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VCFundedGenYer | on: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage
This is a case of an SV-brained person stepping outside the bubble and realizing that LLMs are not the universal savior they think it is.

AI isn't well liked in a lot of places. I agree with the communities - make something yourself, don't ask a robot to do it for you. If you vibe slop something into existence, I'm never going to look at it. Something you made yourself though? Hell yeah I want to see it.

Another example is the art community - use AI/LLMs there, you'll be excommunicated.

thunfischtoast | parent | next
I think, without knowing, that art often is similar to the hobby programming communities the thread leads with: the end result is interesting not by itself, but through the process that made it. We have feelings about art pieces because we feel with and through the artist. Can't do that with silicon. The Mona Lisa, even if the end result were exactly the same, would be dead boring had it been produced by the hand of a machine. My take
wincy | root | parent
Totally disagree. I just want cool pictures hanging on my wall. If they’re totally unique and nobody else has them, even better. I can have a mounted picture of me on a horse like the famous Napoleon painting. I don’t care at all about the dude who painted it, I don’t even know his name.

The only exception is real photographs of some event, like I bought my friend a picture of the Falcon 9 taking off against the backdrop of the sun. Amazing photo.

I feel like obsessing over some artist I’ll never be friends with and the story behind their art is just another way to have a parasocial relationship, and the new tools allows us to have absolutely bespoke art in every single home. Things like this used to be considered strange and irregular before mass media. Now every person can make satisfying music. It’s incredible and amazing and should be celebrated because suddenly everyone can participate.

Planktonne | root | parent | next
No one is stopping you doing that, but you probably aren't someone who should go dominate discussion in a hobbyist arts group.
boomlinde | root | parent | next
> Now every person can make satisfying music.

Thanks to taxis, everyone can drive.

tecleandor | root | parent | next
> Now every person can make satisfying music.

That "make" is doing some heavy lifting there. Even handwaving all the ethical stuff with art and LLMs, Christopher Nolan doesn't "make" music when he contracts Hans Zimmer and gives him some guidance. Not I "make" a cabinet when I do the same with a woodworker.

And who's that satisfying for? For the one clicking the "generate" button? For the Sumo people getting VC money?

squidsoup | root | parent | next
> I just want cool pictures hanging on my wall.

That's decoration, not art.

> Now every person can make satisfying music. It’s incredible and amazing and should be celebrated because suddenly everyone can participate.

No one should be celebrating the theft of music from artists. Everyone can participate in making music today just as they always have throughout human history - learn to sing or play an instrument.

thunfischtoast | root | parent
If it suits you, good for you. I said often, not all of it, of course.
spijdar | parent
Here's my thoughts as a 29 year old: of all the things I've ever made in my personal life, the vast majority have ended up abandoned in barely worked on states, and those I have put varying degrees of significant effort in have gone unnoticed. I've never really been able to "enter" a community in a way that felt meaningful to me, either, when I've tried.

I say this not as a complaint, but to explain my perspective on using LLMs for personal projects. Granted, I'm publishing none of them, and not trying to make anyone care about them, so it's not really a response to the article or general discourse here per se, but I thought it bears mentioning anyway.

I'd like to buy into the idea that "doing it yourself" is more meaningful or personally edifying, but I don't get that feeling. I want to get that feeling, but I don't. I've found my private waste-of-time projects using LLMs have been more gratifying than my private waste-of-time projects that don't, and at the end of the day, neither really substantively matter anyway.

Again, this isn't really related to communities per se, but it is an answer why some folks use LLMs for projects/"hobbies".