it’s an abstraction layer and with that comes abstraction layer downsides; perf hits, loss of control, etc.

yes, it’s a really really good abstraction layer, but that’s it.

the tech does a really good job at abstracting. people who have never written code before can now write programs for anything they want

yes, i believe it will continue to change the way we work, but the hype is annoying

because of this abstraction layer, now more folks can play with ideas that were never able to before and information is more accessible

but it’s still just an abstraction layer

it’s just a tool … and just like any other tool you should USE it, not RELY on it

i use ai every single day. it’s really helpful.

it’s the tool we need for the amount of information that we have access to us now.

prev google search / search engines were “good enough”, now they aren’t

the extremely sad reality is that good tools will replace jobs, there’s no avoiding that. We may replace our own jobs. And that’s upsetting. But we can’t let fear scare us.

it will also create new opportunities for folks willing to learn how to use the tool

i strongly disagree that every company needs to incorporate ai into their product in order to demonstrate to the market competency and awareness of the tool

ai is just an abstraction, not a replacement

i’m still slow to adopt. I love learning and dont want to lose my ability or patience to learn.

but it’s just a tool that’s available. and I saw your TOTALLY VALID and TRUE points somewhere else about environmental impact, job loss, etc.

I’m still bad at using AI. I use neovim with minimal plugins (barely have LSP working) and I still use browser AI tools where I copy-paste questions into them. I tried to completely ignore AI until last year around May, when someone not on my team (my team runs an open source proxy called Envoy) debugged a bug in our config just by querying AI. That’s when I knew I needed to start using this tool to facilitate my learning.

but just like all tools, those shouldnt be reasons we don’t use the tools, we should make the tools better by solving those problems.

just avoiding a super powerful tool because of the bad potential seems a bit like the “easy way out”.

We’re all just problem solvers waiting for the next problem to solve.

im a slow adopter of AI and it wasn’t until someone showed me Aider that I was like “oh cool, i dont have to use VS code to use this?”

im sad because machines are really good at pattern recognition and being programmed with probability tables!! why does this need so much hype!?

i think the first CRAVE of AI came recently for me.

i had to do a bunch of Jira work. Wanted to add a bunch of dates to things.

i literally just wanted to write an AI prompt. I didn’t want to learn Jira.

Also, i had to create a bunch of slides from an outline that i created with bullet points and i knew Google had the little gemini button on slides, so I was hyped to use it … it’s useless. it’s a hype-targetting bolt-on. it will only generate one slide at a time. you can’t say “take this Gdoc with bullet points and turn it into a presentation …”

I like knowing the inner-working of everything. but it’s not feasible. so I have to choose where I give a bit of control away to a tool

I think we should aim to be leaders in the AI space, knowing that Fastly is “good people” and leaders in the internet space. I’d love for us to be leading as “good people” instead of the “bad people” leading. How can we expect to have or lead direction in conversations if we avoid the space rather than learn it.

yeah i think we have to learn how to use the tools and realize their limitations. if we never use them, we’ll never know where they suck 😄

we’re all just here to help each other. i hate so much of the ai stuff and so much about how it came about as an industry, but it is what it is and all we can do it try to make it better

I like AI being an OPTION for things I care less about or have less time to dedicate to.

I dont like being forced to use AI for things I WANT to learn.

I like that AI gives me more control over what I spend my energy learning

are middle class and above the ones using ai?

ah quick ai query shows, yes. educated individuals making >$100k/yr

https://newbrunswick.rutgers.edu/news/survey-highlights-emerging-divide-over-artificial-intelligence-us

wealth division is something that bothers me a lot. someone who can barely afford groceries isn’t going to spend ANYTHING on an ai search.

i do want to close this with the alternative point which i even more strongly agree with which is to not lose curiosity by relying on any tool

they are all tools helping us achieve some (possibly absurd) goal of understanding why we exist

or extending life so that we can ultimately understand why we exist

but if we just accept that life is absurd, maybe we can just enjoy it

maybe my skepticism comes from a place of not caring why we exist.

i’ve accepted that life is absurd

i’m not motivated to find some grand reason for our existence