riebschlager

I guess we have different expectations from these tools. I want predictability and direct-ability. I don't know how we can have that from LLMs without some emergent same-ness in outputs to vague prompts.

Snapping out of the "boring and repetitive" rut here is on us to prompt more creatively. Maybe that's the new "garbage in, garbage out".

A simple request implies a request for a minimally-viable product. Including a top hat in that MVP is a much more deliberate creative choice. There's nothing necessary about a top hat for the pelican svg.

"Make me a PB&J" should result in what a reasonable person would consider a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I don't want to interact with an unpredictable system that "thought it would be fun" to deep-fry it.

"Well, you didn't say NOT to deep-fry it!"

Why would I want an LLM to be creative? I want to use these tools to express my creativity, not its own.

If I'm asking simply and directly for a pelican riding a bicycle, then please honor my intent and gimme that pelican. I don't need it on the moon. I do not need a top hat. I just want what I asked for.

Fulfilling a simple request simply seems like a feature, not a bug.

There's one thing I struggle to understand when I read posts like this: who is forcing these people to vibe code their side projects? If you want to hand-code because you enjoy it, what is stopping you?

I understand that the work we get paid to do exists in an entirely different context. Capitalism will always push for doing more with less. When you're on the clock, the rules are different.

But if you love coding. By all means, code. What's stopping you?

Also, I think we need to update our terminology. "Vibe coding" served its purpose and still defines a subset of how people are creating software. But I feel that working with coding agents, carefully orchestrated by skilled developers, deserves a term less dismissive than "vibe coding".

To me, vibe coding is pulling the arm of the slot machine until something good comes out. Yeah, that can honestly be a lot of fun. But working with these tools to create code that is as good as, if not better than what you'd write yourself, that's something else entirely. I think we flatten the nuance of this whole crazy situation we find ourselves in when we conflate the two.

"I googled 'what is my bank balance' and it couldn't even tell me. What a waste of resources."

In my mind, I would separate technology from its application.

Advertising tech and AI coding tools are applications of technology stacks that could have been used to create what you and I might agree to be "better" tools. I don't need to tell you why ad tech got created instead of something that is a net societal benefit.

At the same time, I would say that, yes, those applications do indeed expand human capabilities. The important nuance here is whose capability, and to what end.

All I am saying is that opting out of this, in whatever form that takes, hands your agency over to those who would use it to enrich themselves at the cost of others. I sincerely feel that decades of this type of capitulation is exactly how we got to where we are today.

I absolutely understand this sentiment. I've been working in tech since the late 90s and I have had MORE than my share of let-me-off-this-ride moments.

But this post (and the many I see like it) feels like giving up. And now's not the time for empathetic people to give up.

Technology is how we expand human capability. We are well within our rights to pick and choose how we interact with that capability. But it's starting to terrify me how it seems that the worst people in the world are more than willing to wield this power, while good people opt out. Billionaires are doing a remarkable job at making their vision of the future seem inevitable. Don't fall for it.

If more people aren't willing to help us steer this capability towards a better future, then we all know how this ends.

In 2016, a recruiter sent me a cringey email that was meant to look like code, and I turned it into my only post to ever make the HN front page. A decade later, I asked Claude to use its vast skills to tell the same joke. And honestly, it turned out pretty well. So now it's a joke we...told together?

I resonate with this nostalgia for the early internet, I really do. But lately I've been wondering if the tools available to us now are the key to bringing back what we miss about the old internet.

For example, let's look at "for you page" style algorithms. When I open Reels, I see incredible musicians, mind-blowing visual art and really thoughtful insights from people all over the world. That's exactly what I wanted out of the early internet, and here it is, an ever-evolving system that connects me with all the weird and amazing things that exist out in the world.

And those people in the world who make this content now have an agent actively connecting them with their audience. Yes, I realize this is an extremely charitable interpretation of what's happening behind the scenes. But often, the content I see feels very close to what the author is describing: Someone taking the time to describe their favorite tree.

If there was ever a "good ol' internet", it's still in there. It's just had tons of freeways and high-rise buildings built up around it. The older I get, the more it seems like you just need to let your eyes adjust a bit to see it.

Edited to add: My favorite tree, right now anyway, is a pair of birch trees in a park near my home. When they leaf out and the wind blows, I sit in the grass between them and it sounds almost like I'm at a beach, which is really nice because I'm about as far from an ocean as you can be on this planet.

I came here to say the same thing! I didn't realize how much I missed this level of detail and effort in web design.