as much as I hate the industry surrounding it, I cannot imagine hating my own craft so much that I’d ever reduce it to this
-
as much as I hate the industry surrounding it, I cannot imagine hating my own craft so much that I’d ever reduce it to this
it feels unfair that I know so many people who agonize over beautiful code and suffer from imposter syndrome but this little fucker from nvidia can argue against the existence of beauty in what we do because capital demands it and his disdain for what he does reinforces it
code is art, and LLM code is ugly, regardless of what capital wants https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/116424732252818630
@zzt
> Every line of code I write is a copy of another line of code I've read somewhere before, lightly modified to meet my needs
and dozen of art pieces are inspired by the art that came before, to varying degrees -- basically no one is out there inventing brand new, never seen before, painting techniques
as creative en-devours go, coding ain't that far from other forms of such -- it just happens to often have more focus on the "functional"
(and you can even compare corpo shitty code to peak of capitalism art like mass produced tv shows of awful quality, imo)
llms aren't special when it comes to code vs art, it's the same shit, awful on both ends (and lovely how those people always ignore the ethical problems w/ llms) -
like, it’s actively depressing to me that there are people who program who have never looked at code and found it aesthetically pleasing
we really shouldn’t let anyone like that dictate what code is, because it’s clear they don’t understand. I don’t let a finance bro choose what I read (they’d tell me to ingest some airport lounge cult self-help nonsense) or what art hangs on my walls (“I don’t know, what’s expensive?”), why would I let the computer equivalent tell me about beautiful code?
we exist in a world with poetry
where the way words are organized is part of the beauty
how can the same not apply to code?
do you not have eyes?
-
@zzt I've had that fuckwit flagged as a very proud member of AI boosterism and techbro-controlled fascism for a long time. It's a single user instance, so 100% fediblock justified.
BTW, he's an Nvidia employee in case you're wondering about his ethics.
@rootwyrm I’m so confused why I was following his ass on here but yeah, the guy working for nvidia explains everything about the thread: he’s a mouthpiece for the company making the most actual profit off of the AI bubble and has internalized his employer’s bullshit
-
@zzt
> Every line of code I write is a copy of another line of code I've read somewhere before, lightly modified to meet my needs
and dozen of art pieces are inspired by the art that came before, to varying degrees -- basically no one is out there inventing brand new, never seen before, painting techniques
as creative en-devours go, coding ain't that far from other forms of such -- it just happens to often have more focus on the "functional"
(and you can even compare corpo shitty code to peak of capitalism art like mass produced tv shows of awful quality, imo)
llms aren't special when it comes to code vs art, it's the same shit, awful on both ends (and lovely how those people always ignore the ethical problems w/ llms) -
we exist in a world with poetry
where the way words are organized is part of the beauty
how can the same not apply to code?
do you not have eyes?
I’m very curious
when a mathematician calls an equation or a method to solve it beautiful, what do you think they’re referring to?
when I doodle lambda calculus in my little notebook and line up all the transformations just so, do you imagine I’m doing it for any reason other than because it looks and feels aesthetically nice? my brain likes it even though it’s not useful.
when I write my Haskell like an equation on a whiteboard and my lisp like a sentence, what do you imagine I’m doing?
-
as much as I hate the industry surrounding it, I cannot imagine hating my own craft so much that I’d ever reduce it to this
it feels unfair that I know so many people who agonize over beautiful code and suffer from imposter syndrome but this little fucker from nvidia can argue against the existence of beauty in what we do because capital demands it and his disdain for what he does reinforces it
code is art, and LLM code is ugly, regardless of what capital wants https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/116424732252818630
@zzt I feel like this is another case of not knowing mastery in the tools that got us here. So much of the math and science in the statistical models that underpin LLM technologies were crafted and translated, originally, from statistical techniques into code via interpreted languages like Python and R in interactive coding contexts like Jupyter Notebooks/Labs. And I think even most data science types are blissfully ignorant of the layers of machine code, compilers, and elegant integrated circuitry that underpin all that tech, each layer beautiful and reasonably efficient all the way down. LLMs can only afford to be messy because we have so much beauty left to mess up because of decades of technical infrastructure to mess up by being messy. But at some point each layer will crash through exhausting and alienating the artists and craftspeople who actually gave a shit.
-
we exist in a world with poetry
where the way words are organized is part of the beauty
how can the same not apply to code?
do you not have eyes?
@zzt There once was a coder called Matt, who demeaned his profession like that. He's is that guy, that endorses AI, and he seems like a bit of a prat.
-
I’m very curious
when a mathematician calls an equation or a method to solve it beautiful, what do you think they’re referring to?
when I doodle lambda calculus in my little notebook and line up all the transformations just so, do you imagine I’m doing it for any reason other than because it looks and feels aesthetically nice? my brain likes it even though it’s not useful.
when I write my Haskell like an equation on a whiteboard and my lisp like a sentence, what do you imagine I’m doing?
@zzt hmm I’ve always taken that to mean the aesthetics of the math itself, so like the balance of the equation, and using that balance to reach a solution, not necessarily the visual aesthetic of the process. Same as nice moves in a chess game, it’s the cleanliness of the solution to the problem that gives it aesthetic appeal
-
I’m very curious
when a mathematician calls an equation or a method to solve it beautiful, what do you think they’re referring to?
when I doodle lambda calculus in my little notebook and line up all the transformations just so, do you imagine I’m doing it for any reason other than because it looks and feels aesthetically nice? my brain likes it even though it’s not useful.
when I write my Haskell like an equation on a whiteboard and my lisp like a sentence, what do you imagine I’m doing?
every long-running personal project I’ve ever done has been built on code I consider beautiful
I design fucking languages and frameworks on the basis that I’ve found a more aesthetically pleasing way to do something, because if I find it beautiful then it’s probably worth doing
the only time I write ugly code is when I’m forced to by my employer or when I’m solving a problem that shouldn’t exist
what does that tell you about your code, asshole?
-
@zzt hmm I’ve always taken that to mean the aesthetics of the math itself, so like the balance of the equation, and using that balance to reach a solution, not necessarily the visual aesthetic of the process. Same as nice moves in a chess game, it’s the cleanliness of the solution to the problem that gives it aesthetic appeal
@cam there’s more than one type of aesthetics
sometimes you can make something that’s both visually pleasing and fun to think about
plenty of people like how a good game of chess looks and have no fucking idea how it’s played
-
@rootwyrm I’m so confused why I was following his ass on here but yeah, the guy working for nvidia explains everything about the thread: he’s a mouthpiece for the company making the most actual profit off of the AI bubble and has internalized his employer’s bullshit
-
we exist in a world with poetry
where the way words are organized is part of the beauty
how can the same not apply to code?
do you not have eyes?
@zzt not sure if there's a cure for those who refuse to believe that beauty exists
-
-
@zzt @aerique gambling addiction is actually only a small portion of it. If it was just that, it would be far less effective.
The sycophancy is intentional, in other words. Every public LLM psychosis I have ever seen is primarily DELUSIONAL disorder with significant or severe disassociation from reality.
Which honestly is fitting when the people at the top are serial liars with their own extremely severe mental disorders. -
@zzt @aerique gambling addiction is actually only a small portion of it. If it was just that, it would be far less effective.
The sycophancy is intentional, in other words. Every public LLM psychosis I have ever seen is primarily DELUSIONAL disorder with significant or severe disassociation from reality.
Which honestly is fitting when the people at the top are serial liars with their own extremely severe mental disorders.@zzt @aerique understand that compulsive gambling is that; a COMPULSIVE disorder. Someone who insists on only using one specific chatbot in other words, doesn't meet the diagnostic criteria. The problem is not believing the next pull will fix it.
The problem is delusional disorder; they insist that the chatbot is capable and reject all proof and arguments to the contrary. They believe the chatbot when the output apologizes and promises to not fuck up next time.
-
@zzt @aerique understand that compulsive gambling is that; a COMPULSIVE disorder. Someone who insists on only using one specific chatbot in other words, doesn't meet the diagnostic criteria. The problem is not believing the next pull will fix it.
The problem is delusional disorder; they insist that the chatbot is capable and reject all proof and arguments to the contrary. They believe the chatbot when the output apologizes and promises to not fuck up next time.
@zzt @aerique that notably is also where the disassociation from reality comes in. It's not socipathy when they reject the external costs.
These people are so utterly cooked that they don't believe those externalized costs *exist*, and if they do, the evidence of the damage is false or vastly overstated. And because of their delusional disorder, they will only believe the chatbot when it says these costs aren't real or are minimal. How could anyone BUT the chatbot know?!
-
as much as I hate the industry surrounding it, I cannot imagine hating my own craft so much that I’d ever reduce it to this
it feels unfair that I know so many people who agonize over beautiful code and suffer from imposter syndrome but this little fucker from nvidia can argue against the existence of beauty in what we do because capital demands it and his disdain for what he does reinforces it
code is art, and LLM code is ugly, regardless of what capital wants https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/116424732252818630
@zzt Sometimes I'm afraid I've become too jaded and cynical about my craft, and then I read a comment like that and I realize that you know what, I'm fine actually. The world may have taken some of my soul, but I've still got more than that.
-
@zzt @aerique that notably is also where the disassociation from reality comes in. It's not socipathy when they reject the external costs.
These people are so utterly cooked that they don't believe those externalized costs *exist*, and if they do, the evidence of the damage is false or vastly overstated. And because of their delusional disorder, they will only believe the chatbot when it says these costs aren't real or are minimal. How could anyone BUT the chatbot know?!
@zzt @aerique and to be *extremely* clear here: these are MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCIES. They are not 'oh, go see a therapist in 3-6 months.'
They are "you need IMMEDIATE intervention," and many public faces I've seen are *textbook* involuntary in-patient for their own safety and the safety of others.Even when they seem 'harmless' because they're 'just burning money.' This escalates to extreme self-harm very quickly.
-
we exist in a world with poetry
where the way words are organized is part of the beauty
how can the same not apply to code?
do you not have eyes?
@zzt@mas.to sorry i keep sending you blog links but this relates to a thing I said a year ago! https://rustredriver.com/blog/20250310-cyberia-source-code-as-narrative.html
the programmers refusal to engage with their identity as a writer renders it impossible to see their own use of language as artistic. It can only exist as assembly-line machine-like production, because all you can do is "make more words" to accomplish any of your goals -
@fisk you’ve never known any artists and it shows
what a depressing life you’ve chosen
