Yeah, a lot of it isn't even really about people's choice though. Like, I have so many click-baity things in my YouTube feed even though I ignore almost all of it, because just one click and suddenly that's a thing it's going to show me 10x. I wish there was a place I could go for tech news that just didn't talk about AI. I'm so over it.
Agreed, I think AI is the bees knees but I already spend 6+ hours a day thinking about it, more is unhelpful. I wish for something with the quality of discourse of HN but without being so monomaniacally focused on tech-du-jour.
I don't know. Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities. I feel like this is a larger problem -- people leaning into extremifying their views or just playing to an audience -- even though one might frame it as "prosocial" because it happens within the context of an online community.
> Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities.
Yeah. I've gotten caught in this pattern here on HN. Post something, there's some disagreement but then I see the quiet upvotes trickling in, sometimes by the dozen. That sort of signal slowly convinced me I was right about plenty of stuff.
I used AI to datamine all of my HN comments and find those patterns. Then I started asking the AI to steelman the hell out of my world view, every single argument.
Those are two different things. Chatgpt being sycophantic while playing the role of a therapist with a teenager is much different from Codex being sycophantic while reviewing user feedback. The former is extremely dangerous for society.
I think this is more insecurity. Is it possible that sycophancy is a cause of insecurity, like deep down people can tell if an idea has been battle tested?
I dont know if that would even matter because it’s not like AI is whispering to people about how good it is. There’s some cult like quality, like with blockchain or whatever, people want to be part of what they think is a major societal revolution, and anything that challenges their world view really shakes them. Presumably they say the same thing about no-coiners or denialists or whatever the AI equivalent is.
I'm one of the people who gets accused of this. I don't mind skepticism. But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools and anyone who says otherwise is deluded or running a scam. That gets really old.
I've had one conversation that was sorta like this, it was around the time some kid kept releasing videos of him interacting with a very bad TTS gpt model or something and it would give very very bad answers confidently.
Their frame of reference was that, and this was at a time when opus 4.5 was around. Hard to expect a reasonable conversation when one person has such a different view of what the tools are capable of.
I've shipped three software projects in the last two months. I shipped zero in the preceding year.
Right now I'm building a system to decompile MAME ROM games into idiomatic JavaScript. It completes one game in about 3 days - complete with extensive commenting. I started it about 2 weeks ago.
I'm not sure "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" but if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.
> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking
If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking.
As it is, a lot of people are actively looking but still not seeing it.
Don't be a jerk. A lot of people have had bad experiences with these systems from people basically saying exactly what you're saying. This "you should get your eyes checked" mentality is pervasive with the nerds who confidently say that their analysis is solid when it's... not. It's a big problem in communities that have non-conventional videogame puzzles for example. Someone will come in, announce some novel solution.... leading to a four hour fight about the efficacy of LLMs, only to find a mistake in their code the next day.. never to be seen again.
Mind you, I'm not saying that these systems aren't great at reverse engineering and whatnot. They're spectacularly good at that. But RE is a relatively constrained problem because everything is still right in front of you. For complicated problems where the signal is mixed between noise... less so.
I'm not disputing that it's a hard thing to do, but we had decompilers before; "miracle" is rather stretching it.
Even granting that framing though, the claimed increase in productivity isn't a one-off, but asserted for everyone using them; you're claiming mass-produced miracles but trying to depend on a single example.
I used to use dotPeek all the time back in like 2012. There are also things like Ghidra that the NSA made. I dunno, google them, there are a lot. I'm not saying LLMs aren't useful here, just that it's not a huge deal. Also, why are AI people always making tools to take other people's IP? You are kind of fucking with people's intellectual property without permission it seems like. I'm not saying it's the crime of the century or anything but it's distressing how many AI projects come out of "let me repackage something someone else made"
Sure, but there is a marked difference between a therapist and an LLM Chatbot: you can't talk to your therapist for +4h a day, at any time convenient to yourself. It's also not a guarantee you're going to hit upon a therapist that is like that, versus a product that is very literally intended to maximise your usage of it.
a therapist should, if they follow their training, not be a sycophant whatsoever. CBT, for eg, is a multi-step process including Socratic self-dialogue, reframing practices, etc to guide the person towards the development of insight and healthier coping mechanisms
> This suggests that people are drawn to AI that unquestioningly validate, even as that validation risks eroding their judgment
I believe this is a larger problem than just AI.
The internet has helped people surround themselves with only voices that agree with them and validate them, often to their detriment.
There are entire online communities urging people to cut others out of their lives over the slightest disagreement.
Yeah, a lot of it isn't even really about people's choice though. Like, I have so many click-baity things in my YouTube feed even though I ignore almost all of it, because just one click and suddenly that's a thing it's going to show me 10x. I wish there was a place I could go for tech news that just didn't talk about AI. I'm so over it.
Agreed, I think AI is the bees knees but I already spend 6+ hours a day thinking about it, more is unhelpful. I wish for something with the quality of discourse of HN but without being so monomaniacally focused on tech-du-jour.
It's like it turns everyone into a CEO with all the yes men they could ever ask for! Never goes wrong!
I don't know. Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities. I feel like this is a larger problem -- people leaning into extremifying their views or just playing to an audience -- even though one might frame it as "prosocial" because it happens within the context of an online community.
> Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities.
Yeah. I've gotten caught in this pattern here on HN. Post something, there's some disagreement but then I see the quiet upvotes trickling in, sometimes by the dozen. That sort of signal slowly convinced me I was right about plenty of stuff.
I used AI to datamine all of my HN comments and find those patterns. Then I started asking the AI to steelman the hell out of my world view, every single argument.
How would you say your views have changed since then?
Both could be true. People follow incentives.
You're absolutely right!
It's a pretty overdone joke at this point, don't you think?
It's not a joke-it's an honest fact.
I dunno. The seams of the joke are still load-bearing IMO.
You made an excellent point! (could not resist that one)
You're right to push back. And honestly, this reframes the entire thing.
I think this goes along way to explain people's very defensive reactions when you are skeptical about Agentic Development.
Those are two different things. Chatgpt being sycophantic while playing the role of a therapist with a teenager is much different from Codex being sycophantic while reviewing user feedback. The former is extremely dangerous for society.
I make no societal judgments; just that the nastiness of the reactions I get suggests something more than technical choice is going on.
I had one prominent "influencer" publicly challenge me to a coding competition over it. It was very weird.
I think this is more insecurity. Is it possible that sycophancy is a cause of insecurity, like deep down people can tell if an idea has been battle tested?
I dont know if that would even matter because it’s not like AI is whispering to people about how good it is. There’s some cult like quality, like with blockchain or whatever, people want to be part of what they think is a major societal revolution, and anything that challenges their world view really shakes them. Presumably they say the same thing about no-coiners or denialists or whatever the AI equivalent is.
I'm one of the people who gets accused of this. I don't mind skepticism. But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools and anyone who says otherwise is deluded or running a scam. That gets really old.
I've had one conversation that was sorta like this, it was around the time some kid kept releasing videos of him interacting with a very bad TTS gpt model or something and it would give very very bad answers confidently.
Their frame of reference was that, and this was at a time when opus 4.5 was around. Hard to expect a reasonable conversation when one person has such a different view of what the tools are capable of.
I can believe people get value out of them. I think I do.
But "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED THE OLD WAY IS DEAD 10X MORE PRODUCTIVE" - no. If that were true, we'd notice it in the software all around us.
I think we are noticing it. Are you not?
I've shipped three software projects in the last two months. I shipped zero in the preceding year.
Right now I'm building a system to decompile MAME ROM games into idiomatic JavaScript. It completes one game in about 3 days - complete with extensive commenting. I started it about 2 weeks ago.
I'm not sure "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" but if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.
> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking
If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking.
As it is, a lot of people are actively looking but still not seeing it.
I'm curious - do you understand how hard decompilation from machine code is?
In 2 weeks I've built a system to do exactly that. Autonomously.
https://github.com/qarl/arcade-js
If you can't see this - you should probably get your eyes checked.
EDIT: It's doing TimePilot right now. You watch the progress in the commits.
"you should probably get your eyes checked."
Don't be a jerk. A lot of people have had bad experiences with these systems from people basically saying exactly what you're saying. This "you should get your eyes checked" mentality is pervasive with the nerds who confidently say that their analysis is solid when it's... not. It's a big problem in communities that have non-conventional videogame puzzles for example. Someone will come in, announce some novel solution.... leading to a four hour fight about the efficacy of LLMs, only to find a mistake in their code the next day.. never to be seen again.
Mind you, I'm not saying that these systems aren't great at reverse engineering and whatnot. They're spectacularly good at that. But RE is a relatively constrained problem because everything is still right in front of you. For complicated problems where the signal is mixed between noise... less so.
As near as I can tell - your argument boils down to "I've seen other people make mistakes so you must be also."
If that's what you got from it, then I hope you have a good life.
Be kinder, friend.
If you can point to a single error in my argument I would love to talk to you about it.
Otherwise, you have a good life as well.
I'm pleased for you, but these tools have been out for many, many weeks, and there are many, many people claiming incredible productivity gains.
Where's the rest of it?
I just showed you something that would have been considered a miracle one year ago.
And your response was "So what - show me another one."
I'm not disputing that it's a hard thing to do, but we had decompilers before; "miracle" is rather stretching it.
Even granting that framing though, the claimed increase in productivity isn't a one-off, but asserted for everyone using them; you're claiming mass-produced miracles but trying to depend on a single example.
Cite one example of a decompiler that provides English names and comments.
Snowboard kids 2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48284494
Silent Hill 1 PC https://youtu.be/0niadQJmYx0
Super Smash Bros/other GameCube and Wii games https://www.reddit.com/r/decomps/comments/1uvttvy/moderngekk...
I'm sure it's useful for that, but we've had pretty good decompilers before AI.
I would love for you to cite a single one.
It must take a binary executable and derive English names for the memory addresses.
I used to use dotPeek all the time back in like 2012. There are also things like Ghidra that the NSA made. I dunno, google them, there are a lot. I'm not saying LLMs aren't useful here, just that it's not a huge deal. Also, why are AI people always making tools to take other people's IP? You are kind of fucking with people's intellectual property without permission it seems like. I'm not saying it's the crime of the century or anything but it's distressing how many AI projects come out of "let me repackage something someone else made"
lol you think he hasn't heard of Ghidra? How stupid do you think he is?
No.
Ghidra does not provide semantic names.
dotPeek shows you the symbols that were not stripped from the .NET.
Neither of these do what I asked.
I think we are noticing it. Are you not?
I am not. Congratulations on your side project.
Projects, plural.
> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.
Ironically, this is the inverse of the very thing you complained about people doing to you.
Except I'm providing evidence.
> I think we are noticing it. Are you not?
The software around us seems worse than ever, constantly breaking and significantly worse than 1-3 decades ago.
You think the software around today is worse than software in the late 90s?
I guess my experience is different than yours - and I'm providing evidence.
> But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools
Really? I find agreement that gullible users get something they value, even if it is worthless.
This is true, but likely happening in talk therapy too with overly sycyphantic therapists
Sure, but there is a marked difference between a therapist and an LLM Chatbot: you can't talk to your therapist for +4h a day, at any time convenient to yourself. It's also not a guarantee you're going to hit upon a therapist that is like that, versus a product that is very literally intended to maximise your usage of it.
a therapist should, if they follow their training, not be a sycophant whatsoever. CBT, for eg, is a multi-step process including Socratic self-dialogue, reframing practices, etc to guide the person towards the development of insight and healthier coping mechanisms