Comment by boplicity

>People don't ask hammers to do much more than bash in nails into walls.

“It resembles a normal hammer but is outfitted with an little motor and an flexible head part which moves back and forth in a hammering motion, sparing the user from moving his or her own hand to hammer something by their own force and by so making their job easier”

https://gremlins.fandom.com/wiki/Electric_Hammer

> People keep asking AI coding tools to be something other than what they currently are.

I think it's for a very reasonable reason: the AI coding tool salespeople are often selling the tools as something other than what they currently are.

I think you're right, that if you calibrate your expectations to what the tools are capable of, there's definitely. It would be nice if the marketing around AI also did the same thing.

Yes! I can't tell you the number of times I thought to myself "If only there was a way for this problem to be solved once instead of being solved over and over again". If that is the only thing AI is good at, then it's still a big step up for software IMO.

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that so much of our software has become engagement driven. E.g. Duolingo isn't optimized for learning a language, Facebook isn't optimized for connecting with your friends and family.

I wonder if AI coding tools might get out of this for some cases at least. Make an app that is clearly derivative but actually is optimized to do the thing it actually is supposed to do.

Harder with network effect apps but might be possible for others.

Because that's the vision of many companies trying to sell AI. Saying that what it can do now is actually already good enough might be true, but it's also moving the goalposts compared to what was promised (or feared, depending who you're asking).

To be clear, I see a lot of "magical thinking" among people who promote AI. They imagine a "perfect" AI tool that can basically do everything better than a human can.

Maybe this is possible. Maybe not.

However, it's a fantasy. Granted, it is a compelling fantasy. But its not one based on reality.

A good example:

"AI will probably be smarter than any single human next year. By 2029, AI is probably smarter than all humans combined.” -- Elon Musk

This is, of course, ridiculous. But, why should we let reality get in the way of a good fantasy?

>Why?

Because I keep wondering myself if AI is here and our output is charged up, then why am I keep seeing more of the same products but with an "AI" sticker slapped on top of them? From a group of technologists like HN and the startup world, that live on the edge of evolution and revolution, maybe my expectations were a bit too high.

All I see is the equivalent of a "look how fast my new car made me go to the super market, when I'm not too demanding on the super market I want to end up with, and all I want is milk and eggs". Which is 100% fine, but at the end of the day I eat the same omelette as always. In this metaphor, I don't feel the slightest behind, or have any sense of FOMO if I cook my omelette slowly. I guess I have more time for my kids if I see the culinary arts as just a job. And it's not like restaurants suddenly get all their tables booked faster just because everyone cooks omelettes faster.

>It's allowed me to do things that I simply would not have been able to do previously.

You're not the one doing them. Me barking orders to John Carmack himself doesn't make me a Quake co-creator, and even if I micromanage his output like the world's most toxic micromanager who knows better I'm still not Carmack.

On top of that, you would have been able to do previously, if you cared enough to upskill to the point where token feeding isn't needed for you to feel productive. Tons of programmers broke barriers, and solved problems that haven't been solved by anyone in their companies before.

I don't see why everyone claiming that they previously couldn't do something is a bragging point. The LLM's that you're using were trained by the Google results you could've gotten if you Google searched.

> Why? People don't ask hammers to do much more than bash in nails into walls.

No one is propping up a multi-billion dollar tech bubble by promising hammers that do more than bash nails. As a point of comparison that makes no sense.