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!

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[–] 85 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (19 children)

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.

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  • [+] -21 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

    Yeah the problem is will he learn faster than AI improves? I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    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

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  • [–] 0 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    It does not.

    AI can get better but this is learned helplessness.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago

    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

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

    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

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  • [–] -2 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    Is it a wild thing to predict that AI improvement will slow down?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    A few reasons:

    1. 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.
    2. There's an enormous amount of research into algorithmic and infrastructure improvements, which also show no signs of slowing down.
    3. 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:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    "dram stacked on the compute chip" is the amd x3d design which has been out for gaming PCs for years now.

    The rest of your statements seem clueless and completely based on AI company marketing.

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