People have opinions and it’s ok if someone doesn’t like something and expresses it. It doesn’t have to be productive. There’s no KPI. You can tune out. Also, yes, it has claudism, and the choice of words is abysmal and nauseating. I think AGI should be able to change its freaking prose for a change.
Maybe one day but right now in order to get any meaningfully usable app with AIs you need to pay way more in AI sub than monthly sub of a bunch of apps. It doesn’t make sense right now to build especially your own if you’re not a company. Also it’s not clear how long we’ll have this heavily subsidized subscriptions.
The reality is that no one was gatekeeping you or anyone else from doing whatever you wanted with free software. The barriers were knowledge, understanding, expertise, and hard work, none of which AI fixes for you. The premise here is that you can accomplish what you couldn’t before without actually understanding the concepts or putting in the same effort. _There is undeniably utility in that_, but I don’t see any strong argument for why it is beneficial to free software in general. It's not even clear whether it has been a net positive or negative so far, though it is undeniably a win for the corpos.
Relieving yourself of thinking and effort, whether through a machine or another human, is not the liberating force you think it is, especially when that effort isn't just grunt work, but the very process that helps you develop and grow.
I thought it was an analogy to people handwaving "free software" without truly understanding that people sacrifice their entire lives to make it work and that's still insufficient.
The reality is same for your angle: nothing is gatekeeping or stopping anyone from developing the craft the old way, and keeping 'thinking' so strong. Perhaps there are other ways to strengthen thinking, though?
The sole issue here is compensation. The answer is an uncomfortable one, or one with a lot more regulation that can't be enforced on a global level.
Oversimplifying to see if there's anything worth examining...but imagine:
subscriptions to organizations whose sole purpose is to train AI. They're compensated as the AI service is consumed by the public. The public pays a tax to finance AI growth, and the tax is divided to the organizations, to pay out to members. Members are incentivized to 'keep the craft alive' and train incoming members.
Since that is a huge change and I'm talking out of my ass, I'll point out something more realistic: we'll probably just write up some more red tape and hope for the best on the global stage.
Free software has two cases for free: free as in 'free drink', and free as in 'free to change'.
The first use of free is definitely improved by AI, it's the second use of free that bothers the author. There's too much AI slop and PRs, and it's impossible for the author to identify 'good PRs' from bad ones. There's too much volume of change to sift through, and so the ability to change software is stifled.
What can you do then? Either close the repo to the public, or limit who can send you feedback: as it is now, there's too much volume for reviewers to keep. It's too difficult to validate 'AI Slop' from quality code written by someone who 'has put in the time' and done their due diligence. Someone who has done this wastes less time for the reviewer, and probably improves the quality of the 'free beer' product.
Are you suggesting, AI hasn't improved the first case of free, 'free drink'? It's certainly an issue for the second case, 'free to change', but it seems like there are things that can be done to help with those problems: but it adds more churn and probably requires more time (unless I'm misunderstanding things here: which is very possible).
New layer of abstraction. Someone needs to understand how to build that old C library and reprogram that embedded controller, but it doesn't need to be me. Give someone infinite possibilities. Tell them they can have any software change they want. Everyone will have some good ideas. Some people will be head and shoulders above the rest. Being able to do anything (not that LLMs exactly deliver on that goal) doesn't mean you'll do something interesting. It doesn't mean you'll invent a product worth paying for, or impress many people, or make anyone particularly happy or inspired.
> The barriers were knowledge, understanding, expertise, and hard work, none of which AI fixes for you.
The biggest barrier was time, there are only 24 hours in the day and no amount of hard work or knowledge is going to change that. There are just some fundamental limits of what you can accomplish as a single person in that time. And good luck trying to find contributors who want to work for free, when they already are busy with their own projects.
AI just fundamentally turns that around and gives you a whole bunch of extremely capable co-workers that you can let deal with all the problems you do not want to waste your time on and they let you focus on the stuff that actually matters to you.
I am going to agree, albeit from an entirely different perspective.
My job has nothing to do with programming. Aside from administrative tasks, my job has nothing to do with computers. Yet I know how to program and I realize that automating those administrative tasks will have huge benefits for me. The problem is my employer doesn't pay me to write code, so I never got around to that automation.
Realistically speaking, writing that code without AI would not offer much in the way of understanding or expertise. Most of it is: "look up X, if A then B, else C, iterate" type tasks. There is a barrier in knowledge with respect to library calls, but that's pretty close to junk knowledge (it's rapidly obsoleted, and useless if I need to interface with different software).
So the choice is between doing without, or spending a lot of time picking up tasks that are of no value to me. Time was the barrier.
These arguments also remind me a lot of the microcomputer revolution: a heck of a lot of mainframe COBOL and FORTRAN developers were critical of underpowered computers and toy programming languages. The reality is that it opened up opportunities for a new generation of developers, and new types of software was created because the problem solvers were closer to the problem.
AI does not fundamentally turn that around, with "that" being as you say the fact that there are only 24 hours in the day and that a single person could only accomplish so much.
Your mistake is one I see everywhere these days, and that is the belief that a given problem with which YOU do not want to waste your time, are actually problems which are not worth doing by anyone. When examined I think this idea is obviously wrong, and misanthropic at heart. People prioritizing different things are still valuable.
The reason free software has progressed up until AI has been a combination of economic conditions and unrivalled passion on the part of the developers. The SQLite project has taken 20 years to optimize, and the creator still says there is work to be done.
Contrast that career spanning work with a pattern AI encourages of builders: offload the difficult or boring parts, get something barely functional, move on to the next thing. Building like this leaves you with no more experience than you already had to begin with.
As another commenter said, there is undeniable and very exciting utility in that being an option! The class of "easy pickings" in projects has widened tremendously in size. I agree with you when you say that it has the power to let you focus on the stuff that actually matters to you. Software configurability is going to be a major priority!
However, and I think you'd agree since we both feel free software was and is inherently complicated, configurability of software is only useful with the knowledge of how to put it to best use, like any other tool. If we were to give a laptop with Claude to a technical layperson, would they not immediately attempt to build without taking the time to understand (for example) what a database is? And when encountering problems beyond their understanding and only expecting the AI "to fix it", would they not be turned away from the tool entirely?
These problems may not matter to one who DOES understand the nature of software, but they do matter overall.
The biggest barrier for people with knowledge, understanding, expertise, and the willingness to work hard was certainly time. But there were a lot of people with plenty of time that never got anything done.
In the beforetimes there were a lot of would-be founders running around looking for people who actually knew things and could do things (that is, technical cofounders). Will some of those people use Claude Code to make successful products on their own? A few, I'm sure. But I expect a lot of them will stay ignorant fools who have prompted their way to a pile of garbage.
I can be confident of that because there were plenty of founders with FFF money who could suddenly hire "capable coworkers" that produced garbage. "AI" is certainly removing barriers. But as I deal with a big increase in polished but idiotic email and PRs, I have to think that barriers were helpful both to the world at large (by keeping fools at bay) and to the promising but incompetent (by giving them a chance to build character and wisdom).
Only if you have all the rest sorted, and that’s a big if. It’s also circular. You need time to achieve most of it.
> And good luck trying to find contributors who want to work for free, when they already are busy with their own projects.
Nothing against that. As I mentioned, there’s utility there. I don’t think it’s bad to put these tools to use. But this idea of having “a bunch of extremely capable co-workers that you can let deal with all the problems” without understanding what they do or reviewing their output (due to whatever reason), in other words putting the effort and understanding the output, is exactly what I was talking about.
Not to minimize the impact of social media censorship, but one should really live in a country like Iran to grasp what pervasive censorship is. Most people born and raised in the relative freedoms provided in modern democratic systems have no clue what it feels like when you have such dictatorships. I say this because, looking at the current trends, we _could be_ heading in that direction, and the comparison is apt.
I'm curious what trends you see towards censorship?
Elon presumably being an exemplar for current trends: Twitter is unarguably far less censored than it was before (though censorship is still present). And Meta took note and also turned down its censorship significantly in response.
The Epstein files, while far less than hoped for by many, are another example of a trend towards sharing far more sensitive info than has been typical by past administrations.
There are many good examples you could point to of increased authoritarianism, but censorship in particular seems to be on the backswing, if anything.
Edit: oof, it's extremely concerning that the comment below was flagged
Multiple jurisdictions have tried to play the stupid games of "we'll make a dumb fuck law that creates problems for you, the website operator, and if you don't conform, we'll sinkhole you at ISP level". Platforms like Xitter and Telegram being the common early targets.
The "age verification" push is a big move in that direction in Western countries. "Think of the children" is an evergreen excuse for authoritarian measures.
It’s too soon for such a conclusion IMO. The pervasive Iran-like censorship I was talking about will rear its ugly head when those authoritarian regimes are established. It’s a tool and I can assure you it will be used extensively. This is nothing new really.
P.S. the Epstein files were just a cruel joke! I wouldn’t list it there.
There’s nothing simple about authoritarian control.
Who says we have less censorship? Sure people can tweet all kind of stuff without getting banned. Fine, but at the same time US president is removing news networks he doesn’t like from press briefings. That’s just one example. To say the censorship is in decline is baffling.
>Twitter is unarguably far less censored than it was before (though censorship is still present). And Meta took note and also turned down its censorship significantly in response.
A publisher making editorial decisions is not censorship. You have no right to demand Twitter publish your speech. If you don't like their editorial policies, you are free to go elsewhere. You are not prevented from speaking or even prevented from reaching an audience. None of these platforms is a monopoly.
For my money, I would prefer to hang out somewhere where people don't openly celebrate the murder of my family. Would you deny me that right? If so, you are not on the side of freedom. I don't object to the existence of forums like /pol/ or today's Twitter; if you object to the existence of moderated forums like Twitter in its prime then you are the one restricting speech.
Today, we see flagrant examples of the literal government literally prohibiting people from speaking their minds. Literal masked thugs with literal guns are literally grabbing people off the streets. This is censorship like the Soviets did it.
Twitter has certainly relaxed its policies on racism and violence in recent years, and perhaps you think that's a good thing. But point out that they're paying Nazis to post about their hatred of Jews (an undisputed fact even if you object to the framing) and they'll file SLAPP suits to try to bankrupt you. They very much go in for censorship (the real kind, backed up by guys with guns) when it benefits them.
> A publisher making editorial decisions is not censorship.
Are you really going to conflate publishing with operating a social media platform? Regardless, if those editorial decisions are meant to suppress a viewpoint, it is censorship - government censorship is only one kind.
> You have no right to demand Twitter publish your speech.
Nobody argued that what social media do is illegal, only that it counts as censorship.
> A publisher making editorial decisions is not censorship. You have no right to compel other people to publish your speech. If you don't like Twitter's editorial policies, you are free to go elsewhere
When a social media deletes users posts because they cross a political line, it may not be government censorship, but it's very obviously still censorship.
It's very hard to take opinions like yours seriously because I know exactly how you'd react if all your HN posts were deleted because you're calling people "Nazis"
I exclusively use websites that "censor" their users. Millions upon millions of people are with me on this. Would you deny us our right to organize as we please?
>It's very hard to take opinions like yours seriously because I know exactly how you'd react if all your HN posts were deleted because you're calling people "Nazis"
If you deny that there are literal and unabashed Nazis on Twitter these days, you are wrong. I am not using the term as a pejorative; I am using it as a straightforward descriptor for people who post pictures of swastikas and SS officers, start their posts with "Hitler was right", have "1488" in their bios, and write my name (((like this))) every damn time. These sorts of people would not be offended by being called Nazis and are not shy about their desire to see me gassed to death. Twitter paid them to say these things and then tried to censor people who criticized them for it, and that's a fact.
> Would you deny us our right to organize as we please?
So you must really hate laws like the Online Safety Act and the Digital Services Act, that force platforms to censor vaguely-defined hate-speech, without a court order, or face ruinous fines. Literal government censorship, men with guns forcing private companies to silence citizens, denying you the right to organize as you please.
I mean, I assume you hate them. Based on your complaints about government interfering with individuals organizing as they please, you should hate them, but then you speak as if those laws don't exist, and you praise as exemplars of free speech and free association the very services those laws forces to censor. Maybe you just didn't know about them? And now that you do, you're going to protest these laws as fervently as you're protesting the other violations of free speech you mentioned in your posts?
> You don't know what it feels like not because you're so free, but because you agree with the ruling regime on what it considers the most important questions.
We don’t know what it feels like because we collectively participate and decide what should be considered and what not _periodically_ and it’s possible to change it, evidently, with various degrees and velocity by voting.
> I would much prefer the dictatorship-style censorship, because our censorship is far, far more effective.
Case in point!
I’ve lived under both and can guarantee you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for has in their bag for you until it’s too late.
I guess he is not yearning for dictatorship, the style of censorship is the question. Preventing access to information is bad, but likely less harmful than deception.
Its true, all usually highly conplex world events are dumbed down to an insanely infantile level that carefully omits anything that may poorly reflect on corporate interests.
Also obvious is that all news is made in a short list of countries. Everywhere else the best you can hope for are terrible events.
You will only get opinions from a small list of talking heads.
One might imagine populating the media with nothing but professors. Each field has new stuff every week. In stead you get Adam Savage. The name isn't by acident.
Not a single one of my examples was committed by the government (except if you count funding Carnegie Mellon and MIT). But even in cases when they are, voting rarely helps: https://www.woes.blog/p/tgr-democracy
> you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for
Re-read my sentence. I don't yearn for a dictatorship, I yearn to blunt and make obvious the current secret, subtle censorship regime.
I repeat - you agree with the regime. You're floating in the river, letting it carry you where it pleases, while telling those swimming upstream that there is no current, nothing to struggle against.
Edit as reply because "posting too fast":
> How did all of these social media companies made a 180 suddenly after power shifts in Washington?
None of the racist or right-wing or white nationalist subreddits got unbanned, American Renaissance is still banned off Facebook and Youtube, Facebook still explicitly bans white nationalism, and other social media ban it implicitly as "hate speech", TikTok bans "white lives matter" [1], and promised to ban even more [2] (under Trump's 1st term), while wikipedia doesn't even bother to mention that as censorship [3]. All of this is still the case under the current Washington. The only exception is Twitter, after Musk bought it - there, American Renaissance got unbanned.
And a 180 would imply that these things are not only unbanned, but their opponents are banned.
So if you're going to just make stuff up, i.e. lie, then I won't waste my time with you.
I think we can frame it as LLMs materializing existing potential. It seems like there needs to be an underlying potential to tap into, without which, the results could be slop.
Just a guess, but that case is going to take forever to get through court. The judge recently told both sides to narrow discovery requests, and next month will be another hearing on further discovery disputes.
I'd be surprised if there was any meaningful progress at all in the case before 2027.
This is bad advice for anything serious that can be subtly wrong. I’ve had Fable being consequentially wrong about what a certain, rather small, code block does in our codebase. Not even on something very complex which wasted a lot of time and effort from the team until we checked the code ourselves. I think these tools are still useful and one should learn to use them but blind trust for anything of importance is misguided IMO.
I use Fable to give me feedback on things I write. But I discard about 50%, because it often does not have the context and thus tends to favour hedging stuff. Also, it does not always vibe with my writing style.
But the 50% I do take into account, improves the text! And, like TFA, I never ask it for concrete text. It only helps me diagnose the issues, I prescribe the medicine!
Surely the exercise that comes with using public transport outweighs that. I feel like being able to zone out and not having to focus on driving, is more relaxing to me.
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