But it makes me happy in such an immediate serotonin spike it’s akin to a drug. It used to be that I’d sit there dreaming every night of new things I wanted to build. It was fun to think, “what if I devoted the next year to this idea?”, but that was always met with the realities of a 9-5 after.
Now I can build those ideas as fast as they hit me. They’re fleeting fancies though. A game here, an app there. It’s fun to see but there’s so much more digital waste.
It does make me happy though. I’d rather be able to live my dreams than let them pass me by. I do wonder about the addictiveness of it though - that hit it gives you is very, very real.
Serious question: Does the ease of building cheapen the final product? Like something I've been struggling with is how can I show effort in the design of a product if I can just one-shot it with a prompt?
It doesn't cheapen the product, but it may cheapen the experience of developing it. Part of the satisfaction of being a developer is overcoming the complexity and challenges of the task, learning something new, some amount of struggle. You're not going to get that same satisfaction from a task that is too easy, or has become too easy.
The current state of AI seems to be more about automation of well defined tasks rather than things like creativity and challenging design that bucks convention, or requires human sensibility, so I think there is still room to get satisfaction from that aspect of it (you do the design, AI does the coding).
People point out how computer chess hasn't killed human chess, but I don't see much satisfaction from doing any development work by hand that could equally well (at least as far as the resulting artifact goes) be done by one/few-shot prompting, even though part of the fun of being a developer is being able to conjure dreams into reality - the end result is part of the satisfaction, but the challenge in getting there also matters.
jjcm · · focus · HN ↗
But it makes me happy in such an immediate serotonin spike it’s akin to a drug. It used to be that I’d sit there dreaming every night of new things I wanted to build. It was fun to think, “what if I devoted the next year to this idea?”, but that was always met with the realities of a 9-5 after.
Now I can build those ideas as fast as they hit me. They’re fleeting fancies though. A game here, an app there. It’s fun to see but there’s so much more digital waste.
It does make me happy though. I’d rather be able to live my dreams than let them pass me by. I do wonder about the addictiveness of it though - that hit it gives you is very, very real.
butlike · · focus · HN ↗
HarHarVeryFunny · · focus · HN ↗
The current state of AI seems to be more about automation of well defined tasks rather than things like creativity and challenging design that bucks convention, or requires human sensibility, so I think there is still room to get satisfaction from that aspect of it (you do the design, AI does the coding).
People point out how computer chess hasn't killed human chess, but I don't see much satisfaction from doing any development work by hand that could equally well (at least as far as the resulting artifact goes) be done by one/few-shot prompting, even though part of the fun of being a developer is being able to conjure dreams into reality - the end result is part of the satisfaction, but the challenge in getting there also matters.