This touches on a lot of the problems I have with the backlash against AI use. My wife was telling me a story about some woman she was talking to, and they were talking about how annoying ai slop...
Exemplary
This touches on a lot of the problems I have with the backlash against AI use.
My wife was telling me a story about some woman she was talking to, and they were talking about how annoying ai slop on the internet is, and this woman said something like "yeah, I don't associate with anyone that uses AI, it's just a red flag".
That position strikes me as frankly, completely ridiculous. I think at this point it's pretty self evident that LLMs are a useful tool for some use cases. If you can't even concede that point, in my opinion, you're just living in your own reality which you created to justify an entrenched position you have.
The issue is that its not useful for many of the things that it is being used for, and that it's being forced into a lot of areas to justify investments and to slash labor costs without any thought of the long term ramifications there. As a result, we have a proliferation of absolutely garbage content on the internet that a human being didn't even have the common decency to review, let alone create by hand.
The arguments about water use or energy use or whatever are all derived from that overuse, not because the technology itself is fundementally evil or something.
Often times in the cultural zietgeist lately, nuance gets completely paved over, and the most extreme, simple take is the one that spreads, and lately, "AI is evil and you're evil if you use it" seems to be trending in the spaces I inhabit. I think there's a lot of very smart people refusing to apply their intelligence to the problem in an honest way in favor of righteous catharsis.
I don't know how many people here listen to accidental tech podcast, but it's been pretty interesting to listen to the hosts' AI journeys. They have all experimented with vibe coding (not looking...
I don't know how many people here listen to accidental tech podcast, but it's been pretty interesting to listen to the hosts' AI journeys. They have all experimented with vibe coding (not looking at the code, just the output), but for their existing projects, they still don't really have the AI write much code, and they vet what it does write pretty extensively.
But what they have all done a lot is using AI to find and fix bugs in their programs. Overcast, and all their other programs, are more stable today than they were 6 months ago, thanks to Claude fable. Marco has pointed fable at bugs that were affecting 1-2 users. That is the type of scale that doesn't really make sense to invest human development time on. Fable has also fixed long standing bugs that Marco couldn't figure out himself.
So for those types of people who are dogmatically against AI, I guess you will be missing out on some of the most stable software in years.
Also the ATP crew made some interesting points about Apple. It is known that Apple has been using anthropic models pretty extensively internally for a while now. And iOS 27 is mostly a bug fix release. They have been fixing everything from long standing bugs to iOS 26 recent bugs. The 27 betas have been more stable for me than the 26 public builds. Coincidence? Doubtful. Fable certainly had a hand to play in many of those bugs. So for those dogmatic people, make sure to not use Apple anymore, since their software stability is due to AI.
It certainly helps that they all independently make their own software now. I think LLMs are a fantastic rubber duck if you literally have no coworkers to pair program with, and occasionally just...
It certainly helps that they all independently make their own software now. I think LLMs are a fantastic rubber duck if you literally have no coworkers to pair program with, and occasionally just need a spare set of eyes.
It has been interesting to pay attention to their AI journey. They started quite skeptical. They briefly fell in love with AI, though in at least one case it was mostly because they miss having teammates. They seem to appreciate it now, with a grain of salt. Marco can still go on about it a bit too long but I think between the three hosts we've gotten a somewhat balanced take on LLM usage for software dev. I'm much more skeptical since my employers have been much more "shove it down your throat" types since Claude code got really popular, but it's helpful to see their perspective to know if I'm missing out on that much.
My favorite has been John Siracusa. Before AI, I would have guessed he would be the most skeptical. Now it seems that he is doing actual vibe coding while the other two aren't. To be fair, it is...
My favorite has been John Siracusa. Before AI, I would have guessed he would be the most skeptical. Now it seems that he is doing actual vibe coding while the other two aren't. To be fair, it is only for his personal tier list website. But it has been fascinating to watch.
I think you make some good points. I want to add another. Whether something is fully human-made is actually mostly irrelevant except on some emotional level. If you find a useful tool online, or...
I think you make some good points. I want to add another.
Whether something is fully human-made is actually mostly irrelevant except on some emotional level. If you find a useful tool online, or even a browser game or whatever, its usefulness/funness does not depend on how it was made or by who... except when you keep telling yourself “it's made by AI, so I feel bad about it” and bring yourself down that way.
The problem isn't that people use AI at all. The problem is people publishing such unbelievably low-quality garbage that would previously have been embarrassing. The problem is people trusting the AI to create quality and not even bothering to evaluate it before publishing. This makes it harder to find the higher-quality stuff regardless of whether it's made with AI.
I think people especially non-tech consumers who are directly affected by this like writers (just an example, there's a bunch of these poeple on Reddit and X) are leaning heavily into this false...
I think people especially non-tech consumers who are directly affected by this like writers (just an example, there's a bunch of these poeple on Reddit and X) are leaning heavily into this false binary distinction when the real choice is just quality. Quality has many dimensions (some may argue almost infinite if you go really deep).
IMO, we should all help educate people about quality software and how to spot AI slop. A lot of the rage may be intentionally good but misguided.
As someone that’s on the side of those not wanting to be obsoleted, much of the AI hate discussion online is really annoying - cringe even. People focus on water instead of electricity or class...
As someone that’s on the side of those not wanting to be obsoleted, much of the AI hate discussion online is really annoying - cringe even. People focus on water instead of electricity or class warfare, which I see as the bigger issues. And people act as though they’re better than me because I’m a stinky user of LLMs that destroy the environment. How many of those people are eating meat at most of their meals? That would have a much bigger environmental and ethical impact (edit: or flying on jets?). I see a lot of these awkward flailings as redirected economic anxiety. Why not just talk about the ownership class trying to obsolete labor instead?
My not real conspiracy theory is that the "AI = water usage" thing is a psyop from AI datacenter companies so that when people complain at city councils about the datacenters, the companies can...
My not real conspiracy theory is that the "AI = water usage" thing is a psyop from AI datacenter companies so that when people complain at city councils about the datacenters, the companies can just say "uh, yeah, so we do close loop cooling because it's, y'know, cheaper" and shut down their primary argument there and then.
Doesn't pass occam's razor, but it is a such real self-own.
I also suspect that Californians are overrepresented online, and it seems that a lot of them are unaware that their climate and environmental issues (such as water shortages) aren't universal. One...
I also suspect that Californians are overrepresented online, and it seems that a lot of them are unaware that their climate and environmental issues (such as water shortages) aren't universal.
One I very, very often see is the idea that grass is "unnatural" and anyone who has grass growing in their yard must be wasting a lot of water to maintain it. But in many places around the world, there are plenty of native grasses (and also plenty of invasive grasses) that happily grow by themselves without any human input. Natural rainfall is enough.
Where I live, it actually takes a lot of work to keep grass under control and stop it from choking out other plants. It's by far the worst weed in my garden. I wish I had to water grass to keep it alive!
Thank you! I live in the Bluegrass and have never once watered my lawn. It had never occurred to me that Californian overrepresentation could have something to do with the aversion to grass.
Thank you! I live in the Bluegrass and have never once watered my lawn. It had never occurred to me that Californian overrepresentation could have something to do with the aversion to grass.
Yeah, the way some people talk about grass, you'd think it was created in a lab. There are ~12,000 species of grass, and grasslands are one of the most widespread biomes on earth. In places with a...
Yeah, the way some people talk about grass, you'd think it was created in a lab. There are ~12,000 species of grass, and grasslands are one of the most widespread biomes on earth. In places with a suitable climate, the only thing you need to have a lawn is a lawnmower or a grazing animal. It won't be some super manicured lawn like the ones you see on TV, but these mixed-species wild-type lawns are the most common kinds of lawns you see in places where grasses grow naturally and homeowners aren't subject to absurd lawncare regulations (like you see with some HOAs, but HOAs are far from universal).
Water shortage isn't a Californian thing. Some places in Global South, such as Chile, Brazil's Northeast, and Uruguay, were elected destinies for AI data centers even without abundance of water....
Water shortage isn't a Californian thing. Some places in Global South, such as Chile, Brazil's Northeast, and Uruguay, were elected destinies for AI data centers even without abundance of water. Karen Hao's “Empire of AI” has a very detailed report on this.
It has crossed my mind that with the advent of LLMs, it is now cheaper to run large text-based psyop campaigns. If you were concerned about the rapid development of AI by American companies, one...
It has crossed my mind that with the advent of LLMs, it is now cheaper to run large text-based psyop campaigns. If you were concerned about the rapid development of AI by American companies, one thing you might be tempted to do is to sow discord in tech communities. Plant a bunch of personas, stir up some anti-AI sentiment. Maybe encourage a few software projects to fork needlessly. Start a few boycotts. (For maximum effectiveness, don't forget to work the other side, too! Convince a few startups that the secret to their success was AI. Place some accounts to parrot the narrative to CTOs of larger companies. Plant the idea of massive layoffs + AI = massive profit.)
But again, Occam's razor. I don't seriously believe that conspiracy theory because in all likelihood, folks just enjoy black-and-white narratives too much, and that naturally leads to polarization—and explains why conspiracy theories are so seductive, too.
Lmao well just like in American politics, most of those discussions are again as you correctly pointed out, shallow, binary, and cringe AF. I dont pay much attention to politics for the same...
Lmao well just like in American politics, most of those discussions are again as you correctly pointed out, shallow, binary, and cringe AF. I dont pay much attention to politics for the same reason cuz all the discussion is just taking an ideology and pinning it on 1 side. That's simply never true. 150M people on each side, you're telling me 1 side hates nature the other side doesn't? Or 1 side hates capitalism and the other side is 100% pure ownership capitalism? Lmao. Idk to me those are just absolutely insane and crazy takes. Sure there is a lot of crazy leaders but most people are normal and love nature and probably believes in regular market economics.
So as I said, so much adult education is due. /s
This touches on a lot of the problems I have with the backlash against AI use.
My wife was telling me a story about some woman she was talking to, and they were talking about how annoying ai slop on the internet is, and this woman said something like "yeah, I don't associate with anyone that uses AI, it's just a red flag".
That position strikes me as frankly, completely ridiculous. I think at this point it's pretty self evident that LLMs are a useful tool for some use cases. If you can't even concede that point, in my opinion, you're just living in your own reality which you created to justify an entrenched position you have.
The issue is that its not useful for many of the things that it is being used for, and that it's being forced into a lot of areas to justify investments and to slash labor costs without any thought of the long term ramifications there. As a result, we have a proliferation of absolutely garbage content on the internet that a human being didn't even have the common decency to review, let alone create by hand.
The arguments about water use or energy use or whatever are all derived from that overuse, not because the technology itself is fundementally evil or something.
Often times in the cultural zietgeist lately, nuance gets completely paved over, and the most extreme, simple take is the one that spreads, and lately, "AI is evil and you're evil if you use it" seems to be trending in the spaces I inhabit. I think there's a lot of very smart people refusing to apply their intelligence to the problem in an honest way in favor of righteous catharsis.
I don't know how many people here listen to accidental tech podcast, but it's been pretty interesting to listen to the hosts' AI journeys. They have all experimented with vibe coding (not looking at the code, just the output), but for their existing projects, they still don't really have the AI write much code, and they vet what it does write pretty extensively.
But what they have all done a lot is using AI to find and fix bugs in their programs. Overcast, and all their other programs, are more stable today than they were 6 months ago, thanks to Claude fable. Marco has pointed fable at bugs that were affecting 1-2 users. That is the type of scale that doesn't really make sense to invest human development time on. Fable has also fixed long standing bugs that Marco couldn't figure out himself.
So for those types of people who are dogmatically against AI, I guess you will be missing out on some of the most stable software in years.
Also the ATP crew made some interesting points about Apple. It is known that Apple has been using anthropic models pretty extensively internally for a while now. And iOS 27 is mostly a bug fix release. They have been fixing everything from long standing bugs to iOS 26 recent bugs. The 27 betas have been more stable for me than the 26 public builds. Coincidence? Doubtful. Fable certainly had a hand to play in many of those bugs. So for those dogmatic people, make sure to not use Apple anymore, since their software stability is due to AI.
It certainly helps that they all independently make their own software now. I think LLMs are a fantastic rubber duck if you literally have no coworkers to pair program with, and occasionally just need a spare set of eyes.
It has been interesting to pay attention to their AI journey. They started quite skeptical. They briefly fell in love with AI, though in at least one case it was mostly because they miss having teammates. They seem to appreciate it now, with a grain of salt. Marco can still go on about it a bit too long but I think between the three hosts we've gotten a somewhat balanced take on LLM usage for software dev. I'm much more skeptical since my employers have been much more "shove it down your throat" types since Claude code got really popular, but it's helpful to see their perspective to know if I'm missing out on that much.
My favorite has been John Siracusa. Before AI, I would have guessed he would be the most skeptical. Now it seems that he is doing actual vibe coding while the other two aren't. To be fair, it is only for his personal tier list website. But it has been fascinating to watch.
I think you make some good points. I want to add another.
Whether something is fully human-made is actually mostly irrelevant except on some emotional level. If you find a useful tool online, or even a browser game or whatever, its usefulness/funness does not depend on how it was made or by who... except when you keep telling yourself “it's made by AI, so I feel bad about it” and bring yourself down that way.
The problem isn't that people use AI at all. The problem is people publishing such unbelievably low-quality garbage that would previously have been embarrassing. The problem is people trusting the AI to create quality and not even bothering to evaluate it before publishing. This makes it harder to find the higher-quality stuff regardless of whether it's made with AI.
I think people especially non-tech consumers who are directly affected by this like writers (just an example, there's a bunch of these poeple on Reddit and X) are leaning heavily into this false binary distinction when the real choice is just quality. Quality has many dimensions (some may argue almost infinite if you go really deep).
IMO, we should all help educate people about quality software and how to spot AI slop. A lot of the rage may be intentionally good but misguided.
As someone that’s on the side of those not wanting to be obsoleted, much of the AI hate discussion online is really annoying - cringe even. People focus on water instead of electricity or class warfare, which I see as the bigger issues. And people act as though they’re better than me because I’m a stinky user of LLMs that destroy the environment. How many of those people are eating meat at most of their meals? That would have a much bigger environmental and ethical impact (edit: or flying on jets?). I see a lot of these awkward flailings as redirected economic anxiety. Why not just talk about the ownership class trying to obsolete labor instead?
My not real conspiracy theory is that the "AI = water usage" thing is a psyop from AI datacenter companies so that when people complain at city councils about the datacenters, the companies can just say "uh, yeah, so we do close loop cooling because it's, y'know, cheaper" and shut down their primary argument there and then.
Doesn't pass occam's razor, but it is a such real self-own.
I also suspect that Californians are overrepresented online, and it seems that a lot of them are unaware that their climate and environmental issues (such as water shortages) aren't universal.
One I very, very often see is the idea that grass is "unnatural" and anyone who has grass growing in their yard must be wasting a lot of water to maintain it. But in many places around the world, there are plenty of native grasses (and also plenty of invasive grasses) that happily grow by themselves without any human input. Natural rainfall is enough.
Where I live, it actually takes a lot of work to keep grass under control and stop it from choking out other plants. It's by far the worst weed in my garden. I wish I had to water grass to keep it alive!
Thank you! I live in the Bluegrass and have never once watered my lawn. It had never occurred to me that Californian overrepresentation could have something to do with the aversion to grass.
Yeah, the way some people talk about grass, you'd think it was created in a lab. There are ~12,000 species of grass, and grasslands are one of the most widespread biomes on earth. In places with a suitable climate, the only thing you need to have a lawn is a lawnmower or a grazing animal. It won't be some super manicured lawn like the ones you see on TV, but these mixed-species wild-type lawns are the most common kinds of lawns you see in places where grasses grow naturally and homeowners aren't subject to absurd lawncare regulations (like you see with some HOAs, but HOAs are far from universal).
Water shortage isn't a Californian thing. Some places in Global South, such as Chile, Brazil's Northeast, and Uruguay, were elected destinies for AI data centers even without abundance of water. Karen Hao's “Empire of AI” has a very detailed report on this.
It has crossed my mind that with the advent of LLMs, it is now cheaper to run large text-based psyop campaigns. If you were concerned about the rapid development of AI by American companies, one thing you might be tempted to do is to sow discord in tech communities. Plant a bunch of personas, stir up some anti-AI sentiment. Maybe encourage a few software projects to fork needlessly. Start a few boycotts. (For maximum effectiveness, don't forget to work the other side, too! Convince a few startups that the secret to their success was AI. Place some accounts to parrot the narrative to CTOs of larger companies. Plant the idea of massive layoffs + AI = massive profit.)
But again, Occam's razor. I don't seriously believe that conspiracy theory because in all likelihood, folks just enjoy black-and-white narratives too much, and that naturally leads to polarization—and explains why conspiracy theories are so seductive, too.
Lmao well just like in American politics, most of those discussions are again as you correctly pointed out, shallow, binary, and cringe AF. I dont pay much attention to politics for the same reason cuz all the discussion is just taking an ideology and pinning it on 1 side. That's simply never true. 150M people on each side, you're telling me 1 side hates nature the other side doesn't? Or 1 side hates capitalism and the other side is 100% pure ownership capitalism? Lmao. Idk to me those are just absolutely insane and crazy takes. Sure there is a lot of crazy leaders but most people are normal and love nature and probably believes in regular market economics.
So as I said, so much adult education is due. /s