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728 points freetonik | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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thallavajhula ◴[] No.44976973[source]
I’m loving today. HN’s front page is filled with some good sources today. No nonsense sensationalism or preaching AI doom, but more realistic experiences.

I’ve completely turned off AI assist on my personal computer and only use AI assist sparingly on my work computer. It is so bad at compound work. AI assist is great at atomic work. The rest should be handled by humans and use AI wisely. It all boils down back to human intelligence. AI is only as smart as the human handling it. That’s the bottom line.

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tick_tock_tick ◴[] No.44977158[source]
> AI is only as smart as the human handling it.

I think I'm slowly coming around to this viewpoint too. I really just couldn't understand how so many people were having widely different experiences. AI isn't magic; how could I have expected all the people I've worked with who struggle to explain stuff to team members, who have near perfect context, to manage to get anything valuable across to an AI?

I was original pretty optimistic that AI would allow most engineers to operate at a higher level but it really seems like instead it's going to massively exacerbate the difference between an ok engineer and a great engineer. Not really sure how I feel about that yet but at-least I understand now why some people think the stuff is useless.

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btucker ◴[] No.44977381[source]
I've been starting to think of it like this:

Great Engineer + AI = Great Engineer++ (Where a great engineer isn't just someone who is a great coder, they also are a great communicator & collaborator, and love to learn)

Good Engineer + AI = Good Engineer

OK Engineer + AI = Mediocre Engineer

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biophysboy ◴[] No.44977511[source]
I sort of think of it in terms of self-deskilling.

If an OK engineer is still actively trying to learn, making mistakes, memorizing essentials, etc. then there is no issue.

On the other hand, if they're surrendering 100% of their judgment to AI, then they will be mediocre.

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1. QuercusMax ◴[] No.44977632{3}[source]
The same people who just copy-pasted stack overflow answers and didn't understand why or how things work are now using AI to create stuff that they also don't understand.
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2. biophysboy ◴[] No.44977679[source]
And for low-stakes one-time hobby projects, they're correct to do so!
3. rerdavies ◴[] No.44985726[source]
lol. I am SO glad I don't have to go to StackExchange anymore. There is something toxically awful about using advice from a thread that starts with "Why doesn't my code work?".