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prymitive | on: Don't be a meat proxy
I think a lot of that is people who were always very insecure because they’re mediocre engineers. Previously asking questions or not understanding something was a bit painful but now you can hear “you’re absolutely right!” and make progress all day every day. Until you need to interact with actual humans and that’s why you try to minimise it, hiding behind ai generated content.
ungreased0675 | parent | next
I’m not a developer, but when I watch devs whose work process is prompt, copy-paste, try to run, paste error into code, try to run, etc. I can’t help but think they’re unskilled. There’s no brain engagement, no understanding of the bigger picture, just being a worse slower agent.
jvanderbot | root | parent | next
Sure, but even worse, is the state-of-the-art: they use a cli agent and the "copy-paste, try to run, paste error, try to run" loop is called "Agentic engineering." Now we have to believe they're 10/10?

I see no difference there except speed at the cost of whatever little understanding may have been gained by the manual inspection between steps.

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tomtomtom777 | root | parent | next
I think the worst is when they are skilled.

You're basically describing my work day. My job went from interesting, highly skilled work to mostly horrible brain rot over the past year.

It's depressing and I don't know a way out. Other then a complete career change, throwing away 30 years of experience and a matching salary.

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leptons | root | parent
I'm in the same boat as you... 30 years of experience writing software, and now I'm just supposed to click "approve" on PRs without reading the PR. I'm just supposed to press a button. I'm looking for a new job, but it's going to be difficult to find one in tech that isn't a complete AI-psychosis shitshow.
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mikebenfield | root | parent | next
I think I’m pretty skilled, or at least I was, but much of my work now looks like this. The fact is in many cases Claude can diagnose and fix the issue quicker than I can even read it. It would be crazy not to take advantage of this. Of course it does get hard to resist the temptation to just become ever lazier over time.
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projectazorian | root | parent | next
This is a sign of poor harness configuration and/or org level constraints (lack of MCP support, etc.) With properly configured and prompted agents error copy-pasta should be the exception not the norm.
tdeck | root | parent
This is my exact process nowadays when debugging some weird Linux wifi driver issue or something that came up after upgrade.

But that's because I don't have any real familiarity with the systems involved and I don't expect that gaining such familiarity will benefit me. If I am working on a system or product I'm responsible for at my job, it should be a different situation.

randusername | parent | next
All paradigm shifts and regime changes happen because of a coalition of people that have nothing to gain and everything to lose by the current system.

But I think we should decouple mediocrity from laziness. I haven't seen any team invest in the mentorship required to develop juniors in years, for example.

strix_varius | root | parent
The incentives for developing juniors have become misaligned as the expected stay in a company dwindled from decades to years to maybe year.

It would make sense to develop juniors if most of their comp was a four year vest but that doesn't happen until later. And in your first year or two you're usually a net negative... This is even more true with AI.

xyproto | parent | next
It's also very easy to dismiss everyone falling into the "AI trap" as being mediocre in the first place, though. But one just can't know this without having seen their work pre-AI.
bigfishrunning | root | parent | next
I think the "meat proxy" people are mediocre regardless of whether or not the were brilliant pre-AI. They've reduced themselves to a copy-paste go-between for claude and slack (or github or jira or whatever) and are mediocre now. If only they could turn back the clock...
xyproto | root | parent
Some skills are easy re-pick-uppable, like bicycling. Mathematics is probably more challenging. Not sure about programming, especially "borint" business-like programming.
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embedding-shape | root | parent
I think people tend to forget that not only do we ourselves have different skillsets and can be amazing at one thing but horrible but another, but this also applies to other people in the world! Far all we know, there is an amazing developer out there who without LLMs, might have been the single best developer in the country, but even this person might not be able to figure out how to effectively work with LLMs. And vice-versa too.

Maybe this «spearheading AI person» just sucks at AI related stuff, as clearly that approach is bananas, but they could still be a OK developer.

skydhash | root | parent
> Far all we know, there is an amazing developer out there who without LLMs, might have been the single best developer in the country, but even this person might not be able to figure out how to effectively work with LLMs. And vice-versa too.

If working with LLMs effectively means accepting subpar results or be a reverse centaur, then I’d be glad not to be able to work with them.

I’ve never seen a good example where AI is a net positive to any development workflow. No one argues against compilers, build tools, IDEs, task runners, deploy and orchestration tools. Because they are great levers that lets you create more with less effort.

vehemenz | root | parent | next
Many developers have narrow job descriptions, and the creative, productive uses of AI aren’t really obvious.

Where it shines is glueing systems together or building one-off automations that would take days, or weeks, to figure out. It’s for things you don’t have time to figure out or didn’t think were possible.

embedding-shape | root | parent | next
> If working with LLMs effectively means accepting subpar results

Why would it mean that? That's one way of using them, sure. Personally, my code is better as I have more time to think about the software design than before, and I'm less avoidant of refactoring in my personal projects.

> I’ve never seen a good example where AI is a net positive to any development workflow

Alright, does that mean you also believe it's impossible then that anyone out there is using AI in a "net positive" way for their development workflow? Or just that you've never seen it, but you're open to it existing?

skydhash | root | parent
> Or just that you've never seen it, but you're open to it existing?

This one. Only a sith deals in absolute.

I don’t mind experiments to try to find methodologies for those tools. And I believe there are instances where they’ve been successfully used. The issue I have is the kind of generic statements that they are good enough to replace currently established methodologies. Like using AI is a panacea.

> Personally, my code is better as I have more time to think about the software design than before, and I'm less avoidant of refactoring in my personal projects

That’s a bit what I’m talking about. Have you investigated how it has helped you? And if there are other, more economical way to get the same result? Your statement seems more ritualistic than logical.

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tdeck | root | parent | next
I think many people did argue against these things when they were new. Compilers, for instance, were seen as a waste of the computer's resources and produced less than optimal code.
yoz-y | root | parent | next
Eh. The useful LLM usage I see is in internal tools (bugs don’t matter because the output or UI is the only thing that counts and they are throw away) or personal projects that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

Both of these can be quite invisible. But the benefit is there.

rightbyte | root | parent
> No one argues against compilers, build tools, IDEs, task runners, deploy and orchestration tools.

Uhm ... I've heard quite alot arguing against IDEs. And I feel IDEs are too much of a lock in.

surgical_fire | parent | next
Maybe that's how you get people in HN claiming to be infinitely more productive now thanks to AI.
kooi | root | parent | next
Infinitely, that's a stretch.

Over the past year maybe 1.5x to 2.0x for me. As in: I can work on two projects at the same time with reduced amount of context switch. But that's it for me.

Maybe I don't have the brains for 1000x terminal agent coding, but 2 parallel projects seems like my saturation point.

q3k | root | parent | next
I do believe there's a tiny subset of people who are more productive with AI, in the same way that Erdős was more productive with amphetamine.

But most who keep on going about their 10x productivity gain are indistinguishable from that one obnoxious guy at a party who won't shut up about his Ayahuasca retreat last spring. And they think they're Erdős.

ratelimitsteve | root | parent
this is a great metaphor precisely because (outside those with paradoxical stimulant response) everyone thinks they're more productive on amphetamines and there's some naive evidence to that effect. the number of things you've actually done is significantly higher. the change in value created, as measured by the decrease in distance between where you are and the the goal you're shooting for, is unpredictable at best and slowly degrades as reliance increases.

AI is like having a junior dev with an adderall addiction and an encyclopedic knowledge of coding syntax at your beck and call.

bonoboTP | root | parent
The ones who get more productive are either the very incompetent who get pulled up to the AI-floor level, or the very competent who know when and how to use it and for what. The midwits are too proud to use it and instead placate themselves that their precious skill is more special and immune to mechanization than it really is.

Many many people have jobs where their contribution is granting access to deliberately undocumented things, like knowing where the config files are and some such. They hate the idea of AI. For my non IT friends its great for diagnosing wifi issues. It's also great for competent network engineers. It's not great for those who gain a salary due to having memorized some actions or settings that they don't even understand much. Note that this group has also already resisted traditional script automation, just like US dock workers who resist automation.

nmeagent | root | parent | next
I would bet real cash money that many many people, including your coworkers, think that anyone who unironically uses the term "midwit" is completely and totally obnoxious.
projectazorian | root | parent | next
If you use it in a work context (or any normal social context really) then yes, that is obnoxious. That doesn't mean it's not a real phenomenon.
bonoboTP | root | parent | next
Mweh, I'm not a native English speaker. It's a definitely existing archetype, though, just like "Spießbürger" points at a thing in German.
delian66 | root | parent | next
Is he wrong though?
vehemenz | root | parent | next
More cringe than obnoxious, but yeah.
Jensson | root | parent
People who uses the word "obnoxious" are also obnoxious. There are many unpleasant words, you have to use some of them and people don't like any of them.
dml2135 | root | parent | next
The word “obnoxious” does not carry the connotation of smug superiority that “midwit” does.
nmeagent | root | parent
Would you refer to someone as a midwit in a typical office environment and expect your professional reputation to remain intact? If you were to do this on an ongoing basis for whatever reason, how long before you're asked to have a little chat with the folks in HR? Would you then attempt to explain it away as one of those unpleasant words that you just had to use? I want to be there for that conversation.
vovavili | root | parent | next
Engaging in direct open conflict in a sanitized environment like an office is shooting yourself in the foot. Different norms for different rooms.
ndriscoll | root | parent | next
Corporate offices are low trust environments where people do not really openly speak directly in any negative way (for basically the reason you've illustrated), so I wouldn't use them as any kind of standard for normal social interaction.
projectazorian | root | parent
> I wouldn't use them as any kind of standard for normal social interaction

Workplaces are where many of us spend a large percentage of our waking lives. So, it is "normal," unfortunately. This is why HR language and norms have broken containment into the non-work world. (Whether that's a good thing is another question.)

bonoboTP | root | parent | next
Different context, different politeness rules. I bet you're fun at parties. An online forum is a relaxed space, like a town pub. HR isn't breathing down our necks here. Personal attacks are a different sort of thing. Using a word to describe in a comment some abstract situations and kinds of characters you see at the office is not a personal attack.

There is not one single discourse norm to rule them all and calling out every little thing as too offensive is just annoying. Yeah, yeah there are no midwits, everyone is a unique little genius flower, yeah.

surgical_fire | root | parent
> very competent who know when and how to use it and for what.

More productive? Sure, to an extent.

Being merely more productive is a tame claim for what some people unashamedly post here

bonoboTP | root | parent
People apparently can get a very different picture of the same site. Anti-AI people think this site's commenters are mostly pro-AI and vice versa. I'm generally pro-using-AI-in-proper-ways, and mostly have the impression that people on here tend to complain and grumble about AI mostly and are generally skeptical and dismissive of everything which is right in the HN tradition (the famous Dropbox comment etc).

Karpathy, Carmack, Terence Tao, Simon Willison etc. are all smart people and manage to use AI effectively and productively because it doesn't hurt their ego.

surgical_fire | root | parent
Except I am not anti-AI.

You can see my comment history.