i do not want to get into the business of posting LLM takes but very briefly:
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Google search doesn't work as well anymore because the results are full of LLM-generated articles? I hear about CEOs putting pressure on their teams to produce more faster because they've been told that AI will increase productivity?
it feels sad. even though I find LLMs useful sometimes, with all of the societal impacts it often feels like it isn't actually improving my life.
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@b0rk see also the struggles LWN are having. Click through rates are down, their original material is lower down google search than LLM plagarised version of their own articles, plus they are getting effectively DDoS'd by scrapers.
It's outright warfare on actual human authored websites. -
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(continued from ^)
Google search doesn't work as well anymore because the results are full of LLM-generated articles? I hear about CEOs putting pressure on their teams to produce more faster because they've been told that AI will increase productivity?
it feels sad. even though I find LLMs useful sometimes, with all of the societal impacts it often feels like it isn't actually improving my life.
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@b0rk I don't think that's entirely true. Although I'm very LLM skeptical, Google search enshitified before LLMs came about. They only sped a process that was already going on.
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@b0rk About searching getting increasingly worse, there's another side of this I've thought was interesting.
A non-negligible amount of people no longer ask their technical questions on public forums, they ask their favorite chatbot. These questions, and their answers, are not publicly displayed for other people sharing similar struggles to search for.
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@b0rk I think Google’s problems have more to do with its ad business than the slop at the top, which is a term I think I just coined for when the top of the search results is LLM output.
@nick @b0rk Agreed. I have NUMEROUS issues with LLMs*, but Google has been getting worse for years before chatGPT. It has focused on general information over specific, to the point where it ignores the actual terms you search for in favor of more popular ones, presumably because more popular results equates to more and revenue.
"Slop at the top" is a great phrase.
* Anti LLM rant implied rather than given out of respect for b0rk's request.
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(continued from ^)
Google search doesn't work as well anymore because the results are full of LLM-generated articles? I hear about CEOs putting pressure on their teams to produce more faster because they've been told that AI will increase productivity?
it feels sad. even though I find LLMs useful sometimes, with all of the societal impacts it often feels like it isn't actually improving my life.
(2/?)
@b0rk
As someone who recently graduated and been looking for a job, I've recently tried out Claude code and such because it seems there's an expectation now that I should get good at that.When I do, I find the experience to be impressive and almost overwhelming with what it can do & how quickly. But then I get a sinking feeling that... I just don't want to be doing this. If I knew in university this is what I'd be doing I'd have kept programming as a hobby and gone into something else.
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i do not want to get into the business of posting LLM takes but very briefly:
It feels clear to me that some people* are getting value out of using LLMs for programming. Basically see https://simonwillison.net/'s whole blog. If I think about it purely on the basis of "in a vacuum, can this help me write programs", it seems like an exciting technology.
BUT...
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(* it also feels clear that some people are NOT getting value out of LLMs, hoping to avoid flamewars about that please)
No flamewars, but this is really not about an individual "gets value / does not get value" decision. Except in the sense that a murderer gets value or does not get value out of murdering someone.
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(continued from ^)
Google search doesn't work as well anymore because the results are full of LLM-generated articles? I hear about CEOs putting pressure on their teams to produce more faster because they've been told that AI will increase productivity?
it feels sad. even though I find LLMs useful sometimes, with all of the societal impacts it often feels like it isn't actually improving my life.
(2/?)
@b0rk I also feel like the pricing model is a throwback to the mainframe era where you rented everything to do your job. I was too young for that but everyone I knew who had loved how they could buy a PC and, especially late in the 90s, use open source software to control the tools they depended on. Now participating in open source has a “train your replacement” feel and even the $200/mo models are currently subsidized so the economics are likely to shift even more.
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i do not want to get into the business of posting LLM takes but very briefly:
It feels clear to me that some people* are getting value out of using LLMs for programming. Basically see https://simonwillison.net/'s whole blog. If I think about it purely on the basis of "in a vacuum, can this help me write programs", it seems like an exciting technology.
BUT...
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(* it also feels clear that some people are NOT getting value out of LLMs, hoping to avoid flamewars about that please)
@b0rk I look at this way, these tools are profoundly changing our work, society.
I can sit on the sidelines and ignore it, or I can help shape the conversation in a small way.
I focus on helping find value: https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/using-claude-as-strategic-thought-partner/44493 and the weaknesses https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/genai-code-quality-fundamental-flaws-and-how-bluffing-makes-it-worse/ and https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/is-ai-making-your-organization-fragile-or-more-resilient/
If I could turn back the clock on this technology, I would.
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(continued from ^)
Google search doesn't work as well anymore because the results are full of LLM-generated articles? I hear about CEOs putting pressure on their teams to produce more faster because they've been told that AI will increase productivity?
it feels sad. even though I find LLMs useful sometimes, with all of the societal impacts it often feels like it isn't actually improving my life.
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@b0rk It's a huge bummer. The technology IS cool and does present a huge advancement in our ability to interface with natural language.
I think it's important to frame it, instead of "can it do x?", as "sure, it can or might eventually be able to do X, but at what cost?" LLMs can and should exist and be accessible, and small open source models you can run on commodity hardware DO exist.
The problem is the eschatological venture capital death cult that's made LLMs their hobby horse,as always
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(continued from ^)
Google search doesn't work as well anymore because the results are full of LLM-generated articles? I hear about CEOs putting pressure on their teams to produce more faster because they've been told that AI will increase productivity?
it feels sad. even though I find LLMs useful sometimes, with all of the societal impacts it often feels like it isn't actually improving my life.
(2/?)
@b0rk one thought that came to me when Cursor started seeming to be good enough a lot of engineers started using it was that LLM-assisted coding makes some sense since it's putting the burden of using that tech on coders. AI-based summaries are shoving it in the face of the general public, who don't have as much of a handle on what its limitations are. And just seems to be the latest in the general enshittification of search engines. Social media is especially vulnerable to AI-bots.
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@b0rk The origin of writing https://dustycloud.org/blog/a-letter-from-2016-to-2026/ is my bitterness that a decade ago, we heard a lot of promises that "don't worry, we'll automate away the boring stuff, you can focus on being creative!" and now people seem resigned to "well, all that creative stuff, I don't do it anymore"
Honestly, for me, not doing the creative stuff is giving up on the things that bring me the most happiness in life. And we know that what LLMs are bad at right now is anything that is genuinely new... they're very good at doing things that have been done before.
So, celebrate those who continue to be creative, I think. Because ultimately, even the vibecoders / vibeartists rely on their work to advance things.
But it's depressing to me to see the promises of what life would be like vs what it's now like.
@cwebber @b0rk YOU're depressed? I worked in the 90s (in the days of Carl Malamud's Internet Travelogue) w subversives to get agricultural scientists in developing countries on the Internet via leased lines to US (paid for w cheaper phone calls). Thesis: Can't solve hunger w inferior access to information than enjoyed by children in the developed world. In retrospect, despite knowing about the dark web etc, we were naive & hopelessly optimistic.
You're today's subversives. H/t. Thanks
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