[…] this technology is horrific for attention. It’s a thermonuclear ADHD amplifier and I have seen the same effect in every single one of my adult friends. Folk running 3 screens simultaneously working on totally unrelated “projects” they have little hope of maintaining, and such little commitment to the outcome that the time is obviously wasted.

Worth a read, whatever your opinion on LLMs.

  • Prox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    536·
    3 months ago

    LOL. Imagine having an AI subscription in the first place.

  • friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    3 months ago

    I use many of these tools, but I didn’t need them. I can’t afford to maintain any of them

    That’s it. He doesn’t need them. But in order to maintain them, he’ll use up even more of his time, and probably spend a lot more on AI to do the maintenance for him. In the end, what is the cost, and what is he getting out of it?

    I think for a lot of people, AI is like so many addictive video games. They take our attention and make us feel like we’re getting something out of the interaction. Each prompt is like doing a run in Sling Kong or Jetpack Joyride. Didn’t go well? Try again. And in the end we’ve wasted a lot of time on something that has little to no value, that nobody else is going to use, and the net result is a lot of wasted time with very little to show for it. We have a high score, we have some collectibles, and we’re no better off than we were when we started.

    I think one answer to this is more focus on the problem, and less velocity. Velocity is not helpful if you’re not pointed in the right direction, and even if you are pointed in the right direction it’s not useful if you overshoot your destination.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    3 months ago

    I’m confused on one main point from the author. Are these created projects for work or just personal? This answer changes the dynamic of the entire article.

    Except for the SaaS, almost none of this is useful and I don’t want to maintain any of it.

    If they were personal projects, then there’s nothing wrong. They were useful for a moment, or were fun to build, and if they’ve exceeded their usefulness, get rid of them. We do this all the time with hobbies, so why would it be a sin with personal code? Nobody spends an hour finishing a crossword puzzle and says “well that was a waste of time”. We spend money on hobbies too, so if your hobby is coding and you want to spend money on an LLM subscription for your hobby, as long as you get value and enjoyment out of it, its fine.

    However, if these were supposed to be commercial marketable products, and that business resources were used they yes, clearly there is a lack of planning and resource allocation. Spending time and money building something which has no use can can’t be maintained is a major business error.

  • meerstyler@feddit.orgEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    A friend of mine wants to get into gold trading. He is trying to vibe code bots that’ll buy/sell following his investment principles precisely. He’s paying for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and now also Mistral. Multiple screens, hundreds of working hours and not a cent earned. Yet, he claims. But the thing is, he doesn’t have money to invest, so the chances of this project ever being lucrative are, well non zero but also not very high. I linked him this article, but he is just going to glance at it and dismiss the thought, that he might have gotten lost in something here. What can I do to save him?

    • GreenBeard@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      You probably can’t. He will likely have to hit rock-bottom before he realizes he’s made a mistake. You’ve tried intervention, and you can leave the door open for when his plan all falls apart. You can’t really do anything more than that.

  • cheese_greater@lemmy.worldEnglish
    56·
    3 months ago

    I think if AI creates negative effects you shouldn’t use it. I find it quite useful altho I have to be very careful and often cite its sources or explain how it came to a response because I dont trust it much more than a code writing tool and advanced search assistant/summarizee

    I know someone’s gonna swoop in a say it cant think/reason/ideate it only matches patterns but I disagree, thats probably part of it but I have gotten many excellent and reliable responses and answers to questions far faster in so using it so I have to brush over those complaints

    Never been a fan of the whole I couldnt handle it so neither can you imperative in many of these type pieces