’m trying to look at it as a kind of turbocharged Fruity Loops/Logic as opposed to a human replacement. I hope I’m right on that, but time will tell.

The game changer I think more doomers need to experience is agents. It sounds like a recipe for disaster (a bunch of models known to hallucinate and allowed to run roughshod over a computer unattended? What could go wrong?), and it often (hilariously) is for the scammers out there giving it full access to production and fucking off to hawk their latest Masterclass on X or LinkedIn, but that first time you give it a reasonably achievable prompt and come back to a halfway decent product you can review and refine into production in 15m or less?

Absolutely magical, doubly so when it’s just 27B Qwen via Hermes and not some souped up stack in a frontier lab costing you thousands a month in tokens. If I were to evangelize AI, that’s how I’d do it. Fuck subscriptions, fuck cloud compute, fuck frontier labs and token buckets and whatever slop Sundar/Scam/Dario/Elmo et al are hawking this week; run that locally, give it a reasonable prompt that solves a real problem, and show them the results.

Then do the right thing and go for a walk with the two hours of free time the AI just freed up for you. Don’t ask for permission to take back your time.

mr_toad 5 hours ago|
I’ve lived through three previous financial bubbles, and their most common characteristic was that they didn’t ‘kinda deflate’. Bubbles pop, dramatically, they don’t just deflate slowly. They don’t withstand shocks and bad news that have had the market up and down like a demented bunny over the last few months.
zzzeek 10 hours ago||
you can totally tell Claude to take some AI technical writing (which is, to be clear, writing where you explicitly need to not sound creative or interesting, and you need to maintain very strict "voice" [a term I only even know because claude explained it to me] so this is not a creative endeavor) and make it sound "less AI". At least working with opus 5.5, textual output already has a lot fewer of the colons and "load bearing" of a few months ago, and if a PR does have that kind of lingo I can just have Claude rewrite it "like a human" and it does great.
citelao 10 hours ago|
OP: I'm not surprised you/other people are able to get better output than me.

And I agree that "less AI" edit passes reduce a lot of the hallmarks, but I think these models truly struggle with expressing complicated ideas. Have Opus been good at that for you?

minfazhai 2 hours ago||
[flagged]
keybored 10 hours ago|
HN title: I use AI

> I still believe I use AI fairly typically, but I’ve had a notable change in background. Last October, I was an engineer on Microsoft’s Windows AI team. I am now a research engineer at Salesforce AI Research.

Priest wears robes.

I guess it’s one of those nonsensical automatic rules.

evolve-maz 4 hours ago|
This is the main context for me:

> I am now a research engineer at Salesforce AI Research. I spend more time supporting scientists & building rapid prototypes, rather than working with a large team of engineers.

I appreciate the PoV of people with different challenges, but my full-time job is not about building rapid prototypes so the guidelines are worth a bit less to me.

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