I find myself once again an outlier. I had a back-and-forth with an online friend of mine not too long ago. He works for a software outfit and is delighted with Ai coding tools. Despite his job, he *hates* writing software. Loves *creating* it and using it but not *writing* it. Me, OTOH: I have a blog named "The Hard-Core Coder" with the tagline "I can't stop writing code!"
So, I'll use Ai to answer questions — I'm liking it more and more for that — but I love writing and coding too much (they're my hobbies) to let a machine do it. 🤷🏼♂️
As to the putative dangers, I think they are significant. Ai is a very powerful tool. I like the idea that it should be regulated like guns or atomic power. It has the potential to do tremendous damage. We're already seeing it: math and science are being flooded with Ai slop papers — a tsunami too big to be reviewed.
I don’t think you’re an outlier - at least in this space ;) I no longer work with a bunch of software engineers but I’m certain a lot of them are not happy with this. There was ever angst at the ‘state of our engineering systems’ and this is probably blowing that all up. And while I can crack open index.html a true project would be very difficult to go through all the code AI is writing. So there has to be a large element of trust.
But you can use it in a similar way to answer questions (getting an answer not a page of blue links or ads) for brainstorming and problem solving - like options to fix my RSS feed. This morning I decided to add a page counter to the terminal screen (remember every page in the 80’s had one of those?) so I asked for my options and it found me a free endpoint to hit that would track it with a line of code. It would have taken me forever to find that.
Similar to writing - I really enjoy it now (it was new to me when I started) and I hate the way AI writes; but it does help with structure and flow, like an editor.
On your last point - I agree. Regulation is needed (and not just AI or Crypto but energy, etc.) but that is a problem of broken government.
I can see using Ai to create a website. I've had a personal website since the 1990s (and it still looks like a website from the 1990s). Over 34,000 pages or images, all done by hand or in some cases with specifically written page-generation scripts. Huge PITA, and I've given it less and less attention over the years. Even having a personal website is feeling very last century — I've been mostly blogging since 2010. If I ever decide to put more effort into the website, I think I might give Ai a shot. I don't particularly value writing tons of HTML or even scripts to write tons of HTML. Been there, done that.
Yeah, I'm finding Ai very helpful for technical and other queries. Search engines have become so polluted with ads, and the interweb is so filled with noise that I've found search engines less and less useful (ads aside). Ai is good as shifting through the noise and is (so far) ad-free. I typically use my local instance of MS Copilot and stay off the web entirely.
I wouldn't use Ai for brainstorming or editing, though I've met plenty who do that but don't use it for actual writing. That's fine, especially for people learning. I don't have the same disdain for that I do for Ai-created "art" or "writing". But it's not for me. I wouldn't even use a human editor. I want my work to be 100% me, blemishes, errors, and lack of optimization or perfection included. Fully human, no silicon involved. 😆
One difference with Claude code and I assume other similar tools (I will try codex next; given my past job, I find myself oddly averse to Copilot), is they run locally. So you can, for example, create a new local folder, put all your stuff in and have it go through all your pages and images and do some categorization / add metadata whatnot that could make restructuring that aeasier. I think what I’m going to try next is going through a years worth of trips in our campervan (1 year anniversary coming up!) including pics, articles, journals, maps whatnot and see if it can help me with some cool visualizations (like a dynamic map!?) that I could keep adding too
I think the real differentiator this year will be how much fun the tool is to use. I keep coming back to Jippity not because it can do stuff Gemini or Anthropic can't, but because it's fun and smooth to use. That's gonna matter so much more as the race to greater speeds and such only matter to a handful of people, but the design stuff - that's gonna be the key. Claude and Jippity have a big edge there right now.
Since I'm now paying another $20 to Claude I started playing around with it for chat too and so had it do a final grammar pass on the post and the site for alignment. When it saw the site (that it had built, but in another context) it said and I quote: 'Holy shit, this is beautiful.' i seriously laughed
Amanda Askell was on a podcast i listened too yesterday. She has a PhD in philosophy and is in charge of Claude's new Constitution or 'soul doc' super interesting sci-fi but now stuff
I bet all AI ends up with a constitution at some point. Very neat to see this direction, and it only reinforces my thesis that companies are going to be more like nation-states.
I find myself once again an outlier. I had a back-and-forth with an online friend of mine not too long ago. He works for a software outfit and is delighted with Ai coding tools. Despite his job, he *hates* writing software. Loves *creating* it and using it but not *writing* it. Me, OTOH: I have a blog named "The Hard-Core Coder" with the tagline "I can't stop writing code!"
So, I'll use Ai to answer questions — I'm liking it more and more for that — but I love writing and coding too much (they're my hobbies) to let a machine do it. 🤷🏼♂️
As to the putative dangers, I think they are significant. Ai is a very powerful tool. I like the idea that it should be regulated like guns or atomic power. It has the potential to do tremendous damage. We're already seeing it: math and science are being flooded with Ai slop papers — a tsunami too big to be reviewed.
I don’t think you’re an outlier - at least in this space ;) I no longer work with a bunch of software engineers but I’m certain a lot of them are not happy with this. There was ever angst at the ‘state of our engineering systems’ and this is probably blowing that all up. And while I can crack open index.html a true project would be very difficult to go through all the code AI is writing. So there has to be a large element of trust.
But you can use it in a similar way to answer questions (getting an answer not a page of blue links or ads) for brainstorming and problem solving - like options to fix my RSS feed. This morning I decided to add a page counter to the terminal screen (remember every page in the 80’s had one of those?) so I asked for my options and it found me a free endpoint to hit that would track it with a line of code. It would have taken me forever to find that.
Similar to writing - I really enjoy it now (it was new to me when I started) and I hate the way AI writes; but it does help with structure and flow, like an editor.
On your last point - I agree. Regulation is needed (and not just AI or Crypto but energy, etc.) but that is a problem of broken government.
I can see using Ai to create a website. I've had a personal website since the 1990s (and it still looks like a website from the 1990s). Over 34,000 pages or images, all done by hand or in some cases with specifically written page-generation scripts. Huge PITA, and I've given it less and less attention over the years. Even having a personal website is feeling very last century — I've been mostly blogging since 2010. If I ever decide to put more effort into the website, I think I might give Ai a shot. I don't particularly value writing tons of HTML or even scripts to write tons of HTML. Been there, done that.
Yeah, I'm finding Ai very helpful for technical and other queries. Search engines have become so polluted with ads, and the interweb is so filled with noise that I've found search engines less and less useful (ads aside). Ai is good as shifting through the noise and is (so far) ad-free. I typically use my local instance of MS Copilot and stay off the web entirely.
I wouldn't use Ai for brainstorming or editing, though I've met plenty who do that but don't use it for actual writing. That's fine, especially for people learning. I don't have the same disdain for that I do for Ai-created "art" or "writing". But it's not for me. I wouldn't even use a human editor. I want my work to be 100% me, blemishes, errors, and lack of optimization or perfection included. Fully human, no silicon involved. 😆
One difference with Claude code and I assume other similar tools (I will try codex next; given my past job, I find myself oddly averse to Copilot), is they run locally. So you can, for example, create a new local folder, put all your stuff in and have it go through all your pages and images and do some categorization / add metadata whatnot that could make restructuring that aeasier. I think what I’m going to try next is going through a years worth of trips in our campervan (1 year anniversary coming up!) including pics, articles, journals, maps whatnot and see if it can help me with some cool visualizations (like a dynamic map!?) that I could keep adding too
I like the new website! I'm glad you are liking the tech. And more importantly, it's a blast!
right! i think the game is see how much fun you can have or at least that's how i'm going to try to play it
thanks for reading Paul!
I think the real differentiator this year will be how much fun the tool is to use. I keep coming back to Jippity not because it can do stuff Gemini or Anthropic can't, but because it's fun and smooth to use. That's gonna matter so much more as the race to greater speeds and such only matter to a handful of people, but the design stuff - that's gonna be the key. Claude and Jippity have a big edge there right now.
Since I'm now paying another $20 to Claude I started playing around with it for chat too and so had it do a final grammar pass on the post and the site for alignment. When it saw the site (that it had built, but in another context) it said and I quote: 'Holy shit, this is beautiful.' i seriously laughed
Amanda Askell was on a podcast i listened too yesterday. She has a PhD in philosophy and is in charge of Claude's new Constitution or 'soul doc' super interesting sci-fi but now stuff
https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/9214f02e82c4489fb6cf45441d448a1ecd1a3aca/claudes-constitution.pdf
Thanks for reading, Andrew!
I bet all AI ends up with a constitution at some point. Very neat to see this direction, and it only reinforces my thesis that companies are going to be more like nation-states.
YES. ChatGPT was a parlor trick that made people go 'whoa dude.'
Claude Code (and Codex, Cursor, etc.) are tools that ship real work.
I'd say we're past toaster. We're at 'Thermomix' territory.
The all-in-one appliance that can do a shocking amount, but you still need to know what you're cooking and why.
Happy Friday, Andrew.
(Had to look up Thermomix)
😂 Totally fair!
It’s one of those “if you know, you know” things.
Happy Monday Andrew