Wait what?

I think he meant Syria. And the more cogent interpretation is that the US has supported parties who perform as Islamic fundamentalists than they do actual ‘fundamentalists’.

So basically you’re saying LLMs are helping us be better humans?

Better humans? How and where?

Agreed. On the other hand: didn’t any cool tech start as a overpriced, oversized version of its later breakthrough product?

According to Popper, scientists learn by putting out theories and then trying to falsify them through experiments.

What about the other 1%? I feel for them.

As someone who is somewhat familiar with marketing but no expert, I always wondered how well attribution works.

It seems all guesswork to me. User journeys and decisions are not well enough understood to say, "If I spend $1 here, it’ll return $x".

Of course, marketing people come up with all kinds of calculations to show it’s possible.

That or I’m completely ignorant.

> User journeys and decisions are not well enough understood to say

The power of math is its understanding of you, not your understanding of it.

An 8 hour flight vs a 2 hour flight maybe?

I think it’s essential to realize that AI is a tool for mainstream tasks like composing a standard email and not for the edges.

The edges are where interesting stuff happens. The boring part can be made more efficient. I don’t need to type boring emails, people who can’t articulate well will be elevated.

It’s the efficient popularization of the boring stuff. Not much else.

> The edges are where interesting stuff happens. The boring part can be made more efficient. I don’t need to type boring emails, people who can’t articulate well will be elevated.

I think that boring emails should not be written. What kind of boring emails do you NEED to be written, but not WANT to write? Those are exactly the kind of email that SHOULD NOT be passed through an LLM.

If you need to say yes/no. You don't want to take the whole email conversation and let LLM generate a story about why you said yes/no.

If you want to apply for a leave, just make it optimal "Hi <X>, I want to take leave from Y to Z. Thanks". You don't want to create 2 pages of justification for why you want to take this leave to see your family and friends.

In fact, for every LLM output, I want to see the input instead. What did they have in mind? If I have the input, I can ask LLM to generate 1 million outputs if I really want to read an elaboration. The input is what matters.

If I have the input, I can always generate an output. If I have the output, I don't know what was the input (i.e. the original intention).

when i pass my writings through ai the output is generally only marginally bigger than the input, and it derisks things a lot making my prose a nice beige.

It contributes to making “standard” emails boring. I rather enjoy reading emails in each sender’s original voice. People who can’t articulate well aren’t elevated, instead they are perceived to be sending bland slop if they use LLMs to conceal that they can’t express themselves well.

The last item shows 1 ball for $169.

If you click on the link you’ll see it’s says 4 dozen, 48 balls, on the box. And not just one.

Yep. That's one of the downsides of relying on unit count. Sellers don't always accurately match the unit count to their product title. I'll work on fixing these inconsistencies.

I am confused by your last paragraph. Is it AI or not? First three paragraphs sounded like it’s not…

It is not AI becuase employees hired in Romania and the US are both expected to be able to know how to use AI, which papers over performance issues in most cases that matter for a business (time to delivery), but I cannot justify hiring a deskilled NCG for $120k in the US.

Edit: cannot reply

> Why are then so many US developers still employed

Becuase unlike the HN hivemind, a large portion of experienced developers in the US have found ways to realistically adopt new technologies where they are relevant.

Reflexively being an AI fanatic or Luddite is stupid, but being a SWE who is able to tin recognize and explain the value of these tools and their limits is extremely valuable.

I can justify paying $300-400k TCs if you are not a code monkey. This means being able to architect, manage upwards, do basic design and program management, hop onto customer calls, and keep upskilling on top of writing and reviewing code.

We are not hiring SWEs to only push code. We hire SWEs in order to translate and implement business requirements into software.

A developer who has a mindset like that is worth their weight in gold, and there are still plenty of these kinds of experienced developers in the US.

Sounds as if the basic premise is that you’re hiring SWEs to deliver value to customers so that in turn the value of the company grows.

More people need to understand that.

Why are then so many US developers still employed? Some of them might be the best in the world, but they are a minority.

When I turn the brakes on my train why doesn't it stop instantly?

The other thing is that regulations and tax related employment agreements between corporations and local governments are designed to prevent some offshoring of workers.

It's not a binary situation.