Hello everyone! For many years, I have been coding every once in a while and actually learned a lot. I especially liked C and C-Like languages and building useless stuff just for fun and for the sake of the intellectual challenge that came with it, but since when AI became decent enough, it just kinda ruined the passion for programming and computers as a whole. Thing is, I am in university now and need to go back to using C and program regularly, but now that AI does everything 20000 times better than I ever will I always either cede to temptation to use it (thus nullifying learning) or just get bored so quickly I just turn off the computer to do something different.
is there a way to revive the interest for programming and building projects? I am doing my best to stop using AI but heck I really am self-indulging. please help!
AI doesnt do everything 20000 times better than you ever will.
Don’t tell yourself that.
It’s better than you right now, but every mid-level tech worker will tell you it sucks. You have significantly higher capacity than it, you just have to learn to get there and that isn’t easy or quick.
Thank you for your encouragement :3
I’m not sure it’s even faster. Damn thing ties itself in knots trying to do basic tasks.
Yeah the problem is will he learn faster than AI improves? I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.
Oh no, they have bettered themselves for nothing!
You should watch TNG When the Bough Breaks, that’s the future we’re heading for if everyone decides to not learn hard things because the computer can do it
Luckily that’s not my case, I still do very complex stuff. I just happened to lose the passion for coding
You said
It’s better than you right now, but every mid-level tech worker will tell you it sucks. You have significantly higher capacity than it, you just have to learn to get there and that isn’t easy or quick.
I was just pointing out that this view completely depends on AI improving slower than he does. I would not put money on that.
It does not.
AI can get better but this is learned helplessness.
Of course it does. You said he has a higher capacity than AI and he just needs to learn to get there. Well that’s no help if by the time he does AI has advanced even further.
learned helplessness
No, I just accept reality. You can bury your head in the sand if you like.
I’m sure AI must have a limit since AGI is still not there and apparently won’t be realized any time soon. I know I can become even better than AI but that is gonna take years and this is the kind of thing that requires for pleasure to be found in the pathway to the objective and not to the objective by itself
It is known that, with effort, a person can improve from the level they are in university
It is not known how much AI can be improved
It is not known how much AI can be improved
I didn’t say it was. But at this point it would be a pretty wild prediction to think it’s not going to continue to rapidly improve.
Is it a wild thing to predict that AI improvement will slow down?
Yes.
Why?
A few reasons:
- The evidence so far seems to be that AI capability scales with compute, and compute continues to advance. Including with crazy AI hardware like Cerebras and Taalas. There are still a ton of AI hardware startups that have yet to tape out.
- There’s an enormous amount of research into algorithmic and infrastructure improvements, which also show no signs of slowing down.
- Empirically, it has been getting better continuously for several years now. There appears to be no reason to suspect any blockers.
In other words: why not?
To steel man, the main reasons I would counter with are:
- Moore’s law is pretty much dead… Except that we still have a ton of headroom with custom AI-focused chips. E.g. I know of at least two startups working on DRAM stacked on the compute chip instead of next to it, which gives dramatically higher memory bandwidth.
- There are still a couple of architectural issues, e.g. context length is limited, AI can’t really remember/learn things on-line, hallucination is not solved. But… in practice those problems seem to not matter too much and also hallucinations seem less common the more capable the model is, so maybe it doesn’t need an architectural solution at all.
deleted by creator
The main issue here is that googling becomes less and less attractive due to the emergence of copycat AI generated articles. Oftentimes, you have to wade through several identical copies of an original tutorial with ads crammed every other line before you find an actual resource.
What I find to work reasonably well:
- IF I use AI, I instruct it to never change files or run console command, but instead explain to me what to do and why
- If not straightforward advice, I will check with official documentation pages and correct if needed
This way, AI acts as glorified Google that can read your local context. For me it works quite well and I learn a lot. Nonetheless I find myself often wondering if I am doing the right thing.
I do not use ai agents, but mostly chatbots on the browser. Thank you for your advice!
I’d suggest actually disabling your write, edit, and bash tools if that’s what you want. If you just instruct it you’re risking it ignoring you.
Al does everything 20000 times better than I ever will
This is where you’re wrong. Models you can afford are not that good, and you can actually learn to do a lot of stuff better than affordable LLMs ever will
Earlier I replied to someone who made a similar comment to yours: I’m sure AI must have a limit since AGI is still not there and apparently won’t be realized any time soon. I know I can become even better than AI but that is gonna take years and this is the kind of thing that requires for pleasure to be found in the pathway to the objective and not to the objective by itself
Do stuff that you find interesting. I can buy good looking cups, but I still run the pottery wheel to make something by my own hands. It’s wonky, not perfect, but it’s made by me and I’m proud of that
The satisfaction you’re looking for comes from the process of learning and doing, not having the final product explained/handed to you. You have to remind yourself that the joy is in the making, not the final product.
Yeah, it’s a mental thing. Why draw something when there’s proper artists out there? Why learn to play the guitar when Mark Knopfler is out there? Why assemble a Jacuzzi in your backyard, when there’s a waterpark in the country? Why do your own barbecue when restaurants exist?
@super_user_do@fedd.it, don’t fall for the (insanely voluminous) hype around LLM capabilities.
LLMs aren’t better than you even today. They will extrude mediocre code, far too verbosely, and inevitably lose track of what they are supposed to be doing. When asked to make a change, they will frequently change far too much. They will make a mess that no one understands, least of all the LLM.
You can do better than them, today and in the future, by being curious, reading to understand, intending what you write, and improving from mistakes. LLMs can do none of this, their design does not allow them to.
Thank you bro. Reading through all those comments made me realize that it wasn’t AI to have killed my will to learn, but the strict university deadlines, peer pressure and the fact that I have turned a hobby into something I am not doing for pleasure anymore
Thanks for coming back to report this. I’m sure others here were, like me, hoping we could reach you with positive messages and give you the confidence in yourself you deserve.
Stay strong and find your way. Write more articles here if you like. We’re wishing you well.
AI does everything 20000 times better than I ever will
I find it hard to believe that AI throwing pointers and references at random counts as “20000 times better” than anything.
Besides, saying that means that you fell for the worst trap, of believing that everything it does is flawless. It’s not. You’re in uni, so you don’t really have experience in ordering people around, which is what fucking around with AI is - you give an order and wait for a result. If you trust 100% of the end result, the problem is you.
AI is great at stuff you don’t know about, because when you do know about it, you’ll notice errors and mistakes, making you realize you cannot trust it.
Just don’t use it?
I’ve been thinking of all the places computers have democratized industries. Music is produced by someone on a laptop now more than a collective group of practicing and talented performers. 3d printing produces objects of great sophistication without really any craft skills at all. Chess is a bigger industry now than it was, and no one can beat a computer.
But even then, sports have been something that anyone can participate in to various degrees, yet we still admire people who reach the pinnacle of performance.
Before starting my own aquarium, a wise person said “Aquariums aren’t about keeping fish, they are a hobby for people who like to keep water, and the fish are just enjoying that”. Every craft, every sport, every performance has practice and maintenance that itself has to bring the enjoyment, the puzzle, and the promise.
I see that for programming. It will be for someone who desires the craft of computing more than the outcome of the application, and they will achieve things that are simply beautiful. Because they love the craft.
You are so poetic blud. Reading your comment made me start thinking about whether it’s AI to have killed my passion or the deadlines of university assignments. I am a very anxious person, maybe that plays a role
It can do classroom bullshit because it’s well-defined, small in scope, and generally isolated. If an entire app can be expressed in 1000 lines of code, AI can probably do it faster and better than you. But when you’re talking about a full microservice or game, it can’t.
Coding skill is about knowing what to build and levels of abstraction. Writing the code itself is more tedium than skill. If you can understand code well enough to see AI output and edit it to repair the bullshit and keep the boilerplate, you’re doing great.
The challenge is AI code looks really good while sucking hind tit. Even I go through this after thirty years of experience. AI writes code that looks great because the stupid stuff it does is largely hidden from you — it is stupid decisions it made and then wrote code consistent with that decision. You haven’t thought through the hard bits so it’s solution looks simple and right. But it did the thing wrong.
I use AI all the time, and I find it helpful, but it’s FAR from perfect. So very far.
I always either cede to temptation to use it (thus nullifying learning) or just get bored so quickly I just turn off the computer
This just sounds like a question of discipline, and AI is likely not the issue.
I can relate. Whenever I wanted to learn programming, it felt like a chore to sit down and do it. This happens when you’re kinda compelled to learn it — such is the case in university.
There is no magic trick. The answer is discipline and fighting your urges. Just tell yourself you’re gonna sit down for 90 minutes or however long, and you will work on X task without using AI (or whatever other guardrails you decide on). When you explicitly tell yourself that, and set up explicit boundaries and guard rails, you will do it. You just keep at it until it works.
As I said earlier, this is how I felt even before AI. After a few months of persistence, it suddenly clicked, seemingly overnight. I became addicted. It became more difficult to stop doing programming. You just need to get in the flow long enough for programming to become natural and enjoyable to your brain.
All AI did was move the bar up SLIGHTLY for new devs.
You’re alright.
Don’t know how to escape that though…
is there a way to revive the interest for programming and building projects
Read some books on programming. Or read some programs others have written. This was good advice for finding inspiration even before AI.
Don’t use LLMs to learn, if you insist on using them use them to automate things you already can do yourself. Treat university like a 40 hour a week job, you need to put that time in to build knowledge & retain it through practice if you want to develop your knowledge and intuitions. If you’re going to dedicate that time to it you’ll be less inclined to take shortcuts since saving time won’t matter because you’ll spend the same time working at it either way.
