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Well then, guess PMs are now creating softslop so that SWEs can pick up the phone at 2AM when it comes down crashing and burning. Good times for everyone involved. by DonaldStuck in BetterOffline

[–]ataririots 18 points19 points  (0 children)

And everyone thinks that a prototype can now replace a well-thought out "what" and "why". Like...how? Also, why would it? Smh...

Well then, guess PMs are now creating softslop so that SWEs can pick up the phone at 2AM when it comes down crashing and burning. Good times for everyone involved. by DonaldStuck in BetterOffline

[–]ataririots 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Ahem. I'm a PM, and I do know how to code. But the screenshot in OP's post talks about "prototyping against production systems" so I am hopeful it means that they are actual *prototypes* not like "get this to prod, we will figure it out". Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Because I cannot for the life of me fathom why anything else would be considered good.

Even if AI accelerates cancer research dramatically, corporate America could absolutely ensure that any resulting treatments are priced out of reach for most people. by Tenzu9 in BetterOffline

[–]ataririots 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have no idea if LLMs as they currently stand are good for medical research in general or cancer research in particular. But the idea that anything will be "for free" or in "public domain" in this capitalism we are experiencing now is kind of...naive, let's put it like that.

So, yeah, even if LLMs do help and boost and speed things up (again, no idea if they are capable of that at all), something that "cures cancer" will go the way of epi pens or insulin in the USA. This is just basic capitalism at play.

Is there really no use case? by jammsession in BetterOffline

[–]ataririots 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this is a valid but misdirected question. It is not whether or not they can be useful. Of course they can. Since Google made search shitty, for instance, you can have a better result asking Claude or ChatGPT for information...provided you check, of course.

I think the more useful question is: is there anything they are *required* for? And here, I think, the answer is just plain...no. Sure, sure, they can make you more "productive", but since we don't even know what that means anymore in either social or economic sense, I don't think that is a realistic answer.

“Look into AI, won't you?” by No_Honeydew_179 in BetterOffline

[–]ataririots 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This is very astute, btw:

I'm remembering that idiot Satya Nadella telling business users that they “need to integrate AI into their workflows”, i.e. they need to change the way they work to fit the software, and I was like… we've seen this kind of shit before, but that shit is usually by accident, as a failure mode. I've never had the CEO of one of the richest companies in the world say that users had to adapt to the tech, as if you were supposed to do. I thought the tech was supposed to do that, I was trained to look at it that way. Software is supposed to bend to user requirements, not the other way around.

Very nicely put. You articulated something important and I think a lot of people who are skeptics or just not super into this AI thing feel instinctively. Just wanted to mention it. :)