I hate this for all the reasons, but given how much Americans hate their government is the government taking a steak in AI likely to improve people’s opinion of AI?
Seems to me that state sponsorship of ai platforms would violate separation of church and state given looney transhumanist ai fanfic is entirely unsupported by empiricism or mathematics. Again can anybody name an economcially useful technology an LLM invented? Maybe we can't because it is like asking for what a search engine invented. Adaptive general intelligence does not exist today and is provably unattainable by fixed weight tranformers interpolating over the human corpus. however rent seeking with their unproductive but persuasive technology is a great temporary survival strategy for OpenAI et al given they can't justify themselves in a competitive marketplace at the cost of us all. imagine if in 2000 the federal gov back-stopped pets.com because ecommerce was deemed in the national interest. lol.
If I were China or Russia I would want the US to invest deeply in the AI boondogle meanwhile I make or mine the things that actually matter in the world. Its like the US vs USSR defense spending war in reverse. if rivals can dupe the US into wasting money on useless "ai" while they build cheap energy or make physical products.
Specifically I think the risk profile these companies have decided to take on is such that the government is basically investing to mitigate bad decision making. These are basically most of the biggest companies in the US right now. Also, I think Trump has shown that the primary criteria for this is not merit but graft.
If these companies were in an earlier more precarious part of their research cycle, and if like multiple of his advisors and his VP weren’t industry insiders or paid by such I might be more in favor. But this is basically regulatory capture in steroids.
The economy is centralized in the magnificent ten enough.
Someone had a quote that was basically like, can we just treat AI like normal technology. And not god in a box or the end all be all of everything.
I definitely look more like a skeptic than an enthusiast, but I use AI at least four hours a day. Im all in, but for like demonstrable processes and gains not just like everyone vibe code themselves to Nirvana.
I've been using it about 8 hours a day. That's because for every two minutes of working with it I need to wait about a minute for it to give something back.
But do you go out and buy nails and screws just for fun when you’re not working on a hardware project? Do you think Home Depot’s marketing suggests you should be building day in and day out? That the average person should have five projects going at the same time and compulsively start a new project even when they’re not feeling like it?
Addiction is a real thing with a real definition and real consequences and it’s not the same as love or admiration or even fanaticism.
If you look up the medical definition of addiction I think you'll be surprised to see that in order for it to be considered a disorder the key is that is has to be past the point of self-abuse or adverse consequences.
You can say something is "addictive" without implying it's a substance abuse disorder.
When people at Microsoft say the goal of AI is to be addictive, they're clearly implying that they want their product to be habit forming in the same way that video games or food delivery is. And it's silly to imply Microsoft is trying to create physiological dependence.
> The deeper issue is tacit knowledge. Most of what a skilled engineer knows is not something they can articulate on demand.
Why is it that everyone says that soft skills can be more important than hard skills, that engineers talk to people they don’t sit in rooms turning requirements into code, but then, it seems like one of the criticisms about the interview process is “well, engineers can come up with good solutions when alone in a room”
That’s not the job. Articulating technical details when in conversation with your colleagues is.
Articulation is not the issue; the reasoning and consideration process is.
If you step back a bit from the words on that page and squint, what you might see is something like "Most of what a skilled engineer does is recognize, sense problems, and feel things that may not be obvious."
The discovery of the right path forward for the goals of the organization comes after that and takes time and planning.
This reads like RIP Budweiser, only Johnny Walker Blue from now on. Of course a week of structured side by side time is better than a few hours. Also - what the hell is wrong with a system design question?
Yes, a process that is 10x as expensive may be 10x better.
And reading the original Steve Yegge post - he seems to recommend a sort of social reputation score. Which means that your interview failures can now follow you?
1. I think if you want kids to grow up with a healthy respect for capitalism, you have to start with the oligarchy. Capitalism without regulation that enforces a healthy playing field is something else.
One thing I realized is that - I think most people seem to grow up with what is a more emotional than purely rational passionate support of either capitalism or socialism. And I realized, maybe I'm the only American whose not entirely sure where on the socialism - capitalism spectrum they are.
I'm starting to lean into something similar - While I understand the danger of nostalgia, and I don't think you can go back. The great thing about living in the current time should be that like, eveything is available. There are people who still choose to be blacksmiths in 2026. My kids and I have been watching the 70s television series "Land of the Lost" and the 70s had some really bonkers childrens programming.
In a weird way, I think the thing the tech companies fear more than abstenance - which kids may ultimately rebel from - is kids who grow up to use these technologies in a healthy way. Kids who grow up without FOMO.
> I derive a lot of joy from shipping outstanding code for my clients and fixing problems they're experiencing. My joy has only increased as I can now ship better code, faster, with fewer bugs. No, I don't intimately understand the code the way I used to, but I understand it enough to accomplish the end goal.
If you’re doing this than great! More power to you. But I think you underestimate the discipline it can take to focus on a task when “coding is free”. I don’t worry that I’ll just lose my old skills. I worry that in losing my old skills I’ll lose the new skills as well. Driving is great! But I still run for exercise and occasionally to get places too. I’d be a worse driver if I was out of shape do to the loss of energy and mental clarity.
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