I’d like to address your technical argument! I’m glad to hear you’re a study of the ethics and philosophy around this because it seems like you’re intentionally sidelining those aspects of the situation, so I want to address your technical points in a way that says, “But that’s not really the whole conversation.”
If this was a game, what should you do? It seems like, logically, you’d focus on reading more than writing, because that’s just faster, and since the AI can beat you on the speed of writing, doesn’t it make sense to have it do that process?
In general, the best thing to do in a video game is rarely, if ever, how we should approach real-world problems; those are very controlled situations that don’t cover all side-effects or consequences. I see you’re assuming a min/max strategy but that’s also not always why we play games.
This also undersells how interrelated reading and writing are. Writing makes you a better, more critical reader, and vice versa. The converse is also true. Giving up on one of the two means being worse at both reading and writing. That puts us on a bad computer literacy trajectory as a whole.
The last decade or longer of IDE development has been “programmer write less.” How is AI’s writing of code much different?
In my view it’s different because IDE development has rather been toward, “Programmer write less boilerplate”. Automating the infrastructure like getters/setters, integrating library management, version control, so that the programmer can focus on the quality of the “tangible” result of the code. With LLM tooling, no engagement is actually necessary. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, but that it’s fundamentally different to that IDE trend you suggested.
Video games aren’t medical apps, legal apps, security apps, etc. This means lower stakes to sloppier code architecture. If a version is bad, we patch it.
This is the one I come closest to agreeing with, however there’s a sticking point – even if we silo the discussion to games it’s still bad for the industry as a whole. You said yourself that you’d be able to satisfyingly monetize an LLM-assisted game in 2-3 months if you got laid off, so that signals to me that throughput is the thing you find most valuable or important about this process. What that will do is make the shovelware and malware start to look closer and closer to a quality product and make the space more dangerous to be in.
If a version is bad, you can patch it. But why would you when you can generate an entirely new game with the same level of effort? If you only need 1000 people to buy software to offset the cost, why fix it at all? Not everyone will take that stance, but many will, and that will start to make it okay for everyone. It happens even now that games release early in a buggy, incomplete state with zero hope of a fix, so I’m not sure how you can responsibly gloss over this.
Games might not be banking apps, but some games process payment information or are very invasive pieces of software and should still be scrutinized for their security practices.
In short, “why wouldn’t you?” has many answers even leaving out environmental and ethical concerns, but I’m trying to keep this response small enough to meaningfully respond to if you want.
For the ethics, I personally think these things should be nationalized / universalized, given that it runs on mass theft. That’s Meta’s argument: we stole so much, you can’t hold us legally accountable. Sure thing bud: let’s get half your profit then?
For the environmental, to me, it’s akin to driving a car. It’s very socially acceptable to do that in most places in the US. Does it contribute to worsening environment and have long term impacts? Yup, sure does. I have 1 car for our family. We used to have 2. We made a positive step, but we couldn’t lower to one. Does it make me a bad person? I don’t think so. Proportionally, I don’t think my AI usage is that impactful compared to Meta/Amazon/big tech company. Is it still bad? Yup, sure is.
That’s the reason I sidestep those, along with simplifying a complex topic I knew I would be flamed for.
Literacy matters. Seems like you’re trying to push on “what if we all did it?” And yeah, there’s some idiocracy future potential. However, I don’t think it’s addressing the issue. I mentioned John Henry because that’s partially what his story is about: man v. machine. People likely wrote faster with typewriters, and I bet people claimed literacy would go down with them. Maybe? But the reading is really essential in this process. That’s my claim.
I’ll grant there’s a degree problem with the IDE analogy, but I still think it’s a technological progression that makes rational sense.
I wouldn’t make shovelware. Many people will. I’ve said to friends I expect a Cambrian explosion. Life in all forms, good or bad. We’ll get apps that could never have been made and the worst malware to exist. It’s a Pandora’s box. The internet made us closer and brought out a lot of evil in the world. To me, internet & AI are tools, not inherently good or bad. (Philosophically, if there was no thieving of data)
I think you’re making reasonable points. I also think most people have not reconciled “it’s faster to read than to type.” It’s a strange inversion in AI workflows that comes from the mechanics at play.
Machine read speed: 1m wpm (96k per 5 secs, based on token usage of a well known model)
Machine write speed: ~6000 wpm (again, based on token usage & turnaround)
It’s not that we’re close. We’re miles apart. If we’re in a capitalistic hellscape (which, I think there’s maybe some evidence for, given on friendly convo :) ), then my competitor will beat me on speed. Why would I move a bunch of product on a hand cart vs. a train?
Thanks for the human interaction, by the way. I appreciate you engaging in earnest.
Thanks for your effort in replying too, I cherish these. Agree on the ethics and environmental points, I have nothing to add there!
I do feel that I understand where you’re coming from more now. It seemed like the focus of the argument before was just about the capacity of the tool (which is very interesting, I meant to ask for the numbers and forgot, thanks), so I’m glad we can get more nuanced.
Literacy matters! I struggled to keep this topic limited to video games, I did somewhat disregard the John Henry reference for that reason. I still don’t understand the claim here, though – are you saying that reading is more essential than writing for the purpose of literacy? It’d help me to reword that if you could.
I like the Cambrian explosion allegory because we saw something similar with the printing press and typewriter, and we certainly will here too. I’m coming from a much less realistic point-of-view than I’m sure you are as someone who works in the industry – Pandora’s Box is already open, we can’t hope to ban it or anything similar.
I’d like to address your technical argument! I’m glad to hear you’re a study of the ethics and philosophy around this because it seems like you’re intentionally sidelining those aspects of the situation, so I want to address your technical points in a way that says, “But that’s not really the whole conversation.”
In general, the best thing to do in a video game is rarely, if ever, how we should approach real-world problems; those are very controlled situations that don’t cover all side-effects or consequences. I see you’re assuming a min/max strategy but that’s also not always why we play games.
This also undersells how interrelated reading and writing are. Writing makes you a better, more critical reader, and vice versa. The converse is also true. Giving up on one of the two means being worse at both reading and writing. That puts us on a bad computer literacy trajectory as a whole.
In my view it’s different because IDE development has rather been toward, “Programmer write less boilerplate”. Automating the infrastructure like getters/setters, integrating library management, version control, so that the programmer can focus on the quality of the “tangible” result of the code. With LLM tooling, no engagement is actually necessary. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, but that it’s fundamentally different to that IDE trend you suggested.
This is the one I come closest to agreeing with, however there’s a sticking point – even if we silo the discussion to games it’s still bad for the industry as a whole. You said yourself that you’d be able to satisfyingly monetize an LLM-assisted game in 2-3 months if you got laid off, so that signals to me that throughput is the thing you find most valuable or important about this process. What that will do is make the shovelware and malware start to look closer and closer to a quality product and make the space more dangerous to be in.
If a version is bad, you can patch it. But why would you when you can generate an entirely new game with the same level of effort? If you only need 1000 people to buy software to offset the cost, why fix it at all? Not everyone will take that stance, but many will, and that will start to make it okay for everyone. It happens even now that games release early in a buggy, incomplete state with zero hope of a fix, so I’m not sure how you can responsibly gloss over this.
Games might not be banking apps, but some games process payment information or are very invasive pieces of software and should still be scrutinized for their security practices.
In short, “why wouldn’t you?” has many answers even leaving out environmental and ethical concerns, but I’m trying to keep this response small enough to meaningfully respond to if you want.
I appreciate the well written reply.
For the ethics, I personally think these things should be nationalized / universalized, given that it runs on mass theft. That’s Meta’s argument: we stole so much, you can’t hold us legally accountable. Sure thing bud: let’s get half your profit then?
For the environmental, to me, it’s akin to driving a car. It’s very socially acceptable to do that in most places in the US. Does it contribute to worsening environment and have long term impacts? Yup, sure does. I have 1 car for our family. We used to have 2. We made a positive step, but we couldn’t lower to one. Does it make me a bad person? I don’t think so. Proportionally, I don’t think my AI usage is that impactful compared to Meta/Amazon/big tech company. Is it still bad? Yup, sure is.
That’s the reason I sidestep those, along with simplifying a complex topic I knew I would be flamed for.
Literacy matters. Seems like you’re trying to push on “what if we all did it?” And yeah, there’s some idiocracy future potential. However, I don’t think it’s addressing the issue. I mentioned John Henry because that’s partially what his story is about: man v. machine. People likely wrote faster with typewriters, and I bet people claimed literacy would go down with them. Maybe? But the reading is really essential in this process. That’s my claim.
I’ll grant there’s a degree problem with the IDE analogy, but I still think it’s a technological progression that makes rational sense.
I wouldn’t make shovelware. Many people will. I’ve said to friends I expect a Cambrian explosion. Life in all forms, good or bad. We’ll get apps that could never have been made and the worst malware to exist. It’s a Pandora’s box. The internet made us closer and brought out a lot of evil in the world. To me, internet & AI are tools, not inherently good or bad. (Philosophically, if there was no thieving of data)
I think you’re making reasonable points. I also think most people have not reconciled “it’s faster to read than to type.” It’s a strange inversion in AI workflows that comes from the mechanics at play.
It’s not that we’re close. We’re miles apart. If we’re in a capitalistic hellscape (which, I think there’s maybe some evidence for, given on friendly convo :) ), then my competitor will beat me on speed. Why would I move a bunch of product on a hand cart vs. a train?
Thanks for the human interaction, by the way. I appreciate you engaging in earnest.
Thanks for your effort in replying too, I cherish these. Agree on the ethics and environmental points, I have nothing to add there!
I do feel that I understand where you’re coming from more now. It seemed like the focus of the argument before was just about the capacity of the tool (which is very interesting, I meant to ask for the numbers and forgot, thanks), so I’m glad we can get more nuanced.
Literacy matters! I struggled to keep this topic limited to video games, I did somewhat disregard the John Henry reference for that reason. I still don’t understand the claim here, though – are you saying that reading is more essential than writing for the purpose of literacy? It’d help me to reword that if you could.
I like the Cambrian explosion allegory because we saw something similar with the printing press and typewriter, and we certainly will here too. I’m coming from a much less realistic point-of-view than I’m sure you are as someone who works in the industry – Pandora’s Box is already open, we can’t hope to ban it or anything similar.
Be well, internet homie.