Post #3000924

2026-01-24 22:17 UTC

@munificent@mastodon.social I agree with a lot that you wrote, especially about the time & effort's relation to meaning. however, I think you're being too charitable to AI in this post. the assumption is that the utility is there - that using AI is actually faster, or you can get a better result in the same time. or that the generated code has more value (err, utility) than mental models in people's heads. I don't see it in the industry at large (where are all the new apps? [1]), and I don't see it in studies [2] (at least the ones not sponsored by microsoft/openai/whatever). I get it that it's smart to assume that The New Model will solve everything in a few weeks. as it's always claimed, but.. do you really want to believe in that? 1: https://mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the-shovelware-why-ai-coding 2: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09089

Replies (2)

@munificent@mastodon.social 2026-01-24 22:25

@sarna@types.pl > the assumption is that the utility is there The article does state that assumption explicitly, but yes it's an important point. What I'm trying to work through is that to the degree that AI does do useful stuff, when would I want to use it or avoid it?

Open ##3000925
@krig@goto.liten.app 2026-01-26 16:39

@sarna@types.pl @munificent@mastodon.social Came here to say the same thing. The article keeps saying "assuming the utility is there" - well, is it? Not that it matters to me, I am against AI anyway because programming to me is not at all different from other creative endeavours. You can make any argument about utility in code for utility in (commercial) art as well and it's equally abhorrent to me in either domain. Any domain. Summaries? No. Writing? Hell no. Music? Never. Art? No. Code? No. Any generated code is instant tech debt, a black hole of anti-knowledge in a field which is all about understanding things.

Open ##3000930