Will AI Replace Human Thinking? The Case for Writing and Coding Manually

I find that all of these discussions are rendered somewhat goofy by our very binary view of "programming" and "not programming."

It's like asking -- "will robots be good for building things?"

Sure, some things. What things?

Personally, I'm hoping for the revival of the idea that Hypercard was intended for; yes, let us enable EVERYONE to build little tools for themselves.

> yes, let us enable EVERYONE to build little tools for themselves.

It will enable more people, but "everyone" is never, ever going to happen.

This is both because (1) many people don't want to do this, no matter how easy it is -- probably the primary reason and (2) many people won't have the ability to do this in a way that is net profitable for them, because their "tool ideas" just won't be good.

Everyone who wants to. Right now the barrier is too high for some people who want to.

Oh sure. But it doesn't need to be everyone; my go-to analogy is how we used to do "cars" vs a lot of them now?

50 years ago, you don't have to be a car guy, but if you know one, that's all you need to save a LOT of money and headache.

Today, that kind of works -- unless you own e.g. a Tesla.

This sounds great in theory but my my experience is that non tech people make horrible SE's. Even if they don't do the coding only participating in the spec. They simply don't even know what they don't know. Which is why SE exists and why these type of projects always fail to gain traction.

In my life of the thousands of non tech people I've worked with I can count in the low double digits that were capable of working in SE without exp/edu in it. Even then they were all up and coming driven people that still often missed what to me were obvious things, because its not their area of expertise. (They were all brilliant in their own area)

> Everyone who wants to.

Yes, and that's a good thing.

Though I'd argue the bar has been on a downward trajectory for decades, is now plummeting with AI, and still we don't see a huge influx of the newly enabled. At the margins, yes. Some small business owners, some curious students, etc, are making things they wouldn't have before. But it doesn't feel like a revolution of self-made tools by the non-technical. And I don't think one is coming. And I don't think it's because it's still too hard.

Rome wasn't built in a day, as they say. It takes time for the information to disseminate. Perhaps tools like this will be the watershed moment that speeds up the flow. Like the time back ~1990 when I received GFA BASIC on a magazine cover disk and it unlocked the knowledge that I could make anything I wanted to. It took me 33 years from then to get a Game Of The Year. Good things take time. Hopefully less in future :)

Congrats on your game of the year.

I do agree it takes time for things to be fully absorbed into the culture, and the full impact of even the current state of AI has not been felt. But I stand by my claim that, basically, many many people have no interest in being makers, and no amount of friction-easing will change that. I think it's a hard thing to grasp for people with a natural interest in math/CS/etc. I came to my current position reluctantly, after teaching undergrads in both math and humanities, and after many conversations with non-technical (and often very smart) friends. Some people are just not interested in using their mind that way, just like some people like some games but not others.

"many people don't want to do this, no matter how easy it is --"

Lol lets get real. Most people want to live life and switch off their brain.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that - you can't fight what the body wants instinctively.

I think you're looking at it as glass half empty (all the people who won't make, regardless) and I'm looking at it as glass half full (all the people who will become makers). Of course both are correct.