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sam-cop-vimes

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We should be more tired than the model

I understand the rationale behind this, but can't help feeling that this is a downward spiral. The software industry has always been a hard place to build and sustain a career because of the pace of change. With these tools, the pressure to increase output is going to grow, jobs are going to be axed - so software devs need to work harder to stay relevant. Weren't these tools supposed to make our lives easier?!

Exactly my thoughts on the matter. However much ones instinct is to paint an entire country with a broad brush (looking at China, America, Iran), there are always good people within who are fighting to do the right thing. We can only hope that this keeps happening to maintain some balance.

When I was a child, I was part of a team playing a game against a team which was stronger than us. Each player from one team had to take turns taking the attack to the opponent's team. Every player in our team put themselves forward thinking they can do better, only to be slapped down.

The current administration's approach is something similar. They think that because they have managed to take over American politics and do as they please in the US, they think they can do anything they want outside the US as well. Previous administrations had more awareness of their limitations - but I guess we are in the FA of the FAFO phase.

Labeling the actual worker negatively seems harsh - they are probably being forced into it by the state. You might say they can willingly underperform and not be used this way - but if the alternative is a much harder life, could you blame them for playing along?

Nvidia NemoClaw 4 months ago

It is possible that they don't understand the risks involved, but yes, it certainly is tapping into unmet need.

I feel for the author, but I'm not sure we will ever get to the point where programmers are replaced. Building a software product requires so much more than just writing some code. Yes, pretty soon most of us might not be writing individual functions or modules and rely on code generation instead. But to even produce a collection of cooperating services which deliver a coherent UX still requires hundreds of small decisions to be made. Our Lego blocks got bigger.

We didn't feel the same impact moving from assembly to high level languages probably because there was a smaller programmer population perhaps? And computers weren't underpinning the lives of all people.

IMHO, the danger with the current trend isn't necessarily the change to the day job of a "programmer". It is that this leads to a concentration of power in a small group of people. Then again, computer hardware were always the produce of a very small number of players and we managed to live through that without too much of a catastrophe. In aggregate, the world got better. Like with any new technological development, there are pros and cons. It is up to us as a society to amplify the pros and attenuate the cons.

Yes, writing a beautiful piece of code by hand is fun - and yes, the days of doing purely that for a living are probably disappearing soon, but there is no going back. Make peace with it and evolve.

You cannot offload all problems to the legal system. It does not have the capacity. Legal issues take time to resolve and the victims have to have the necessary resource to pursue legal action. Grok enabled abuse at scale, which no legal system in the world can keep up with. It doesn't need explanation that generating nudes of people without their consent is a form of abuse. And if the legal system cannot keep up with protecting victims, the problem has to be dealt with at source.

Not the same - the barrier to entry was too high. Most people don't have the skills to edit photos using Photoshop. Grok enabled this to happen to scale for users who are complete non techies. With grok, anyone who could type in a half-coherent sentence in English could generate and disseminate these images.

Edit: clarified the last sentence

I'm no fan of Musk, but you've got to admit it was a clever way to achieve the goal. SemiAnalysis don't do fanboy articles - their research is pretty in-depth. So they are stating it as they see it.

The problem ordinary people all over the world have is that governments are allowing this to happen. Maybe if there were stricter regulation it will prevent players such as Musk to come up with such "innovations".

The same people have been saying for ages that this stuff needs to be regulated. But all governments are wary of interfering too much in the market. Legislation takes time, due not in small part to the efforts of private businesses lobbying against regulation. Look how long it took for governments to start labelling cigarettes as being harmful to ones health, restricting advertising etc.

As always, it takes bold leadership to bring about change, and it is not always available.

I am fairly certain that Russia has some kompromat on Trump and to avoid that being disclosed he is destroying the world as we know it. Just being a misogynist racist doesn't quite explain all of his actions.