> And I think that’s the biggest danger of AI. You convince yourself that you are doing something useful when you are not.
Building technology to overcome relatable hardships and frictions is a worthy challenge full of meaning.
Using someone else's technology to erase frictions and hardships from your life can erode meaning.
On my worst days I am convinced programming and technological optimism is a theft of meaning; personal satisfaction at solving a human problem awkwardly mapped to technology, at the expense of users dating, socializing, or consuming with discomfort and therefore the possibility of growth and meaning.
It’s a nice quote.
But what about the notion that we’re always believing in something, and sometimes those beliefs tune closer to something objective but if we keep tuning past that into something else, then that reality becomes hard to conceive of and really does seem like it’s gone away.
There isn't an exact quote from Douglas Adams, you have to read it all, but he put the point marvelously: reality is scary, unlimited and lovecraftesque, and we have filters to avoid that. Only when you master those filters you can consider yourself conscious.
And something I wish the current crop of AI startups learn as well, just making XYZ agentic maybe isn't the answer to everything.
Same folks that said crypto will destroy traditional finance are now saying stuff like, AI will "destroy" all jobs and create a permanent underclass. Almost feels like every few years a new cult gets created with messaging perfectly designed to trigger the Gen-Z(/current college generation) into a frenzy and drinking the kool-aid.
Can't wait for it to be over (and then to do it all over again with something else). Being in my 30s helps. I care less :)
Yeah. In the 90's it was outsourcing is going to move all software jobs to India. Turns out that did happen, but also not. Still, manufacturing jobs have actually left the USA.
I think there is something parasitic in both legacy media and actually even worse in new media - where it finds the most toxic, negative idea that can latch on to the minds of the masses and runs away with it.
Maybe "things going bad suddenly in the near future" is just such a captivating idea to the human mind that those narratives will always find a way to dominate vs "everything will continue to slowly get better".
I have found that it gets some of the "cruft" out of the work, freeing me to do more work.
Since starting to use LLMs, I have actually been spending more time, at the console, than before.
One reason is that I like to ship (as opposed to "code"). That means a lot of tedious, boring stuff. The kind of thing that I want to "take a break before tackling," so I may take 30 minutes, and watch something on TV for a while, before rolling up my sleeves.
Now, the LLM can take care of a lot of this stuff, so I am not motivated to "take a break," so much, anymore.
It doesn't actually feel bad, but I now have to schedule "downtime." I never used to have to do that, before. My work always involved a lot of "context switch" points; naturally set up for taking breaks.
Yeah I have found that AI in general has a procrastination nullifying effect.
Before dealing with anything that might put me off. I can just ask the agent to do it for me. And then, do something else, take that break, but regardless in a few minutes I will have something to jump on instead of the same blank terminal with the same blinking cursor judging me. It really makes taking the first step, much easier and then the ball just gets rolling.
I see what his point is to be honest though, it's easy to say just one more week of polish, just 5 more features, etc.
Such a great synopsis. The things that are easy to signal (landing page, presentation deck, logo, etc) have never been the make-or-break aspect. The part that's always been hard, that remains hard, is that a business must solve a problem for people. Even B2B is solving business problems for specific people. And people are a difficult, difficult problem to solve.
My previous business failed. Everything we built was useless. 2.5 yrs.
My current business is profitable. Almost everything we built was still useless. Since 4 yrs ago.
The amount of effort that went into that "almost" Is something that I don't think AI moved any needle for even though half of our journey was after AI coding took off.
Speed of coding was never the problem, still isn't even if AI allegedly 10x-ed it.
"Being honest with themselves about whether what they are doing is actually working or not" and "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you" are opposites.
> "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you"
If you're doing something that isn't like how people are used to things being done, is novel, or is contra to common beliefs, there's a good chance that nobody will believe in you. And in such situations, their lack of belief is not a reliable indicator of whether what you're doing is valid or correct. Most people's negative responses in such cases are emotional responses, not rational ones.
In such situations, "Being honest with themselves about whether what they are doing is actually working or not" and "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you" are not opposites.
Not if you're perfectly able to differentiate which things will eventually succeed rather than will always fail! The best strategy for "winning in the age of AI" is "be able to predict the future with perfect accuracy", which at least anecdotally quite a lot of people lately seem to think they are able to do lately.
Probably not so different from past hype cycles, except maybe this time it will be different!
> And I think that’s the biggest danger of AI. You convince yourself that you are doing something useful when you are not.
Building technology to overcome relatable hardships and frictions is a worthy challenge full of meaning.
Using someone else's technology to erase frictions and hardships from your life can erode meaning.
On my worst days I am convinced programming and technological optimism is a theft of meaning; personal satisfaction at solving a human problem awkwardly mapped to technology, at the expense of users dating, socializing, or consuming with discomfort and therefore the possibility of growth and meaning.
This quote from Philip K Dick seems relevant:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
It’s a nice quote. But what about the notion that we’re always believing in something, and sometimes those beliefs tune closer to something objective but if we keep tuning past that into something else, then that reality becomes hard to conceive of and really does seem like it’s gone away.
No matter how much you don't believe there is a tiger behind the bush. The tiger really believes you are going to be tasty.
When you break a leg you can’t start believing it is all good. It doesn’t go away.
As much as you would have aspirations to be a pro soccer player, badly enough broken leg can prevent you from ever being good enough.
Your imagination of being pro player does go away when in reality you’re not fit for the purpose.
There isn't an exact quote from Douglas Adams, you have to read it all, but he put the point marvelously: reality is scary, unlimited and lovecraftesque, and we have filters to avoid that. Only when you master those filters you can consider yourself conscious.
Love it.
And something I wish the current crop of AI startups learn as well, just making XYZ agentic maybe isn't the answer to everything.
Same folks that said crypto will destroy traditional finance are now saying stuff like, AI will "destroy" all jobs and create a permanent underclass. Almost feels like every few years a new cult gets created with messaging perfectly designed to trigger the Gen-Z(/current college generation) into a frenzy and drinking the kool-aid.
Can't wait for it to be over (and then to do it all over again with something else). Being in my 30s helps. I care less :)
Yeah. In the 90's it was outsourcing is going to move all software jobs to India. Turns out that did happen, but also not. Still, manufacturing jobs have actually left the USA.
I think there is something parasitic in both legacy media and actually even worse in new media - where it finds the most toxic, negative idea that can latch on to the minds of the masses and runs away with it.
Maybe "things going bad suddenly in the near future" is just such a captivating idea to the human mind that those narratives will always find a way to dominate vs "everything will continue to slowly get better".
I have found that it gets some of the "cruft" out of the work, freeing me to do more work.
Since starting to use LLMs, I have actually been spending more time, at the console, than before.
One reason is that I like to ship (as opposed to "code"). That means a lot of tedious, boring stuff. The kind of thing that I want to "take a break before tackling," so I may take 30 minutes, and watch something on TV for a while, before rolling up my sleeves.
Now, the LLM can take care of a lot of this stuff, so I am not motivated to "take a break," so much, anymore.
It doesn't actually feel bad, but I now have to schedule "downtime." I never used to have to do that, before. My work always involved a lot of "context switch" points; naturally set up for taking breaks.
Yeah I have found that AI in general has a procrastination nullifying effect.
Before dealing with anything that might put me off. I can just ask the agent to do it for me. And then, do something else, take that break, but regardless in a few minutes I will have something to jump on instead of the same blank terminal with the same blinking cursor judging me. It really makes taking the first step, much easier and then the ball just gets rolling.
I see what his point is to be honest though, it's easy to say just one more week of polish, just 5 more features, etc.
Such a great synopsis. The things that are easy to signal (landing page, presentation deck, logo, etc) have never been the make-or-break aspect. The part that's always been hard, that remains hard, is that a business must solve a problem for people. Even B2B is solving business problems for specific people. And people are a difficult, difficult problem to solve.
My previous business failed. Everything we built was useless. 2.5 yrs.
My current business is profitable. Almost everything we built was still useless. Since 4 yrs ago.
The amount of effort that went into that "almost" Is something that I don't think AI moved any needle for even though half of our journey was after AI coding took off.
Speed of coding was never the problem, still isn't even if AI allegedly 10x-ed it.
"Being honest with themselves about whether what they are doing is actually working or not" and "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you" are opposites.
> "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you"
If you're doing something that isn't like how people are used to things being done, is novel, or is contra to common beliefs, there's a good chance that nobody will believe in you. And in such situations, their lack of belief is not a reliable indicator of whether what you're doing is valid or correct. Most people's negative responses in such cases are emotional responses, not rational ones.
In such situations, "Being honest with themselves about whether what they are doing is actually working or not" and "Having the courage to go on when nobody believes in you" are not opposites.
Not quite. Optimism about where you are going doesn't conflict with being able to accurately assess where you currently are.
It does require you to think carefully about what constitutes validation or invalidation of your ideas, though.
There's a difference.
The first is getting market feedback.
The second is just getting opinions.
Not if you're perfectly able to differentiate which things will eventually succeed rather than will always fail! The best strategy for "winning in the age of AI" is "be able to predict the future with perfect accuracy", which at least anecdotally quite a lot of people lately seem to think they are able to do lately.
Probably not so different from past hype cycles, except maybe this time it will be different!
Not really. You can be honest about something working and others can disagree with your assessment.
>Figure out why you were put on this earth.
Who is responsible for this mess? ;)