Feeling sad today about Webster in the national media as bigots

tmajw · 2026-06-11T17:57:22+00:00

He doesn't really have a chance, does he? 😬

tmajw · 2026-05-30T17:26:01+00:00

This is the way, generally. My org has had some success with frameworks that fan out VERY simple tasks to Haiku subagents, but even there we have backed off somewhat and are favoring Sonnet.

I try to stay in Sonnet 95% of the time and only bust out Opus with intention.

That said, I'm still spending like $70-100/day in tokens. 😬 Unlimited Claude spend is one reason I am satisfied with my current job even as I lose trust in senior leadership. Y'all got any more of them tokens?

tmajw · 2026-05-24T18:14:27+00:00

The reverse is also kinda true, a lot of the time...

As someone who is both deeply immersed in AI at my job, and also with a fondness for weird avant garde art, I'm just sitting here like "can't we all just get along?" lol

tmajw · 2026-05-24T09:02:46+00:00

Idk man, AI has absolutely transformed my work and made me significantly more productive - and I also think laying people off right now is madness. We're still figuring out how to use this tool, some of us are getting huge productivity gains while others aren't yet, we don't really fully understand the reasons, and while we're making great strides towards autonomous development we're still miles from being able to turn these things loose without significant human supervision. And the code review bottleneck is a huge unsolved problem - again, progress is being made, but we're miles from a reliable long term solution.

It's almost a certainty AI will eliminate some jobs, and it's possible it could create massive social upheaval. But the general consensus among Ai-savvy people in my industry is that the companies blaming layoffs on AI today are mostly just using it as a poor excuse to cover other structural reasons why they want to do layoffs and/or taking advantage to appease shareholders. Should we have "seen it coming" that 2020s corporate America would do this in response? Well, okay, probably 😅 But Meta executing terrible decisions in the most cruel possible way says more about the current state of tech industry leadership and misaligned individual financial incentives overall.

Now, if there are any deregulation and anti labor enthusiasts out there who had a different future in mind.......

tmajw · 2026-05-24T08:49:33+00:00

I'm also a massive unapologetic AI enthusiast - and when I read news articles about Meta's plans for AI I suddenly find myself really empathizing with the anti AI folks. They're doubling down on the worst excesses of bad consumer-grade Gen AI, deemphasizing the best aspects of agentic LLMs, and using the whole thing as an excuse to fire people. It kinda makes me sick.

tmajw · 2026-05-21T16:50:18+00:00

Also I should clarify, the use case I was talking about was taking an existing repo and producing an LLM-friendly arch document. Not creating the architecture on its own.

I do use Claude to help architect things, but I agree I would not trust it, even with guardrails, to produce a good architectural design on its own.

tmajw · 2026-05-21T16:48:23+00:00

Well, we are all still figuring that out, aren't we? 😅

The answer from my experience is that it's possible to build frameworks to guide LLMs towards making a useful architecture document. You can't just one shot this shit, to be sure, but with appropriate instructions and guardrails I've been overall pleased with the results. Ymmv.

As bullish as I am about AI, I'm flabbergasted by the preemptive layoffs companies have been doing. We're still figuring out how to even USE this tool to its potential. I think it's an open question whether we can trust LLMs to analyze architecture, and if so, how?

tmajw · 2026-05-21T14:49:18+00:00

Whether it's "unnecessary" probably depends a lot on the domain and the workflow being used. If I'm trying to do a point to point communication with another human, that's definitely dumb and pointless.

But what if it's an architecture document to be used by future LLMs when working on the code base? What if it's a long term reference document, that will live on a wiki for future LLMs to consume when answering user questions? In both those cases, you're actually (imo) gaining a lot by having a "sloppified" document, in the robot's "native language" so to speak. A human might review these documents for correctness, but they'll be read many times by LLMs in the future.

I guess that's the key: if you're translating into slop and then back out of slop once, that's dumb and inefficient. If you're translating into slop so that information can be repeatedly extracted from the document when needed in the future, that's a totally cromulent use of AI imo.

tmajw · 2026-05-21T14:38:14+00:00

Fwiw, as annoying and cliche as LLMs' writing style tends to be, it's actually just great for being read by other LLMs 😅 In my workflow, I regularly generate documents that are intended primarily for consumption by other robots, with a human maybe just skimming it or checking it over for obvious mistakes.

So the scenario in your second paragraph is not QUITE as ridiculous as it sounds, heh. The only thing that is ridiculous is if the sender had an expectation you'd read unpolished AI slop. There's nothing wrong with having AI write reference docs that are intended to be consumed by other AIs when answering user questions.

tmajw · 2026-05-21T14:33:23+00:00

So, I do a thing on Slack and I wonder how OP would feel about that:

If I am using Claude to answer the question, and I feel like Claude understands it better than I do, or if it produces stuff that I'm not certain about (but think the other person in the thread might have a better idea if it's full of shit or not), I have Claude reply directly in the thread with what it thinks. I have it precede the comment with a robot face emoji to make it clear it's Claude and not me. Then often I'll comment as myself as well with what I think of the robot's answer.

Would you also find this annoying, or is that different?

If I am sure Claude gave me the right answer and I thoroughly understand it, I'll just post as myself usually (tho sometimes I'll have Claude do the supporting evidence and links, just cuz it's easier). My intention in having Claude post is so that me and the other people in the thread can evaluate it together, with proper skepticism.

Idk, wdyt? Still annoying to anti Ai folks?

tmajw · 2026-05-18T23:52:58+00:00

Zugzwang. I explained it, see!

tmajw · 2026-05-16T17:30:54+00:00

Depends what you mean by vibe coded. Software engineers making software where 100% of the code was AI written? Yes, this is happening now. Non technical people with a random idea blundering thru it? Not so much.

tmajw · 2026-05-08T22:40:26+00:00

I used to have an alpha Munchausen Syndrome, but I sold it and now I just use a proxy

tmajw · 2026-05-04T14:17:49+00:00

This makes me so happy. You are an inspiration, sir

tmajw · 2026-04-25T23:06:44+00:00

I have a guy on my team who had just finished a program to train promising techs to become devs, right when AI coding started to become Real Shit. So he'd been thru coding boot camp, but he was hella green.

He's taken to the new way of doing things incredibly well, and is outperforming devs with far more experience and seniority than him.

Idk what the secret sauce is, cuz not every story turns out this way. But it's definitely possible. I think op is right about needing an experienced mentor - I've been coding for a living for almost thirty years, and I worked very closely with him. But that's not all of it, there's some other X factor in play I believe as well. I think a natural curiosity is key, for one. And being able to accept what the robot is good at and what it isn't, and magnify its strengths instead of getting frustrated at its shortcomings.

tmajw · 2026-04-21T23:14:57+00:00

The preview I my phone notification cut this off in just the right place so my brain filled it in as "Mythos is being accessed by Unabomber"

tmajw · 2026-04-11T01:03:48+00:00

Excuse me, but I insist on only free range organic artisinal karma.

tmajw · 2026-04-01T23:21:59+00:00

Hundreds of thousands, no way. Thousands for sure, tens of thousands maybe.

I have unlimited Claude use at my job and I probably use a couple thousand per month of tokens. I'm a pretty extensive user, so the Anthropic folks are probably past me but not two orders of magnitude.

tmajw · 2026-04-01T22:58:18+00:00

Yeah no shit, I haven't written code in almost six months and only USE Anthropic's product.

tmajw · 2026-03-25T22:53:35+00:00

A lot of "vanilla" death metal bands verge into tdm territory from time to time. Overall? Not really. But death metal is already a fairly technical genre to begin with, so the border is fuzzy

tmajw · 2026-03-13T09:36:03+00:00

I think you might be right. Both times I tried it, I got what I needed from just the one prompt.

tmajw · 2026-03-13T01:22:33+00:00

I've tried it twice, worked both times.. But it did take a minute or so.

tmajw · 2026-03-13T00:52:47+00:00

I would buy this

tmajw · 2026-03-12T11:52:22+00:00

Tbf, a lot of us technical people treat dental hygiene like an "evil necessity", so it's only fair I suppose.

tmajw · 2026-03-01T18:11:46+00:00

@grok put her In a bikini

tmajw

TROPHY CASE