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0 pointsAnimalMuppet11mo ago0 comments

So here's an analogy. (Yeah, I know, proof by analogy is fraud. But it's going to illustrate the question.)

Here's a kid out hoeing rows for corn. He sees someone planting with a tractor, and decides that's the way to go. Someone tells him, "If you get a tractor, you'll never develop the muscles that would make you really great at hoeing."

Different analogy: Here's someone trying to learn to paint. They see someone painting by numbers, and it looks a lot easier. Someone tells them, "If you paint by numbers, you'll never develop the eye that you need to really become good as a painter."

Which is the analogy that applies, and what makes it the right one?

I think the difference is how much of the job the tool can take over. The tractor can take over the job of digging the row, with far more power, far more speed, and honestly far more quality. The paint by numbers can take over the job of visualizing the painting, with some loss of quality and a total loss of creativity. (In painting, the creativity is considered a vital part; in digging corn rows, not so much.)

I think that software is more like painting, rather than row-hoeing. I think that AI (currently) is in the form of speeding things up with some loss of both quality and creativity.

Can anyone steelman this?

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bluefirebrand11mo ago

> Here's a kid out hoeing rows for corn. He sees someone planting with a tractor, and decides that's the way to go. Someone tells him, "If you get a tractor, you'll never develop the muscles that would make you really great at hoeing

In this example the idea that losing the muscles that make you great at hoeing" seems kind of like a silly thing to worry about

But I think there's a second order effect here. The kid gets a job driving the tractor instead. He spends his days seated instead of working. His lifestyle is more sedentary. He works just as many hours as before, and he makes about the same as he did before, so he doesn't really see much benefit from the increased productivity of the tractor.

However now he's gaining weight from being more sedentary, losing muscle from not moving his body, developing lower back problems from being seated all day, developing hearing loss from the noisy machinery. His quality of life is now lower, right?

Edit: Yes, there are also health problems from working hard moving dirt all day. You can overwork yourself, no question. It's hard on your body, being in the sun all day is bad for you.

I would argue it's still objectively a physically healthier lifestyle than driving a tractor for hours though.

Edit 2: my point is that I think after driving a tractor for a while, the kid would really struggle to go hoe by hand like he used to, if he ever needed to

hatefulmoron11mo ago

> my point is that I think after driving a tractor for a while, the kid would really struggle to go hoe by hand like he used to, if he ever needed to

That's true in the short term, but let's be real, tilling soil isn't likely to become a lost art. I mean, we use big machines right now but here we are talking about using a hoe.

If you remove the context of LLMs from the discussion, it reads like you're arguing that technological progress in general is bad because people would eventually struggle to live without it. I know you probably didn't intend that, but it's worth considering.

It's also sort of the point in an optimistic sense. I don't really know what it takes on a practical level to be a subsistence farmer. That's probably a good sign, all things considered. I go to the gym 6 times a week, try to eat pretty well, I'm probably better off compared to toiling in the fields.

bluefirebrand11mo ago

> If you remove the context of LLMs from the discussion, it reads like you're arguing that technological progress in general is bad because people would eventually struggle to live without it.

I'm arguing that there are always tradeoffs and we often do not fully understand the tradeoffs we are making or the consequences of those tradeoffs 10, 50, 100 years down the road

When we moved from more physical jobs to desk jobs many of us became sedentary and overweight. Now we are in an "obesity crisis". There's multiple factors to that, it's not just being in desk jobs, but being sedentary is a big factor.

What tradeoffs are we making with AI that we won't fully understand until much further along this road?

Also, what is in it for me or other working class people? We take jobs that have us driving machines, we are "more productive" but do we get paid more? Do we have more free time? Do we get any benefit from this? Maybe a fraction. Most of the benefit is reaped by employers and shareholders

Maybe it would be better if instead of hoeing for 8 hours the farmhand could drive the tractor for 2 hours, make the same money and have 6 more free hours per day?

But what really happens is that the farm buys a tractor, fires 100 of the farmhands coworkers, the has the remaining farmhand drive the tractor for 8 hours, replacing the productivity to very little benefit to himself

Now the other farmhands are unemployed and broke, he's still working just as much and not gaining any extra from it

The only one who benefits are the owners

californical11mo ago

I do think you’re missing something, though.

In a healthy competitive market (like most of the history of the US, maybe not the last 30-40 years), if all of the farms do that, it drives down the cost of the food. The reduction in labor necessary to produce the food causes competition and brings down the cost to produce the food.

That still doesn’t directly benefit the farmhands. But if it happens gradually throughout the entire economy, it creates abundance that benefits everybody. The farmhand doesn’t benefit from their own increase in productivity, but they benefit from everyone else’s.

And those unemployed farmhands likely don’t stay unemployed - maybe farms are able to expand and grow more, now that there is more labor available. Maybe they even go into food processing. It’s not obvious at the time, though.

In tech, we currently have like 6-10 mega companies, and a bunch of little ones. I think creating an environment that allows many more medium-sized companies and allowing them to compete heavily will ease away any risk of job loss. Same applies to a bunch of fields other than tech. The US companies are far too consolidated.

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hatefulmoron11mo ago

> When we moved from more physical jobs to desk jobs many of us became sedentary and overweight. Now we are in an "obesity crisis". There's multiple factors to that, it's not just being in desk jobs, but being sedentary is a big factor.

Sure, although I think our lives are generally better than they were a few hundred years ago. Besides, if you care about your health you can always take steps yourself.

> The only one who benefits are the owners

Well yeah, the entity that benefits is the farm, and whoever owns whatever portions of the farm. The point of the farm isn't to give its workers jobs. It's to produce something to sell.

As long as we're in a market where we're selling our labor, we're only given money for being productive. If technology makes us redundant, then we find new jobs. Same as it ever was.

Think about it: why should hundreds of manual farmhands stay employed while they can be replaced by a single machine? That's not an efficient economy or society. Let those people re-skill and be useful in other roles.

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stonemetal1211mo ago

>I think the difference is how much of the job the tool can take over.

I think it is about how utilitarian the output is. For food no one cares how the sausage is made. For a painting the story behind it is more important than the picture itself. All of Picasso's paintings are famous because they were painted by Picasso. Picasso style painting by Bill? Suddenly it isn't museum worthy anymore.

No one cares about the story or people behind Word, they just want to edit documents. The Demo scene probably has a good shot at being on the side of art.

Sohcahtoa8211mo ago

The analogy I would use is that coding via LLM is like learning to drive in a self-driving car that has manual controls as an option that drives overly cautiously (Leaves excessively large following distances, takes corners slower, etc.) while in self-driving mode.

You can let it self-drive, but you'd probably learn nothing, and it will actually take you longer. Put an expert driver behind the wheel, and they'll drive faster and only use automation features for the boring parts.

danielbln11mo ago

For me the creativity in software engineering doesn't come from coding, that's an implementation detail. It comes from architecture, from thinking about "what do I want to build, how should it behave, how should it look, what or who is it for?" and driving that forward. Bolting it together in code is hoeing, for that vast majority of us. The creative endeavor sits higher up on the abstraction ladder.

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bluefirebrand11mo ago

In this example the idea that losing the muscles that make you great at hoeing" seems kind of like a silly thing to worry about

Edit: Yes, there are also health problems from working hard moving dirt all day. You can overwork yourself, no question. It's hard on your body, being in the sun all day is bad for you.

I would argue it's still objectively a physically healthier lifestyle than driving a tractor for hours though.

Edit 2: my point is that I think after driving a tractor for a while, the kid would really struggle to go hoe by hand like he used to, if he ever needed to

hatefulmoron11mo ago

> my point is that I think after driving a tractor for a while, the kid would really struggle to go hoe by hand like he used to, if he ever needed to

That's true in the short term, but let's be real, tilling soil isn't likely to become a lost art. I mean, we use big machines right now but here we are talking about using a hoe.

bluefirebrand11mo ago

> If you remove the context of LLMs from the discussion, it reads like you're arguing that technological progress in general is bad because people would eventually struggle to live without it.

I'm arguing that there are always tradeoffs and we often do not fully understand the tradeoffs we are making or the consequences of those tradeoffs 10, 50, 100 years down the road

What tradeoffs are we making with AI that we won't fully understand until much further along this road?

Maybe it would be better if instead of hoeing for 8 hours the farmhand could drive the tractor for 2 hours, make the same money and have 6 more free hours per day?

Now the other farmhands are unemployed and broke, he's still working just as much and not gaining any extra from it

The only one who benefits are the owners

californical11mo ago

I do think you’re missing something, though.

1 more reply

hatefulmoron11mo ago

Sure, although I think our lives are generally better than they were a few hundred years ago. Besides, if you care about your health you can always take steps yourself.

> The only one who benefits are the owners

Well yeah, the entity that benefits is the farm, and whoever owns whatever portions of the farm. The point of the farm isn't to give its workers jobs. It's to produce something to sell.

As long as we're in a market where we're selling our labor, we're only given money for being productive. If technology makes us redundant, then we find new jobs. Same as it ever was.

1 more reply

stonemetal1211mo ago

>I think the difference is how much of the job the tool can take over.

No one cares about the story or people behind Word, they just want to edit documents. The Demo scene probably has a good shot at being on the side of art.

Sohcahtoa8211mo ago

danielbln11mo ago

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