> For example, the ability to write, think and communicate clearly, both with LLMs and humans seems likely to be much more important in the future.
No, LLMs will do it for you.
> Some business folks look at AI and say “Great, we don’t need programmers!”, but it seems just as plausible to me that a programmer might say “Great, we don’t need business people!”
We won't need either.
> I think software architecture will become a more important skill over time: the ability to organize large software systems effectively and, crucially, to control the complexity of those systems.
No, LLMs will do it. It's no harder than solving complex math problems, so why wouldn't they?
> I try not to use LLMs to generate full solutions that I am going to need to support. I will sometimes use LLMs alongside my manual coding as I build out a solution to help me understand APIs and my options while coding.
> I never let LLMs design the APIs to the systems I am building.
Then you'll be left behind by those who do, because they'll ship faster. And surprise, the quality won't be any worse than yours.
They will ship faster what? Different software requires different levels of diligence. A pop-up web site for an event and a piece of foundational infrastructure code have almost nothing in common.
> the quality won't be any worse than yours.
Does the current practice support this claim? My claim is that with a kind word and a gun, I mean, with human expertise and LLM's ability to do intellectual legwork, it is possible to achieve more than with just an LLM.
>> we don’t need business people!
> We won't need either.
ROTFL. Did you see what e.g. good salespeople do? Very often they are more important for success than engineers, and I say it as an engineer.
>> the ability to write, think and communicate clearly
> No, LLM will do this for you
I hope this is said in jest. If not, I rest my case and just wait for the reality to land its sobering uppercut.
> I hope this is said in jest. If not, I rest my case and just wait for the reality to land its sobering uppercut.
The ASI believers would say exactly the same back to you. If a machine can think better than humans, then outsourcing thinking to it will get better outcomes, however degrading it is to humanity. Presuming, of course, the machines still listen to us when they are superior to us in all ways.
How will LLMs "do it for you" if you don't tell them what you want / need? I don't think they have the ability to read my mind. They might advance (or, the companies may build products that do it) to the point where they can make assumptions about what might be good or helpful, but that might end up with a lot of guesswork, churn, and throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks.
Shipping faster I believe, but we've seen plenty of startups in tech since the late 90s that all "shipped fast" but ended up bankrupt because shipping fast isn't the same thing as shipping what is good, neccessary, helpful, or profitable. That said, those were things made by humans so I'm not saying human-built is good by default.
But shipping more and / or faster is not the solution. I'm not even sure what the problem it's trying to solve would be.
> How will LLMs "do it for you" if you don't tell them what you want / need?
You tell them what you want, yes. You just won't need to be a software engineer to do it.
> shipping fast isn't the same thing as shipping what is good, neccessary, helpful, or profitable
LLMs will warn you if something isn't good, helpful, or profitable, etc.
> But shipping more and / or faster is not the solution. I'm not even sure what the problem it's trying to solve would be.
There are plenty of ideas in the world to implement. Current software development is slow and expensive. That's a real problem, and LLMs are helping solve it.
I get where you’re coming from but they are listing these things out because those are some of the things you will likely automatically do to distract yourself from the present moment. I once tried to instruct someone on how to meditate and afterward they told me they spent the entire time working out solutions to problems in their head. I tried explaining that actively doing something, like solving problems in your head, means you are not meditating - you are thinking. They couldn’t bring themselves to sit there without getting their mind involved in something.
Yeah that’s exactly what I mean by not inserting yourself. When you engage with the thoughts, feelings, and sensations, your awareness narrows and you focus on them. As your focus deepens, it becomes amplified and will continue. When you notice this happening, go back to a more neutral observer mindset and let it flow past.
It’s a bit tricky because sometimes you get caught focusing on being the observer and letting sensations pass. It’s a more subtle thought but as you practice those subtle sensations become more apparent. It’s a useful sensation in the beginning to let the more “coarse” sensations and feelings go but eventually you need to let that go too.
I don't think it's possible to be conscious and have no thoughts at the same time. Otherwise, you wouldn't even remember the experience.
I think we first need to define what we mean by "thoughts".
It’s not about having no thoughts. It’s about not being involved in the thought occurring. We often identify with our thoughts and feelings in a way that we do not when we see a cloud pass by. Treat those thoughts, feelings and physical sensations in the same way during meditation.
The wandering sadhus and nath yogis who worshipped Lord Shiva used hashish (what you'd call now finger hash) to aid in this practice of disappearing within one's own mind during meditation.
You can have the experience without it too, just sit there for a long time and follow the instruction you shared. Yes keeping the rule in your head is a thing to fixate on, but there's a little trick.
You see people spin balls or beads in their hands, or sometimes do a little puzzle in their mind, and claim it aids with meditation. Well, sometimes a small repetitive thing to focus on can be just as good as pure silence. This is the basis of mantras. If you do the same thing over and over and over and over it's the same unchanging rhythm as the background silence you're trying to achieve. It's only when we have all these decisions dragging us every which way that it's not possible to fall into the meditative state.
So what is it - the "state" - it's basically when you forget you're there. The longer, the more psychedelic of an experience that is. You've probably already achieved it sitting bored in class, or staring off while tired. That's it.
You can become better at forgetting yourself and "slipping into it" (or rather out of mental thoughts and into the abyss of relaxing nothingness) on demand, and get better at doing it for longer, or you can use inebrients to aid in the process.
Sometimes when you come to - you had basically a dream. That can feel profound enough for some to build a religion around this kind of thing.
My first thought was that they have several people who seem like they'll expect very serious compensation but no actual product, then I noticed they already seem to have a whole bunch of VC backers. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous of people who can make a flashy vaporware pitch deck and ride the VC gravy train.
Do you understand every line of code written by everyone else on your team? I doubt it. But if you ever need to work with their code, that's when you might need to understand it. So, treat an AI agent like another teammate.
I think a wiser approach for crossing a border might be to have another phone with regular Android installed on it, so it doesn't look suspicious, and then connect remotely to your main phone. Before crossing the border, you would just need to remove the remote-connection app, and after crossing, install it again.
Claude Code gives you more control - you can disable auto-memory temporarily (nothing will be deleted), then enable it back; or you can setup a directory where auto-memory is disabled and do your throwaway there.
reply