Thread

1. Schnitz · 1785984517 · focus · HN ↗

   Because people that enjoy programming for programming's sake don't want an LLM to do the programming for them - isn't it obvious? It's just like with any other hobby, people who like car racing created rules that force you to drive yourself, even though they'd get faster lap times with electronic driver aids. People who enjoy grappling created rules that force you to grapple, even though striking could win a fight faster. People that enjoy chess don't allow you to bring a computer to the chess table. The list is endless and the people that enjoy programming will create rules that force you to program, why shouldn't they? It's their hobby.

   1. brookst · 1785992005 · focus · HN ↗

      This is true, but as usual nobody can agree on what "doing it yourself" means.

      Few cars are manual steering, manual brakes, manual transmission.

      Few grappling bodies go all Greek-naked.

      Few chess bodies forbid researching previous games or your opponent.

      The list is indeed endless, and every single person thinks they are using just the right amount of assistance; anything less is pointlessly difficult, anything more is cheating that takes the sport out.

      Me, I've been a hobbyist programmer since youth (6502 assembly, represent). I'm having a blast "writing" software without touching a line of code. Sure, I'm old, and maybe I'm like those guys blasting Veyrons through highways, relying on traction control and all the computers to let me drive beyond my abilities. And... ok? I'm having fun, even if I'm not doing it right, by random anonymous peoples' views.

      1. NoboruWataya · 1786007045 · focus · HN ↗

         One of the great things about hobbies is that you can enjoy them whatever way you want. But honestly is it not more accurate to say that you are now a hobbyist prompter, rather than a hobbyist programmer? I get the "its just a tool" mentality and I guess LLMs can be used that way, but if you are not touching a line of code yourself then it seems less analogous to using power steering and more analogous to just taking a taxi.

         1. Ekaros · 1786010490 · focus · HN ↗

            What I really don't understand how differently it seems that AI for programming and for anything else is treated.

            I don't think there is insignificant group who would say that using LLM to write a book does not make you an author. Or make a song musician. Or draw a picture a painter or artist.

            This just somewhat baffles me... Or maybe the LLM for programming people all believe that you are as much artist if you use AI in those fields and the product generates as such is as if not more valuable than one by more traditional means.

            1. TwoFerMaggie · 1786014730 · focus · HN ↗

               A renowned author would still write. They don't suddenly start managing a team of junior writers and instructs them how to write.

               A programmer that has climbed up the ladder in their field, on the other hand, often stopped coding themselves. Instead, they manage others who code, or provide vision/direction on the project.

               I think it really depends on what people on the senior level of your field do. If they mostly move to managerial roles, then it's much more likely they'd embrace LLM.

               Ironically I observe this in academia too. Professors (who often stopped doing hands-on research, but only provide guidance to postdocs and grad students in their research) tend to embrace LLM more than the fields you mentioned.

            2. boomlinde · 1786018678 · focus · HN ↗

               I've seen people here insist that LLMs enable everyone to make music or art. It's diametrically opposed from my own view that making something is the process of making something, neither the result of nor the motivation for that process.

               My retort is usually a variation of one I've already posted in this thread: they do that to the same extent that taxis enable everyone to drive, which is something most people will intuitively understand as nonsense, even if they've given clear instructions to the driver and even though they've arrived at the intended destination. If you aren't driving, you aren't driving. If anything, the taxi service enables more people not to drive.

               1. RugnirViking · 1786026753 · focus · HN ↗

                  isn't this clearly a misunderstanding between you and hypothetical AI art approver?

                  They're talking about the result, one must think. The idea that people who could not have approximate pictures of ideas that lived in their head can now have those things. They didn't create them by an in depth process, of course, and would be wrong to pass it off as though they did. But there is some value to the enjoyment gained from that existing (whether that relatively trival enjoyment is offset by other harms is for the reader to decide).

                  You're talking about the process and/or the developing of the skill of crafting and thinking about images better.

                  We also lack words to talk clearly about the distinction here around "make". Did I make a piece of art if I created a file on a computer in photoshop and then printed it? or did the printer make it? Did photoshop make it? (imo, all are true, but in differing senses of the word make). It seems to me that there is a sense that, no matter how trivial their involvement, a user of some AI art app is "making" something, in the same sense that steve jobs "made" the iPhone. In both cases, an engineer that literally designed the iPhone or an artist that spent years would perhaps rightfully feel upset by such characterization, but to get across the point cleanly is harder.

                  It's the same for the taxi. If I can't drive (perhaps I never learned, or some flaw with my body doesn't let me), a taxi does enable some things I could never do before. I am, of course, not literally the one driving. But if I can get to the shop myself now, there is something there.

                  1. boomlinde · 1786041329 · focus · HN ↗

                     > They're talking about the result, one must think.

                     Maybe they are, but in that case it's a frequent source of equivocation because people will conflate the process of their making with the result of some other process so as to proclaim themselves artists, musicians, programmers or whatever for writing something that they themselves wouldn't consider art or music unto itself in the first place, and having a machine generate something which they do consider to be art or music based on that.

                     > Did I make a piece of art if I created a file on a computer in photoshop and then printed it?

                     Funnily enough people don't usually have a problem with this question when it comes to driving. Your actions' effect on the propulsion of the car are ultimately indirect, and there are many systems which assist the person behind the wheel even when they are engaging directly with all their means of control, e.g. an engine, ABS, EPS, yet no one will immediately feel a need to wax philosophical about whether the driver is actually driving or not because of that. We recognize that in a car which requires a driver at all there is substantial ongoing involvement from the person behind the wheel in making the car go as desired and deciding what means available to apply in order to go about that, without whom there is at best no going anywhere at all, and that involvement is what driving is.

                     > If I can't drive (perhaps I never learned, or some flaw with my body doesn't let me), a taxi does enable some things I could never do before. I am, of course, not literally the one driving. But if I can get to the shop myself now, there is something there.

                     Which is not the thing in question. If AI tools have generated something you find beautiful or interesting, by all means enjoy that for what it is. If the taxi takes you to the store, by all means enjoy that.

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