Wow, I had been running out of patience with Yegge’s uncritical #GenAI boosterism, but this is epic: “The AI Vampire.”
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@timbray well, it's Marx. He hasn't quite gotten there, and there are a lot of words, but it's in there.
@timbray my take is right there on the IETF list. Unreliable Narrator and Contempt For The Reader. https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/s7WWTHudKlKgXSgS8p82yEOYTcI/
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Wow, I had been running out of patience with Yegge’s uncritical #GenAI boosterism, but this is epic: “The AI Vampire.”
As usual with Yegge, it could have been edited down to half its size, but go read it anyhow. I’m going to adopt that “AI Vampire” phrase and start using it, a lot.
@timbray I have long wondered where Steve Yegge gets his energy for all these words until I realized he may be the first wind-powered human.
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@timbray I can't read Yegge but I had Gemini read it for me.
Steve Yegge argues that while advanced AI tools like Claude Code provide a massive productivity boost, they act as "energy vampires" that cause rapid developer burnout through extreme mental exhaustion.
@nelson Accurate as far as it goes, but misses the crucial class-struggle angle.
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@timbray I have long wondered where Steve Yegge gets his energy for all these words until I realized he may be the first wind-powered human.
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@timbray Respectfully, that is garbage. Just utter, steaming garbage. Steve Yegge has completely lost all credibility. "don’t take it from me. Take it from… the Copilot people." Ah yes, the Copilot people. Their products are truly having their moment in the sun right now. Windows, Github, that stuff has truly never been more popular, stable or perfected than they are right now. Surely no one could find a more pleased customer than a Microsoft customer at this moment in time. There is absolutely an AI Vampire in the room right now, and it is wearing Steve Yegges face.
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Wow, I had been running out of patience with Yegge’s uncritical #GenAI boosterism, but this is epic: “The AI Vampire.”
As usual with Yegge, it could have been edited down to half its size, but go read it anyhow. I’m going to adopt that “AI Vampire” phrase and start using it, a lot.
@timbray Watching someone come to terms with the brutal fundamentals of capitalism almost in real time is fascinating.
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Wow, I had been running out of patience with Yegge’s uncritical #GenAI boosterism, but this is epic: “The AI Vampire.”
As usual with Yegge, it could have been edited down to half its size, but go read it anyhow. I’m going to adopt that “AI Vampire” phrase and start using it, a lot.
@timbray it will be fun if AI was the thing that makes devs finally unionize

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@timbray I have long wondered where Steve Yegge gets his energy for all these words until I realized he may be the first wind-powered human.
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Wow, I had been running out of patience with Yegge’s uncritical #GenAI boosterism, but this is epic: “The AI Vampire.”
As usual with Yegge, it could have been edited down to half its size, but go read it anyhow. I’m going to adopt that “AI Vampire” phrase and start using it, a lot.
@timbray funny, when I read that I thought “wow this is short for a Yegge post.”
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@timbray Respectfully, that is garbage. Just utter, steaming garbage. Steve Yegge has completely lost all credibility. "don’t take it from me. Take it from… the Copilot people." Ah yes, the Copilot people. Their products are truly having their moment in the sun right now. Windows, Github, that stuff has truly never been more popular, stable or perfected than they are right now. Surely no one could find a more pleased customer than a Microsoft customer at this moment in time. There is absolutely an AI Vampire in the room right now, and it is wearing Steve Yegges face.
@timbray I don’t know if you were referring to my reply in your follow-up, Tim. I did read the whole thing. I disagree with Steve Yegge on a fundamental point. AI is not making him or anyone else 10x more productive, for any meaningful measure of productivity. It is rotting his brain, and it is clear from the way he writes and expresses himself that he is drunk, addicted and manic. He agrees. But he still thinks that he is doing great. ”I just need to cut the heroin with some speed!” No dude. You’re ruining yourself.
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@timbray Watching someone come to terms with the brutal fundamentals of capitalism almost in real time is fascinating.
@timbray It reminds me of Cory Doctorow's quoting someone who says corporations are just slow-motion artificial intelligences that no one can control (what controls we have are collective in nature).
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@nelson Accurate as far as it goes, but misses the crucial class-struggle angle.
@timbray@cosocial.camisses the crucial class-struggle angle.
Well, it's #Google's #Gemini: it gaslights class-struggle by design!
#BigTech's #LLM are political tools.
They "read" for you, just what you are supposeed to read.
@nelson@tech.lgbt
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@timbray the weird thing about it is how he praises the work gains as "10X" but then goes on to say that it's utterly exhausting to do so, not seeming to realize that he's just negated his own argument
@BoredomFestival @timbray I will readily believe he is creating 10x the CODE, but mapping that to value is just silly.
10x the code with half the quality is so worthless it might as well not exist, and that's being generous. -
Wow, I had been running out of patience with Yegge’s uncritical #GenAI boosterism, but this is epic: “The AI Vampire.”
As usual with Yegge, it could have been edited down to half its size, but go read it anyhow. I’m going to adopt that “AI Vampire” phrase and start using it, a lot.
@timbray surprisingly, that was pretty thoughtful. The sad thing though is that I think any pushback is impossible in very late stage capitalism.
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Wow, I had been running out of patience with Yegge’s uncritical #GenAI boosterism, but this is epic: “The AI Vampire.”
As usual with Yegge, it could have been edited down to half its size, but go read it anyhow. I’m going to adopt that “AI Vampire” phrase and start using it, a lot.
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@timbray honestly this has been much better article on a similar topic https://siddhantkhare.com/writing/ai-fatigue-is-real (with much less bold claims, ego and cheesy “AI art”)
@inecas You're right. That's excellent.
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