Ask HN: Have you found that coding agents make you more civil IRL?

7 pointsburnerToBetOut4mo ago3 comments

I find coding agents' overall tone and communication styles to be remarkably civil.

They're trained to be helpful. They're the polar opposite of confrontational. They're, in fact, quite pleasant to communicate with, as coders go.

I like to think of myself as having been a pretty chill person IRL all my life. But I can be blunt sometimes. Curt, even. Especially when I'm under stress.

But as a result of communicating with a few different coding agents for the last couple years, I find that I'm more civil with people.

I feel like I have more patience in situations where I would have lost it way quick. Even when ordinarily I'd express my frustration under certain stressful circumstances.

I think the super chill, civil nature of the coding agents I've been hanging out with is rubbing off on me.

I wonder if anybody else has had a similar realization.

3 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

verdverm4mo ago· 2 in thread

I have definitely been more conscious of my online discourse and writing since being rhetorically attacked by someone with an LLM

I would not say the LLM is the core driver though, and while it helps me reflect, it is the broader world and what's happening in society that motivates me

"be the change you want to see in the world"

(don't expect perfection from yourself or others, do expect improvement)

burnerToBetOutOP4mo ago

I probably need to read your reply a couple more times.

Going on my skimming over it, I'm wondering if you and I are on the same page.

What I tried to describe is something very similar to like being influenced by my siblings. Or kids in the neighborhood that I grew up with. Or teachers/professors I studied under. Or people I've dated.

I find that if I spend a certain amount of time with someone IRL who impresses me in some way, then stuff like their accent, their vocabulary, their way of seeing things will start rubbing off on me.

Are you talking about that kind of thing, too?

verdverm4mo ago

I have definitely hoped that humans will learn better communication patterns from ai, or we could build user interfaces where they nudge you towards better interactions

What I've been doing in the stead is the ol' copy-paste-prompt before we had integrated agent tooling in our IDEs. One of the long-term plans for my custom agent setup is to integrate it with more of the online platforms I use (it's only in vs code and for coding currently, going to keep the vs code UI for now, hook up all the things soon, tm)