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.
You either keep in mind all the horrifying little possibilities the future could hold for us and try to prepare, accept and cope, or you push it out of your mind using whatever techniques available to you to not drive yourself into nervous spirals.
Ultimately it comes down to what your brain chemistry allows in combination with ways you practiced dealing with stress, existential dread, cognitive dissonance, etc.
I guess submission to a higher power is one way to deal with it? That way it's no longer your problem (alone).
It creates a bigger context, and a longer time horizon.
Even some very basic questions, like “are humans inherently valuable?” have been thought through and discussed thoroughly in many faith traditions. For many people not part of such a community it’s a question that’s suddenly very important and they lack the tools to address it.
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.
jimbokun · · focus · HN ↗
Not sure how atheists are coping with the existential risks we are facing.
boromisp · · focus · HN ↗
You either keep in mind all the horrifying little possibilities the future could hold for us and try to prepare, accept and cope, or you push it out of your mind using whatever techniques available to you to not drive yourself into nervous spirals.
Ultimately it comes down to what your brain chemistry allows in combination with ways you practiced dealing with stress, existential dread, cognitive dissonance, etc.
I guess submission to a higher power is one way to deal with it? That way it's no longer your problem (alone).
jimbokun · · focus · HN ↗
Even some very basic questions, like “are humans inherently valuable?” have been thought through and discussed thoroughly in many faith traditions. For many people not part of such a community it’s a question that’s suddenly very important and they lack the tools to address it.