I will vouch for Simon. I do not know him personally. To me his posts are honest and inspirational.
> I have been overly critical and arguing in bad faith about your writing in the past
I think you are just critical without a stated valid reason. Arguing in bad faith seems to be a thing if HN history is the judge.
And this is coming from a critical thinker, who is a bit tired of people firing off "human slop" comments. The Internet is full of a lot of people, but even when a few are bad apples, it spoils the lot. Maybe that is the intent. Maybe you are just grumpy for your life's situation.
It is 100% possible to build software entirely with AI. If you don't do that, that's great! I still code by hand from time to time, and I'm reading a lot of Rust nowadays, and learning the ropes. I come from a strong Python and Javascript background, plus networking and operations, which I'm a whiz at. I don't do it anymore, but I know how to inform it is done properly.
With this power, I can build things nobody wants to build, but me. Doesn't mean one has to put it into production, or it has to pass some security test, although with me driving it probably will. It only need be what is important to the end user, the prompter, to matter.
I think Simon helps people with this mindset be better at what they love to do. And for that, we should all be grateful.
That’s great for you and Simon but I personally don’t think there will be enough people in the future to use or appreciate these things that can be built and eventually no who will care to build them, and while this “discovery of LLMs phase” might be fun it diminishes the value I used to get from the job, which was writing code, problem solving, discussing and learning with people (having real people and mentors to work with and look up to), and just playing with computers.
There will be a few, sure but not enough. And even if there are enough to give me the things I miss, who is the expert? All of them with the exact same capability to, for example, generate some form of pelican drawing. C’est la vie, but it doesn’t mean it’s not depressing.
It has nothing to do with any attachment to a project or releasing something to everyone. It is a completely personal view about how the community and reward I got from it is dying. If you remove a technical abstraction layer you remove the technical abstractors.
There is a wide gulf of people who use LLMs and those who don’t and I didn’t fully realize this until the last few months. But it really is just a few industries making all the noise.
There are people NOW who use and appreciate it. There are also people who speak for others. I voted you up because you actually put thought into a response, not that the response is a good argument. Some of it is your opinion, and that's yours alone and not for anyone to judge. The rest of it is more focused on others and their actions, before your own. That I can attack, and do so gleefully.
I've been using LLMs for 5 years, sorry, 6 years (sigh). GPT-2 was a dumbass, but I still managed to get it to do primitive function calls - in 2020. I'm not slowing down. I'm increasing speed. It's 2026. Some of you are going to be obsoleted into oblivion if you don't start moving. I estimate I'm at least worth $600K a year now, probably a lot more. And, I don't have a masters. My dad did, and half a Phd, but I digress. I'm not him. Instead of working for the man, I'm doing my own thing, yet again. It is possible for one person to build an empire. I'm going to do it. Not ego. Intent.
The thing you describe here, about it being depressing, is a logical fallacy. I'm not even looking at an AI or Wikipedia. I don't know the proper name for it, but it's a fallacy based on thinking that others bring you value. You clearly have value, you said it yourself and said it well. If anyone sits around and let others define or tell them their value, they are a dumbass.
I've started using "get a horse!" as a shorthand meme for what you are feeling right now, maybe. I'm not here to speak for you or how you manage your emotions. I'm just pointing out the flaws in your thinking. This is what people on horses shouted at people driving the first cars. (the horse thing, although they probably thought driving a car was flawed thinking)
Find your passion and then build it.