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You should really look in to the difference between opt-in and opt-out. Opt-in respects the user; opt-out is for foisting features that the user might not need or want.

Flip it around: a new user might be confused why the AI features that all their friends told them about are not available.

It's a tradeoff


If it is opt-in for everybody, then their friends would also tell them that they have to opt-in to get it.

If it means more users aren't using Gen AI, I'll happily take that tradeoff!

The anti-AI folks should just fork everything at this point, because it's hypocritical as hell to complain about it and use a bunch of stuff built with it. Then you can opt out of society!

Oh no, just think of all the good AI-produced things we'll be missing out on.

...are there any?


I'd say the percentage of stuff developed using AI now is higher than the percentage of pro athletes who use performance enhancing drugs, and there's almost as much incentive to mask it and say "made without AI"

No, they all die at 58. It's the darnedest thing.

(Seriously, I have no idea what the actual statistic is that's being misquoted here)


That's got to really drive up life insurance premiums.

The article's title - and the original title of the submission - was specific, bold, and contained a call to action. The new title is bland and unspecific (Linux has been "good" for servers for decades now).

Please revert this submission to use the correct title.


People dying at below the average life expectancy is not a benefit to society.

This idea that people you don't like should die for the "benefit" of society has been tried before. It doesn't end well.


Of course people dying younger is a benefit to society. Old people cost a lot, they're not productive, and (unlike children) they don't have any productive years in their future either. Ideally we would all drop dead of a heart attack 10 years after reaching retirement age (this would also solve the geriatocracy we find ourselves in).

Instead we clutch to life far beyond any societal benefit and, in many cases, beyond personal benefit too, spending a fortune to delay death another few weeks or months… but with incredibly low quality of life.

That said, dying at 58 is probably of no real benefit. But everyone dying a few years younger would have prevented Brexit.


I notice that both you and bragh have this idea - bragh calls it "working years", and you call it "productive years". You only value the lives of people so long as the wealthy are able to extract value from them.

I'm all for death with dignity and not being a burden on your loved ones. But people who've worked all their lives deserve to have a period after where they can enjoy life without the burden of "productivity".


You misunderstand me. No, I do not think that it is a good thing that society works this way, but yet it does.

Eventually it doesn't end well indeed. But modern society has made it pretty clear that older men aren't actually needed and are more of a burden. Just look at how triggered the GP of the thread got just about a mention that men might want a different approach when it comes to social stuff.

Well, not needed, unless an actual shooting war breaks out and you need a lot more people pulling guard duty or just some very high-risk stuff younger men should not be wasted on. Like that Ukrainian unit of pensioner men in a ground-attack missile unit who source their own missiles by repairing unexploded ones.


> modern society has made it pretty clear that older men aren't actually needed and are more of a burden

The mistake - which leads to disaster - is more fundamental. Modern society isn't an actual thing with needs, just an abstract concept. Individual people are real, and we all have real rights and needs. 'Goverments exist to protect rights' - society exists to serve the individual, not vice versa. Almost all morality includes protecting and helping the vulnerable.

Who decides who is a burden? Infants and children are also a 'burden' as are people with all sorts of illnesses (and people spreading disinformation). Only the cruelest fascists have suggested they should die to help society, as if that's a reasonable discussion.

> Just look at how triggered the GP

Ad hominem is against HN guidelines. Just stick to the issues instead of trying to change the subject by attacking and characterizing people who don't agree with you.


I've had one, although it was due to a vendor releasing inconsistent driver updates.

Incidentally, I can now honestly say I've had more driver issues with Windows than Linux.


Please give an example of an "inconsistency" which makes Linux not a "viable alternative to Windows/MacOS"

You should probably rely less on AI. If your first thought is "I need to delete some directories" and your immediate next thought is "I'd better ask an AI agent to do this for me", you are definitely exhibiting skill entropy.

Claude does these things even though you have explicit instructions not to do them, this isn't a tool for you asking it to delete files.

Just today Claude decided to do a git restore on me, blowing away local changes, despite having strict instructions to do nothing with git except to use it to look at history and branches.

Why jump to the conclusion that the person is so incompetent with no evidence?


Because there's now a class of programmers who are very anti AI when it comes to coding because they think anybody who relies on it are degenerate vibe coders who have no idea what they are doing. You can see this in pretty much every single HN post w.r.t AI and coding.

There is indeed a class of programmers who think AI over-reliance will make us worse. And there should be, because it's true.

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4812513


Did you even read the abstracts of these papers?

The first one has four important phrases: “negative correlation,” “mediated by increased cognitive offloading,” “higher educational attainment was associated with better critical thinking skills, regardless of AI usage,” and “potential costs.”

The second paper has two: “students using GenAI tools score on average 6.71 (out of 100) points lower than non-users,” and “suggesting an effect whereby GenAI tool usage hinders learning.”

I ask you, sir, where exactly do you get “AI over-reliance will make us worse…because it’s true” from TWO studies that go out of their way to make it clear there is no causative link, only correlation, point out significant mediations of the effect, identify only potentiality, and also show only half a letter grade difference, which when you’re dealing with students could be down to all sorts of things. Not to mention we’re dealing with one preprint and some truly confounding study design.

If you don’t understand research methods, please stop presenting papers as if they are empirical authorities on truth.

It diminishes trust in real academic work.


What is "skill entropy"

> What is "skill entropy"

Skill entropy is a result of reliance on tools to perform tasks which otherwise would contribute to and/or reinforce a person's ability to master same. Without exercising one's acquired learning, skills can quickly fade.

For example, an argument can be made that spellcheckers commonly available in programs degrade people's ability to spell correctly without this assistance (such as when using pen and paper).


I did mean "atrophy" as others mentioned.

atrophy?

They think it's a smart way to say that the o.p. is dumb.

Nope, skill atrophy can affect anyone at any level.

Thanks for framing my physical disability as a skill issue. Injuries i sustained developing my skills beyond what most others were willing to do, but i guess my use of AI to assist my input so i can continue developing totally erases that experience.

I can see that my comment about disabled users really got under your skin. How fortunate, then, that I never actually made such a comment.

I wouldn't call them "devs" if they can't write software.

well exactly

For coders, building can be a great source of learning.

Example: this article.


Yes. Privacy and anonymity are both useful in different contexts. This article is just an ad for a service.


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