I love this, and love listening to how much he's connected to the thing he made. This should remind us that not everything is done with an end goal in mind.
If you're unfamiliar with Minecraft, the build he's showcasing isn't actually advanced when it comes to building. Building in Minecraft is almost an art form, and many techniques have been developed over the years. This is because you have limited control over what you want to express: you are operating at a block granularity (more or less) and a limited number of block types that give blocks different textures.
A tech savvy teen could probably write a Java mod that generates something similar to what he's done, even prior to LLMs. An LLM could take a Google Streets feed of NY and replicate it in-game, etc.
And he wouldn't care! The thing he's made is his own, made under his own constraints, shaped by his own mind.
Yeah I've been thinking that products are a kind of communication. Part of what is communicated is the work, the effort or the journey that it took for the product to come to be. Like when a food product puts the origin story on the back.
LLM generated software seems to push every story to "I wrote some prompts and Claude spit this out". Perhaps that story if fatiguing repeated over and over again. And we're losing something.
A lot of work is busywork and not enjoyable. LLM automation in the optimistic case (UBI) allows everyone the luxury of such effort and journey. For most people work is not "communication" it's a necessity to make sure they can eat and have shelter.
People using LLMs to get a better return and get time back in the same way corporations do is desirable.
Also most of those stories on the back of food products are fables. Don't be fooled and take caution in the instinct to valorize work in a society that has always been trending towards automation.
Let them run rampant like a D line swarming the field. Once they have sacked the quarterback of the incumbent owner class they seek to replace, that is when we storm the field brother.
I hope my metaphor makes sense apologies I don't really watch or know much about American football. The point is LLMs are too disruptive a technology for the already unequal incumbent economy to survive. It could become even more unequal. Or we may all benefit from a well timed intervention into the economic disruption it will unleash. We should probably allow them to play on for now.
The game is not over my friend. We're not even at halftime.
I think regardless there is a story that goes with the top level of a product. Hence why we have shows dedicated to these things, documentaries, movies, even shark tank. Products have journeys and stories, and part of what is passed from one person to the other is the story--not just the final product. (Not that this has to be a top level thing. and not undermining the labor of many people who are just there to do their job.)
Why I bring this up is because a lot of LLM usage is geared towards building new software products. We one shot some product, and there is no journey, larger collaborated effort. And one may have the feeling "why doesn't this feel as good as building it without this tool".
In 2020, UC Berkeley students built their entire campus in creative mode. Stanford students saw this and then autogenerated their campus from some kind of mapping data. Predictably, the Berkeley one came out much better.
It may not be technically impressive at the nitty-gritty level, but I find his work much more aesthetically pleasing than I expected. The city looks real and like a pleasant place to live. It seems like urban planning went into it, not just architecture.
Agreed. It seems to have grown organically from a seed, which is the case for the most beautiful cities IRL. Usually planned developments are ugly. I don't think I've ever seen something like this, planned yet organic.
xpct · · focus · HN ↗
If you're unfamiliar with Minecraft, the build he's showcasing isn't actually advanced when it comes to building. Building in Minecraft is almost an art form, and many techniques have been developed over the years. This is because you have limited control over what you want to express: you are operating at a block granularity (more or less) and a limited number of block types that give blocks different textures.
A tech savvy teen could probably write a Java mod that generates something similar to what he's done, even prior to LLMs. An LLM could take a Google Streets feed of NY and replicate it in-game, etc.
And he wouldn't care! The thing he's made is his own, made under his own constraints, shaped by his own mind.
Perhaps a lesson of meaning in the LLM era?
ddj231 · · focus · HN ↗
LLM generated software seems to push every story to "I wrote some prompts and Claude spit this out". Perhaps that story if fatiguing repeated over and over again. And we're losing something.
godwinson__4-8 · · focus · HN ↗
A lot of work is busywork and not enjoyable. LLM automation in the optimistic case (UBI) allows everyone the luxury of such effort and journey. For most people work is not "communication" it's a necessity to make sure they can eat and have shelter.
People using LLMs to get a better return and get time back in the same way corporations do is desirable.
Also most of those stories on the back of food products are fables. Don't be fooled and take caution in the instinct to valorize work in a society that has always been trending towards automation.
jimbokun · · focus · HN ↗
godwinson__4-8 · · focus · HN ↗
I hope my metaphor makes sense apologies I don't really watch or know much about American football. The point is LLMs are too disruptive a technology for the already unequal incumbent economy to survive. It could become even more unequal. Or we may all benefit from a well timed intervention into the economic disruption it will unleash. We should probably allow them to play on for now.
The game is not over my friend. We're not even at halftime.
ddj231 · · focus · HN ↗
Why I bring this up is because a lot of LLM usage is geared towards building new software products. We one shot some product, and there is no journey, larger collaborated effort. And one may have the feeling "why doesn't this feel as good as building it without this tool".
mahboi · · focus · HN ↗
ahartmetz · · focus · HN ↗
mohamedkoubaa · · focus · HN ↗