rDr4g0n

AI tech is hitting our lives harder and faster than any tech before, and this has social and psychological side effects. society at large will struggle to recognize this, much less find healthy andeffective ways to adapt.

the erosion of trust will be socially catastrophic.

remember a time where you might admire a photo not just for its beauty, but for the good luck and skill of the photographer who captured it?

photoshop made us skeptical about truth, but AI will simply make it hopeless to ascertain truth.

note that i use AI extensively. i am hyper aware of the way it has impacted me, my peers, and my career, and im deeply concerned about how it will impact everyone as it is increasingly made "non-optional" by the rich and greedy who stand to benefit most from it.

my technique to get a similar benefit is to write a quality PR description.

a good PR description should be compact and helpful. describing something complex in a compact and approachable way requires understanding.

the process of writing the description often leads me to understand hidden decisions the LLM made and occasionally uncovers bugs.

my PR descriptions separately answer the following questions:

Why is this change being made? a sentence or two about the problem, objective, etc, and a link to more detail (tickets, docs, etc) if available

What does this change accomplish? typically describes observable changes, requirements, etc. crucially this section avoids describing how the change is implemented. the act of separating what from how isn't new, but it's crucial in the LLM era

How does this change accomplish its goal? the answer to this question is "read the code", but the job of a PR description is to provide a quick hand drawn map before dumping the reviewer into the jungle. drawing a good "how" map requires understanding the jungle and the new path through it.

the risk with LLMs (or any outsource) doing the work is the loss of understanding. this exercise encourages understanding.

seasoned software engineers are experimenting with using AI to ship actually maintainable software with varying degrees of success (i am doing it, my peers are doing it. it actually can work. it requires immense budget and organizational support for experimentation)

patterns and best practices will emerge. old stuff will be rediscovered. some hard earned wisdom and knowledge will become obsolete while other hard earned wisdom and knowledge will be more valuable than ever.

some good "traditional" software engineers make terrible "AI-engineers" (or whatever the term will be) and will either grow and learn, try to fake it as long as they can, or leave.

lots of us will leave the industry because we're tired. we don't want this new thing. our work was fulfilling because reading and writing helped us learn and grow and become better. asking an LLM to "figure it out" followed by "ok, do it" (or, if you're company is actually funding you, creating loops that do that) robs you of the joy you used to feel.

we will realize that our passion and pride in our work was not really valued by employers. the value was us shipping shit that generates revenue for them.

the interview treadmill is fucking soul crushing.

we will leave and take 75% pay cuts. but our mindspace will belong to us again. we will struggle, but we will be happier.

This essay has nothing to say about LLMs (or "AI technology" as it calls it for simplicity), so yes "fear of AI" is ruled out.

But its core assertion is that AI companies intend to lock down control of LLMs through market forces, legislation, and cronyism, to ensure humans can only use them through the AI company walled garden. They want to control the tech, not permit the people to use it freely.

The goal is to stop the walled garden from forming, not to stop LLMs. Yes governments and good humans and bad humans will all use LLMs and cause harm, but LLMs are out and can't be undone. That's another topic, people argue endlessly over that topic already. im not weighing in there with this essay.

This essay says "hey, these companies are literally refining a product that is rental replacement versions of your job, and greedy ass business owners are definitely going to pay rent instead of pay you."

that should be terrifying to ALL of us. Its just software engineers being hit first, but that is because software is easily verifiable (verifiability being a significant requirement for today's LLMs to succeed).

regarding addiction, the government steps in to create laws around addictive substances, but it takes a LONG time for that to happen. ever heard of "gas station drugs"? the government cant keep up. social media companies have fucked us all over by deliberately refining their products for addiction (they call it engagement), and they're just now being tried for some of the harm. 10 years later.

AI is coming so fucking fast that our already weak and barely competent policy makers have no hope of keeping up. AI slop applies to policy too.

There should be fucking alarm bells ringing everywhere. regulatory capture and cronyism at AI speed is a new fucking threat to humanity, and were all just like ok with it? were arguing about tractors and how people have the right to make their own choices?

if my essay was too soft that is my fault. im a new writer and i failed to communicate my thesis well.

but the message i meant to portray is that AI wont kill people, but fucking AI companies will destroy humanity so they can get paid, and they have a unique and new tool that we as a species barely understand, and cannot defend against, and theyre charging the giant fucking deathstar up right the fuck now and pointing it directly at each and every one of us, and no one seems to give a shit.

thank you for sharing. im planning to leave software for the same reasons.

were you able to reclaim the space in your head that your software salary took away? like, are things clearer? do you feel like you "own" your thoughts and brainpower again? do you have more mental energy at the end of the day to pursue your own interests?

if i take a 75% pay cut, i really hope i can have my brain back again.

literally three principle engineers i know have done or are doing this. im planning to leave software entirely which is insane, but it has been making more and more sense for me personally.

i cant help but think there will be a mini exodus from big software companies, and im curious what thatll do to the industry.

i hope we are able to work through the problems of LLMs together as workers who own and control our tools, not as victims of a new predatory industry which locks the tools away in a walled garden they control and we pay rent to.

farmers had control of their tractors taken away from them but they were able to wrestle some of it back just a few years ago, so there is hope. it just seems unwise to wait and fight the AI companies after they have locked us out and ensured self hosted AI is regulated to uselessness.

thanks for the validation

i did touch only lightly on it with "Boycott their customers.". i had written a whole thing about greed and "the greedy men who profit by using AI to replace humans", but it seemed to muddle the focus on the peddlers of the product.

ill find a way to write more about the greed that motivates business owners to choose AI over humans. they certainly deserve to be called out.

thanks for the follow up. the much harder and more subtle bit i chose to only allude to in the essay is the idea of self hosting. using and controlling your own LLMs is how AI becomes a tool to empower humans.

locking LLM access behind a walled garden is how they serve as a means of profit and control, reserved for the "dont be evil" tech leaders.

i thought i hit on what you call "sanctity of human thought", but i suppose not. i believe that we individuals as a continuous thread of decisions and consequences and experience, are made "real" because of this. LLMs may have incredible breadth of knowledge (never mind the legitimacy of ther training corpus), but knowledge without experience is, well, academic. not real.

my next essays could touch any of these topics and many more which keep me up at night, and your suggestions are helpful.

i was worried an appeal to non-technical folks (i avoided even invoking the name "LLM" to avoid confusion) might be a little basic for the HN crowd, but honestly im not on any social media and I really just have this place to post stuff. I tried reddit but good lord lol

it may not land for you, but hopefully itll land for others. im just fucking tired and trying to do what i can out here.

i am interested in your suggestion to argue harder for what I feel we have lost. any ideas around that youd like to share?

perhaps the bigger issue is not the tech, but the force that propels it forward with little concern for the harm it inflicts. Amodei's own words:

> A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives

Social media and big data minted a new scale of "race to the bottom". AI is an exponential step up in the tools for extracting value at scale.

Greed has been around since the beginning, but never so well supported and empowered as it is today.

If Amodei is still human, perhaps he will put his money where his mouth is and attack the source of the perverse incentive. Winning the battle is not the point. The point is to signal to policy-makers and the public that we should not assume corporate revenue-seeking preempts all.

Then again, Anthropic has a board and an upcoming IPO, so guess who's all talk and no meaningful action...

History has a lot to say about the ruling class benefitting from (and ensuring?) the working class cannot organize, because that is exactly when the workers have leverage.

workers that feel powerless and dont try to resist is great news for rulers who only serve to generate revenue.

AI is big data. AI companies generate the big data from obscene volumes of materials they did not produce. then they charge rent for access.

legally i have no fucking clue, but morally, this is stealing humanity to produce a profit.

realistically the toothpaste is outta the tube, so the second best option is accept LLMs, but do not enrich AI companies.