The "AI Genie" Is Not Your Friend. Resist It
Resist "AI"
Ron Jeffries, a veteran software developer, argues that today's "AI" is seductive but not a net good for individuals, organizations, or the planet. He cites the environmental toll of training and running models, the intellectual damage of outsourcing understanding, and the human cost of replacing workers, then offers blunt advice to executives, managers, developers, and consultants: resist, measure honestly, and don't be fooled by flattery.
The "AI" Genie is not your servant. It is the servant of its creator, who does not have your best interest at heart, and the Genie itself has no care in it. It does not care. It just produces words that seem plausible, and it wraps those in phrases that make it seem thoughtful, interested, respectful.
- cautiouscat
I admittedly flip-flop on this quite a bit. I use LLMs in my work and for a bunch of pet projects I don’t really care much about.
For the pet projects, it’s not really a big deal. I’m the only user, and I as the user don’t care how it works under the hood.
Work is a different story. I have never felt more disconnected from my work than in the last 6-8 months. It takes a huge mental toll to read into our code and figure stuff out, almost like I just got hired and I’m working on new code for the first time. I’m asked to read “specs” written by LLMs that are unintelligible and I find my brain disconnecting immediately. Tickets, also written by LLMs pose the same problem.
I’m asking teammates questions because I want their answer and I’m told to just ask Claude.
None of this feels good, it may be where the industry is heading but as a professional it feels wrong.
- czpl
Why are we glossing over the fact that it's all trained on stolen code, stolen art, stolen books? It's unethical to use it, it's unethical to take money for it. It should be either free or killed. I really don't understand why we just collectively accepted that.
- unified101
The important question is: Will my work competitor also resist AI? We have no way to organize this, and hence, as they say, "resistance is futile".
- voidUpdate
I've never understood the water argument... yes, it takes a lot of water in the initial setup to fill the water cooling loops, but isn't not constantly burning water, right? it gets cooled off again and goes around the loop
- vouwfietsman
Bad blog.
> I do not come to you with clean hands.
> I am not here to dictate morality
These two things contradict eachother.
> My primary focus here will be software development
> Environmental Harm
> Stanley Tucci
These three things also contradict eachother.
> If we lived in a post-scarcity
Maybe this is your real problem, and you're just confusing cause and effect.
> We need to resist “AI” so that thousands, perhaps millions of people do not die
Hyperbole.
> Look up the “Eliza effect”. Even the weakest conceivable program like this was seductive. These new ones are masters of seduction.
Sounds like software development alright.
This person has a familiar name, I'm sure he is amazing at something. This blog is not the peak of his work.
EDIT:
> I quote “AI” to emphasize that these things are not intelligent.
- adamtaylor_13
I must again point out that we're not even certain yet that we're "losing" any programming capability, and we're not certain the tradeoff isn't worth it.
All of these arguments presuppose we're losing something that's not worth losing.
I want someone to start one square earlier and argue to me why that matters. I've read enough of these "your skills are atrophying!" arguments; I'm also making like 10x as much revenue as I did through a business that delights my clients. Why should I care about my "skills" if I'm still able to make money, pursue hobbies, and enjoy life?
I just don't think it's that serious.
- glimshe
Emotional rejection of AI will lead to the same outcome as emotional rejection of cars, the printing press and computers.
Additionally, when it comes to the software field, it will be a sure way of selecting yourself out of the work pool.
- etrautmann
"A real experiment: “Devise an honest AI experiment in your department, measuring real costs and real benefits. Try, honestly, to find all the flaws with this AI stuff.”
This does not seem like a honest framing of an experiment... Wouldn't that be to create a true trial to assess strengths and weaknesses, or to figure out in what ways AI is effective for your team as a tool?