Mniot

I was at Google when they announced that only AI-related projects would be able to request increased budget. I don't know if they're still doing that specifically, but I'm sure they are still massively incentivizing teams to slap an "AI Inside" sticker on everything.

My most recent usage of AI was making some script that uses WinGet to setup a dev environment.

This is a good example. What I'm saying is that pre-AI, I could look this up on StackOverflow and copy/paste blindly and get a slightly higher success rate than today where I can "AI please solve this".

But I shouldn't pick at the details. I think the "AI hater" mentality comes in because we've got this thing that boils down to "a bit more convenient than copying the solution off of StackOverflow" when used very carefully and "much worse than copying and pasting random code" when used otherwise. But instead of this honest pitch, it's mega-hype and it's only when people demand specific examples that someone starts talking like you do here.

I've heard this from others, too. I don't really get it.

I watched a teammate working with AI:

1. Identify the problem: a function was getting passed an object-field when it should be getting the whole object
2. Write instruction to the AI: "refactor the function I've selected to take a Foo instead of a String or Box. Then in the Foo function, use the bar parameter. Don't change other files or functions."
3. Wait ~5s for Cursor to do it

It did the instructions and didn't fuck anything up, so I guess it was a success? But they already knew exactly what the fixed code should look like, so it seems like they just took a slow and boring path to get there.

When I'm working with a new intern, they cost me time. Everything is 2-4x slower. It's worth it because (a) I like working with people and someone just getting into programming makes me feel happy and (b) after a few months I'm able to trust that they can do things on their own and I'm not constantly checking to see if they've actually deleted random code or put an authentication check on an unauthenticated endpoint etc etc. The point of an intern is to see if you want to hire them as a jr dev who will actually become worthwhile in 6+ months.

I appreciate you explaining it. My LLM wasn't working so I didn't understand the joke

This reminds me of another post I'd read, "Hey, wait – is employee performance really Gaussian distributed??".

There's this phenomenon when you're an interviewer at a decently-funded start-up where you take a ton of interviews and say "OMG developers are so bad". But you've mistakenly defined "developer" as "person who applies for a developer job". GPT3.5 is certainly better at solving interview questions than 90% of the people who apply. But it's worse than the people who actually pass the interview. (In part because the interview is more than just implementing a standard interview problem.)

Based on the article, it seems like cult-follower behavior. Not everyone is susceptible to cults (I think it's a combo of individual brain and life-circumstances), but I wouldn't say, "eh, it's not the cult's fault that these delusional people killed themselves!"

lol is it even worth tracking what's tariffed today?

I don't disagree with you, but I don't put a lot of value in that judgement. Like, if I was the VP of Denying Claims at UnitedHealthcare, I guess I would avoid being in a room with him and a gun just to be safe? I donno...

When I see people saying he's definitely innocent, I mostly read that as a reaction against the media which portrays all suspects as 100% guilty. And that's a pretty fucked-up thing, right? Like, suppose there's a real trial and we all get to see that the evidence against Manione is garbage and that he's clearly innocent and he gets correctly exonerated. Even still, he'll spend the rest of his life as "Luigi, that dude who killed the CEO!" because that's what people saw on TV long before his trial.

I think Mojo's comment is meant sarcastically. I.e. UCH does murder sick people.

But to your question: the presumption of innocence. You've got the burden-of-proof backwards; it's not "prove he didn't commit murder" but rather "prove he did". What I've seen is: some blurry pictures of a white man with brown hair in NYC, security footage of a white man with brown hair doing the killing, and the police say that they found a confession-manifesto and a ghost-gun on Mangione when they arrested him.

As a white man with brown hair who doesn't trust the police, I feel concerned about this standard of evidence!

The physical evidence would seem pretty strong but: a manifesto is something you mail, not carry around with you waiting to be arrested. And a ghost-gun is something you throw away immediately, not hang on to across state lines.

My main point here isn't that it's a slam-dunk "no possible way he could have done it". But that it's just not a ton of evidence. And the pressure to get a conviction and execute someone is incredibly strong. I'd say there's decent evidence that the NYC cops are corrupt and setting up an innocent man to make themselves look good. If we're going to jump to a verdict before the trial, what made you pick the one you picked?

In my own experience, these are two different people.

One who hasn't thought about the actual evidence or legal burden. They just saw on the news that the suspect is definitely guilty and their reaction is: "yeah, guilty of killing someone who deserved to die. Rock on murderer-dude."

The other person is thinking about the law and the evidence presented so far and finds it pretty thin. They might or might not feel like healthcare CEOs should be executed, but I have not heard this type of person lauding Mangione for the killing because they are skeptical that he had anything to do with it.

It may be that your friends are less internally-consistent.

For more interesting writing about the historical Sparta, check out the history blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry:

• https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/
• https://acoup.blog/2019/08/23/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-ii-spartan-equality/
• https://acoup.blog/2019/08/29/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-iii-spartan-women/
• https://acoup.blog/2019/09/05/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-iv-spartan-wealth/
• https://acoup.blog/2019/09/12/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-v-spartan-government/
• https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vi-spartan-battle/
• https://acoup.blog/2019/09/27/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vii-spartan-ends/
• https://acoup.blog/2022/08/19/collections-this-isnt-sparta-retrospective/

Though, do be careful because there are abusive same-sex relationships and sometimes it's even harder to get away because the people around you are telling you "but women can't be abusers!"