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I think this proves we are absolutely ready to hand over our businesses and lives to our AI overlords!

Honestly, the world has grown past the need for Meta. I would not cry if it completely shut down, problem is, what will fill the void? It would be nice to have something not controlled by Big American Corporation (or Chinese, or any, for that matter), but somehow I don't see it happening.

Okay but like, you can make that happen. You can just stop using it.

Interestingly I did learn of a niche which is completely unserved except by Meta recently: child-locked messaging apps.

Messenger for Kids basically does everything you want it to - restricted functionality, restricted contact lists etc. I won't use it, but I only found out about it because I was hoping someone had built a Signal client which did exactly that.


Or European, for that matter. Don't fancy submitting my ID to get access.

What void tho? The majority of people _I know_ below 40 don't use Facebook or any related service at all.

The people you know aren't exactly representative of the whole country. Most people I know are on instagram.

When I open Instagram that is still connected to all my old friends, class mates, travel buddies and whatever I get 90% third party ads and 10% posts that might even be a few months old, and most of that is just "look at me" type of content.

So I have to assume it's dead


I always find it surprising when I hear of someone younger using facebook. I associate it with retired/elderly folks who love posting cryptic messages about their health or how their day has gone wanting attention.

Same here. Also interesting how defensive people seem to get when they are somehow stuck using these networks trough their social circle or area

It's different by location. E. g. in Europe many people uses Facebook, many under 40s too.

In the US: 25–34 years: Around 25.7% to 25.9% (the largest single demographic group).


Central Europe here myself (Switzerland to be precise) signal and telegram are the dominant IM and Instagram is just as dead as Facebook, sure some might use it but nobody expects anyone else to to.

Signal is not the most popular/dominant IM even in Signal's HQ. It has 2% global market share. You are extrapolating from your bubble.

Do they use Instagram or WhatsApp?

> or any related services.

So nah, most don't. I know some do, but the main socialisation isn't happening there.


I think you're forgetting that Meta owns Instagram and WhatsApp.

I am not forgetting that no. Signal and Telegram are the main drivers and Instagram is just as dead as Facebook itself is.

Most people under 40, 30 and even 20 I know are on Instagram, and many under 40 and 30 are on Facebook. Maybe it varies with country, education level or some other factors.

It's still used for stuff like events or groups

While at that, let's also get rid of all the cultural differences (which can cause problems during such interactions) because it's gonna be more peaceful


I really hope you and GP are being sarcastic.

Cultural differences are what makes the world and humanity so interesting.


Let's not think about how effectively we'll be able to snuff out emerging divergence


Way to completely miss the point of the article.


> point of the article

Nth iteration of pointless AI navel gazing?


What was the point to you? What I took away from the article is that AI adds a bunch of complexity that is making it harder, not easier to understand.

And I'm saying that is true, but it's also enabling a kind of complexity and ambition in outcomes that might be a worthwhile trade-off.

In the same way we accept that cars are no longer something that a mechanic can understand and repair without a laptop, because we trade off the repairability and understanding for better mileage or safer handling.

Either I misunderstood the article, or people are misunderstanding my point, because I'm genuinely confused by being called a bot.


It's useful to you. I'd say take the win and let the haters quibble. I'm good enough at coding that I can use it as part of my day job, but I hate coding for the sake of coding. For me coding is a tool for solving problems, and now AI can sometimes help me solve problems I might not have had the motivation to persue. My scale is usually "a small application that helps me do X", not "I develop photoshop singlehandedly".


absolubtely. Worth noting though that a large number of people here literally do develop photoshop, or similar apps of similar complexity.

The fact they aren't doing it singlehanded makes it way harder, not easier. This is a central counterintuitive finding of most thinking about software development


> The fact they aren't doing it singlehanded makes it way harder, not easier.

As N->large, fraction of time spent coordinating approaches infinity.


For many people this might make a massive difference. But people are not equally sensitive to caffeine.


Fully agree. I can drink coffee until 6pm and soft drinks until 9pm without impact to my sleep. There's little point in me moderating my caffeine intake.

Light, sleep time regularity, and exercise make a much more noticeable difference. That's where I should spend effort if I want to improve my sleep.


Could be worse like crossover


I mean, what's the worst that can happen? A complete takeover of the box by a hacker via prompt injection or something similar?


My agent has full autonomy when it comes to spinning up new agents or talking to them so it's not an issue


Interesting approach to exfiltration but that can't be prevented really because of lethal trifecta.


Why is this even a legit question? I need to keep writing code to stay relevant, not to forget my craft, be able to review code... So many reasons. AI doesn't change a thing.


Before my time ppl mostly did things in asm, I bet the vast majority of people reading this have never touched assembly and will never have any reason to. This is quickly becoming true of most "code". AI has changed that.

One way to "stay relevant" would be to admit that.


Yet as a C developer for 15 years I frequently looked at asm and on occasion even wrote a little.

And that is a far stronger abstraction than LLMs :)


assembly is compiled deterministically so you don't really need to look at it, LLMs though can write a variety of things at random based on the prompt. It is not the same.


How can you evaluate what your compiler is doing without looking at the assembly? The many users of godbolt suggest it's pretty common.


I have also never used punch cards, what does it prove?


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