[Antitoxic6185]

I personally think stopping the use of AI is silly. I mean you could apply this logic to everything that you would be using specialized tools for, to make life better.

Why would you use a car? studies show walking is better. Why would you use a calculator? studies show mental math sharpens your brain. Why would you type on a computer? studies show writing on a physical paper is better for you.

Fundamentally people tend to use AI to get a result and then just use it instead of critically thinking over it. It makes sense, we take the path of least resistance. Why care about how something works when it just works? This leads to cognitive decline.

Rather I propose that you use AI as one of the greatest search engines ever invented. Think of AI (LLMs) as a dataset of fixed knowledge that can talk back to you and actually help you find the information you want.

When I was looking into making selenium scripts, that I had to write for work, more robust, I came up with a solution to create an object for each page and use that object to navigate and interact with the page. I then had a conversation with gemini pro regarding this where it told me that, what I am trying to achieve is technically just Page Object Model (POM), a pre-existing concept in the world of test automation. This lead to a deep dive into the advantages/disadvantages and I then pitched it as a change to better write selenium code and it was accepted at work.

Likewise, you should not use AI to vomit you code but as a rubber duck that quacks back at you [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

[giveita]

One difference with AI is that you make a dependency on private corporations for a forever changing tool.

A calculator from 1970 works the same as the one on your phone. A typewriter from 1930 has the same layout roughly as your laptop. The AI you use today will change in 30-90 days time and be different. In addition just 5-10 companies in the world can create AI that you use for work vs. decent competition in regular computer space with a FOSS operating system and kernel available.

Local AI is possible but not in the same league. To boot these tools are VC subsidised with no profitability plan. You are the product again.

[bruce511]

2 companies make airplanes. Around 10 make cars. Entertainment comes from a handful of streaming services. 2 make a phone OS. I could go on.

I guess what I'm saying is that you're right. There's a limited number of AI providers. But just about any technology I use, or the appliances I buy, or transport, or whatever, is taken from a very small pool of suppliers.

So yeah, your argument is completely true, but its also true for most everything else.

[raw_anon_1111]

You can already buy a high end fully decked out Mac Mini or Mac Studio that is a perfectly capable locally run LLM backed coding assistant.

In 5 years the price should be down even more.