Probably a first world problem, but with Opus 5.5's efficiency, the limits on the 5x plan are simply sufficient for my everyday work, even when running 2-3 sessions at a time. So I wonder when I would use Sonnet 5.5.
More concurrency than that isn't really practical for me if I want to retain some semblance of understanding. Perhaps it's different for purely web app or frontend tasks, where the outcome is more relevant than the process, I don't have much experience there (and also don't want to belittle these domains, I might be underestimating their complexity).
So surprisingly, my own work is at least for the time being almost saturated by the model capabilities. I am not sure how I'd scale from here. Sure I could run all requests at max effort to burn tokens for the sake of it, but that can't be it. And for many tasks, I am not really able to define so clear cut success criteria or self-verification loops that I could benefit from letting an agent (or a fleet thereof) autonomously run for a day.
So I realize it's a skill issue on my side, but I can't be the only one. I wonder if there is a limit to token demand, at least short term. Feels like either they accelerate to AGI and RSI, where the AI can find uses for token, or things might plateau at some point.
Note I don't think this because I'm an AGI skeptic or think there's a ceiling to intelligence, but there might simply be a valley of economic hardship for the companies where the supply of tokens outpaces the demand, due to a lack of ideas of what to do with them. And this might slow down the funding enough that they never reach escape velocity with the training run scaling. But we'll see.
It's the "semblance of understanding" you're holding on to that is keeping your demand limited. I'm holding onto it as well, but I think these companies are assuming that human understanding will no longer be relevant for most codebases going forward.
> It's the "semblance of understanding" you're holding on to that is keeping your demand limited. I'm holding onto it as well, but I think these companies are assuming that human understanding will no longer be relevant for most codebases going forward.
In short, seems to describe vibe-coding to me?
What I don't understand about companies attempting to vibe code is if they realize that other people (especially sometimes their customers) can tailor-made their own software for their own needs, or rather competitors can be dime a dozen and maybe even a fight for constantly paying for the better model.
There was a comment[0] from a just few days ago by @jjcm (which I wish to quote which I hope they don't mind.):
> I just got back from a 2 week trip to China. I was in some of the more remote parts and my cell wasn't able to connect to their towers in that area, resulting in me not having the tourist VPN.
> The side effect was I was fully cut off from my AI tools for those two weeks. I was coding "manually" during that time, and I think I accompished in two weeks what I previously had been able to do in a day. I'm not gonna lie, it was very, very stressful as a solo founder.
> The industry moves so fast these days, that the only way to keep up with the speed is to leverage them. While I can appreciate the push of this to help your brain think independently/critically, the opportunity cost of a month of development without LLMs is too high a price to pay.
What happens if the opportunity cost of a month of development with vs without human understanding becomes too high a price to pay. I feel like we would be in awkward time because of the factors that I had described above (higher competition, software stops meaning just as much software as people would be custom-making them.)
I think that (former fly.io's) @tptacek's article[1] starts making more sense if viewed from this direction: What even is an OS now.
I don't have the answer to this question as to what happens next but its a form of development that I would prefer not to happen on a more gut instinct level?
Letting AI basically control everything and us not having any mental understanding of sorts and sort of becoming the meat-proxies just for economical reasons seems realistic possibility but a bleaker reality at that. I am left feeling a little bit uncomfortable if this reality turns out to be true.
> Letting AI basically control everything and us not having any mental understanding of sorts and sort of becoming the meat-proxies just for economical reasons seems realistic possibility but a bleaker reality at that. I am left feeling a little bit uncomfortable if this reality turns out to be true.
For the past year I’ve been yo-yo-ing in and out of existential despair about the future of civilization depending on how I feel the answer to this question looks. It’s emotionally exhausting, on top of everything else, and I wonder how others are coping with it aside from denial and cynicism.
> I wonder how others are coping with it aside from denial and cynicism.
There are a lot of horrible potential scenarios that are really scary to contemplate. There are also a lot of really delightful ones where AI does the drudge work, invents a million incredible medicines, and frees us up to hang out and make art all day. And there are even more scenarios somewhere in the middle where AI changes a lot of stuff but we all still more or less end up going to work and doing jobs.
I've basically had a background thread in my skull running at high priority for the past two years trying to predict which of those scenarios I think are most likely so that I can plan for them. It is utterly exhausting spending that many mental resources on a question like that.
It finally clicked for me a couple of weeks ago that no one is going to be able to accurately predict all the thousands of ways AI will affect the world. Certainly not me. We are living in unprecedented times. No one has a map for the future.
So I am trying to loosen my hold on the future some and focus more on the present. I have a great job and a great family now. I have most of my health. I'll try to live my life right now to the fullest and in accordance with my values. The future is going to have to be future me's problem. That's OK.
> So I am trying to loosen my hold on the future some and focus more on the present. I have a great job and a great family now. I have most of my health. I'll try to live my life right now to the fullest and in accordance with my values. The future is going to have to be future me's problem. That's OK.
One of the quotes which might help as well (I think I have this even in my HN profile): The only thing we know about the future is that it will surprise us.
Not even experts are much more likely to predict for what its worth than a coin toss in many cases (especially if they believe that only one theory/idea will mostly predict the future)
It's a blend of things and ideas and the sheer interconnectedness of them where a small pocket can grow large and then also shrink and taking into account all variables and factors is just simply impossible for a mind. I think that although we feel we are being more informed about the world, that in it of itself doesn't prevent things in the future from happening. It just makes us alert and sad and anxious about it.
Yet this life is one which shouldn't be lived with sorrow and anxiety. It is one of beauty and greatness. In many ways, we humanity have come so far from the past (Our medicine is something that not even the mightiest of kings could get) and yes, there are many problems in the world and some things feel as if they are staying just the same or getting worse real-time.
But even then, worrying about it could lead to nowhere other than a path of misery. Also these problems are complicated enough that its extremely hard for a single person to bring change (not that I wish to demotivate that person but rather seeing the system as a complex nature)
So to me, its also a form of inward action. I can work on myself to be better prepared for the world that comes next. In the same time, I think that the present for me as well is good. I have great family and friends and have many qualities that I am proud of and I wish to share that gratitude to the people who have helped me along the way (my family/friends/ Hackernews!.)
Within the hustle culture, there is no time to relax but it is within the time of relax that I believe some of the most fruitful actions can come. I believe it just makes my mind more productive being in a calmer state.
here's a quote from how to measure your life that I hope can help some people:
I genuinely believe that relationships with family and friends are one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. It sounds simple but like any important investment, it needs constant attention and care(...)
You'll be tempted to invest your resources elsewhere but if you don't nurture these relationships, they won't be there to support you in hardships or as one of the most important sources of happiness in your life.
So thank you hackernews and have a nice day and please, please try to say gratitude towards someone close to you (within these tough times) and try to keep a balance towards inward focus, sharing time with friends/family and also writing on hackernews (as is my past time nowadays), balance is necessary :-D
So once again, I hope that its a call to action to say gratitude towards anyone. Just send them a big message thanking them and make their day as well as yours memorable, have a nice day!
Sol- · · focus · HN ↗
More concurrency than that isn't really practical for me if I want to retain some semblance of understanding. Perhaps it's different for purely web app or frontend tasks, where the outcome is more relevant than the process, I don't have much experience there (and also don't want to belittle these domains, I might be underestimating their complexity).
So surprisingly, my own work is at least for the time being almost saturated by the model capabilities. I am not sure how I'd scale from here. Sure I could run all requests at max effort to burn tokens for the sake of it, but that can't be it. And for many tasks, I am not really able to define so clear cut success criteria or self-verification loops that I could benefit from letting an agent (or a fleet thereof) autonomously run for a day.
So I realize it's a skill issue on my side, but I can't be the only one. I wonder if there is a limit to token demand, at least short term. Feels like either they accelerate to AGI and RSI, where the AI can find uses for token, or things might plateau at some point.
Note I don't think this because I'm an AGI skeptic or think there's a ceiling to intelligence, but there might simply be a valley of economic hardship for the companies where the supply of tokens outpaces the demand, due to a lack of ideas of what to do with them. And this might slow down the funding enough that they never reach escape velocity with the training run scaling. But we'll see.
phainopepla2 · · focus · HN ↗
Imustaskforhelp · · focus · HN ↗
In short, seems to describe vibe-coding to me? What I don't understand about companies attempting to vibe code is if they realize that other people (especially sometimes their customers) can tailor-made their own software for their own needs, or rather competitors can be dime a dozen and maybe even a fight for constantly paying for the better model.
There was a comment[0] from a just few days ago by @jjcm (which I wish to quote which I hope they don't mind.):
> I just got back from a 2 week trip to China. I was in some of the more remote parts and my cell wasn't able to connect to their towers in that area, resulting in me not having the tourist VPN.
> The side effect was I was fully cut off from my AI tools for those two weeks. I was coding "manually" during that time, and I think I accompished in two weeks what I previously had been able to do in a day. I'm not gonna lie, it was very, very stressful as a solo founder.
> The industry moves so fast these days, that the only way to keep up with the speed is to leverage them. While I can appreciate the push of this to help your brain think independently/critically, the opportunity cost of a month of development without LLMs is too high a price to pay.
What happens if the opportunity cost of a month of development with vs without human understanding becomes too high a price to pay. I feel like we would be in awkward time because of the factors that I had described above (higher competition, software stops meaning just as much software as people would be custom-making them.)
I think that (former fly.io's) @tptacek's article[1] starts making more sense if viewed from this direction: What even is an OS now.
I don't have the answer to this question as to what happens next but its a form of development that I would prefer not to happen on a more gut instinct level?
Letting AI basically control everything and us not having any mental understanding of sorts and sort of becoming the meat-proxies just for economical reasons seems realistic possibility but a bleaker reality at that. I am left feeling a little bit uncomfortable if this reality turns out to be true.
[0]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49808422">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49808422
[1]: <a href="https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2026/09/25/what-even-is-an-os-now/" rel="nofollow">https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2026/09/25/what-even-is-an-os-no...
RGS1811 · · focus · HN ↗
For the past year I’ve been yo-yo-ing in and out of existential despair about the future of civilization depending on how I feel the answer to this question looks. It’s emotionally exhausting, on top of everything else, and I wonder how others are coping with it aside from denial and cynicism.
munificent · · focus · HN ↗
There are a lot of horrible potential scenarios that are really scary to contemplate. There are also a lot of really delightful ones where AI does the drudge work, invents a million incredible medicines, and frees us up to hang out and make art all day. And there are even more scenarios somewhere in the middle where AI changes a lot of stuff but we all still more or less end up going to work and doing jobs.
I've basically had a background thread in my skull running at high priority for the past two years trying to predict which of those scenarios I think are most likely so that I can plan for them. It is utterly exhausting spending that many mental resources on a question like that.
It finally clicked for me a couple of weeks ago that no one is going to be able to accurately predict all the thousands of ways AI will affect the world. Certainly not me. We are living in unprecedented times. No one has a map for the future.
So I am trying to loosen my hold on the future some and focus more on the present. I have a great job and a great family now. I have most of my health. I'll try to live my life right now to the fullest and in accordance with my values. The future is going to have to be future me's problem. That's OK.
Imustaskforhelp · · focus · HN ↗
One of the quotes which might help as well (I think I have this even in my HN profile): The only thing we know about the future is that it will surprise us.
Not even experts are much more likely to predict for what its worth than a coin toss in many cases (especially if they believe that only one theory/idea will mostly predict the future)
It's a blend of things and ideas and the sheer interconnectedness of them where a small pocket can grow large and then also shrink and taking into account all variables and factors is just simply impossible for a mind. I think that although we feel we are being more informed about the world, that in it of itself doesn't prevent things in the future from happening. It just makes us alert and sad and anxious about it.
Yet this life is one which shouldn't be lived with sorrow and anxiety. It is one of beauty and greatness. In many ways, we humanity have come so far from the past (Our medicine is something that not even the mightiest of kings could get) and yes, there are many problems in the world and some things feel as if they are staying just the same or getting worse real-time.
But even then, worrying about it could lead to nowhere other than a path of misery. Also these problems are complicated enough that its extremely hard for a single person to bring change (not that I wish to demotivate that person but rather seeing the system as a complex nature)
So to me, its also a form of inward action. I can work on myself to be better prepared for the world that comes next. In the same time, I think that the present for me as well is good. I have great family and friends and have many qualities that I am proud of and I wish to share that gratitude to the people who have helped me along the way (my family/friends/ Hackernews!.)
Within the hustle culture, there is no time to relax but it is within the time of relax that I believe some of the most fruitful actions can come. I believe it just makes my mind more productive being in a calmer state.
here's a quote from how to measure your life that I hope can help some people:
I genuinely believe that relationships with family and friends are one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. It sounds simple but like any important investment, it needs constant attention and care(...)
You'll be tempted to invest your resources elsewhere but if you don't nurture these relationships, they won't be there to support you in hardships or as one of the most important sources of happiness in your life.
So thank you hackernews and have a nice day and please, please try to say gratitude towards someone close to you (within these tough times) and try to keep a balance towards inward focus, sharing time with friends/family and also writing on hackernews (as is my past time nowadays), balance is necessary :-D
So once again, I hope that its a call to action to say gratitude towards anyone. Just send them a big message thanking them and make their day as well as yours memorable, have a nice day!
[Pardon me for the long post]