@petrikas Yeah. Learning from other people’s experience has historically been key to survival.

@baldur @petrikas And there's so, so many people eager to depreciate it! Even in the form of my elderly relatives replying to insights from me doing just that with a "you're inexperienced, you don't understand it".

Like, I get it, we all need to prop up our egos somehow, but can we do it in a less self-sabotaging way, please?

@baldur @petrikas some people do love to reinvent things from first principles while making all of the novice errors tho; a week in the lab saves an hour in the library, etc.

@petrikas @baldur They usually understand it when it's about drugs or gambling. I don't need to try heroin to know it's bad. I also don't need to lose all my money to slot machines to know it's bad. But somehow, they completely miss the connection with LLMs. 🙊️

@petrikas "Let's not eat at this restaurant, there's tons of negative reviews about getting food poisoning."

"BAH! You can't trust reviews! You need to try it for yourself and form your own opinion!"

Okay have fun spending an entire day shitting yourself. 🤡

@petrikas @baldur

I found myself agreeing, but then I had to stop me, because I think the difference is in the consequences and the cost.

Because in the case of LLMs, it's at worst just a rather cheap waste of time, which is bad, but (in moderate doses) fine, if that means one can end up verdict that is not just based on expectation but actual data collected in an open trial.

Of course, the people referenced here do not mean in that way. They mean it in a dismissive way. But just because they're weak, doesn't mean that we should also counter in weak dismissive ways.

Especially given that an extensive list of all the bullshit one has personally seen the clanker do is an excellent tool to hit tech bros over the head with.

@Hypfer @baldur
"it's at worst just a rather cheap waste of time" - incorrect and rather short-sighted.

@petrikas @baldur

Look man, I'm just saying that to win over people that aren't already aligned, one needs these stacks of empirical data. And especially empirical data that matters to them.

I can also just not reply if that is more wanted, but it showed up in my timeline and I thought there would be some actual interest in doing something about the state of the world being bad.

@petrikas @baldur

I mean look at these guys:

__

jamesponddotco 4 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

I gave Claude several pieces of writing from myself, from notes to code comments to iMessage messages with my wife[1], and asked it to write skills that match my voice. I also incorporated the humanizer[2] skill into it.

Worked like a charm. This is the prompt I used[3] to write a version for the company I own with my wife, if it helps anyone. The personal version, which lead to the `jamenizer` skill, is very similar, but has some personal details in it.

___

I doubt one can reach them by talking about.. idk the environment or whatever.
If they are even real people at all and not just ghoulish caricatures.

Anyway, I'll leave you alone now

@Hypfer @petrikas @baldur I predict that won’t end with it having just been a cheap waste of time. It sounds more like the prelude to a messy divorce.

@Hypfer
"in the case of LLMs, it's at worst just a rather cheap waste of time"

I have a feeling that the people who had a data center constructed near them and are having their lives ruined by air, water, and noise pollution would strongly disagree with your assessment of what the worst consequence of using LLMs is.

@petrikas i credit the fact i haven't been normalizing it in my brain with direct exposure for why im still able to spot the glaring, obvious, intern-level errors it makes when asked to review colleagues' PRs (which is only sometimes, as i become more and more grumpy) that they oftentimes haven't even read themselves

yes, i can quite clearly see what it actually does

@baldur

@petrikas @baldur Look, you wouldn't want homicide legislation to be written by people who haven't even committed two or three murders themselves, you know?

@petrikas @baldur

Been a trope in the AI booster circle for a while.

If LLM coding assistants aren't working for you, you have to be doing it wrong, you must be using an outdated model or you aren't prompting it correctly.

Its all your fault!

And just you wait in 1, 3 or 6 months from now these things will be soooo good it'll be transcendental

From Thomas Ptacek's article "My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts", Published June 2025

"First, we need to get on the same page. If you were trying and failing to use an LLM for code 6 months ago †, you’re not doing what most serious LLM-assisted coders are doing."

@petrikas @baldur I've heard this dressed in the scientific method:
"You know, as scientists we need to verify stuff"

But I'm not seeing anyone volunteering to peer review the physiological effects of cyanide through personal verification.

It's all distraction, no amount of evidence is ever going to be enough. Even if you go there and use it, if you don't like, you're just doing it wrong, using the wrong model, not using enough etc etc etc etc