alt Hacker NewsI could go on and on, but Claude recently decompiled the firmware of my camper van, documented all the CAN interfaces, then programmed an ESP32 module to talk to the van’s integrated systems (power, HVAC, lighting, tanks). That sort of embedded systems integration is completely out of my wheelhouse.
I honestly don’t understand AI naysayers. I use Claude every day both professionally as a Solution Architect and personally in a variety of projects I simply could not have ever approached alone.
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I am more of a "huh, interesting demo, I'm gonna check in on it later" sayer than a naysayer. My biggest reason, with coding, is that I already, before AI, struggled to deal with too many distractions from my coding and too many piles of low quality output. I should probably check in since it's been a bit but every time I've tried to generate some simple project, I look through it and think what terrible garbage with so many errors. After two decades of developing my craft, I struggled with most of my fellow human programmers too. The business loves delivery it now even if then someone is revisiting it hundreds of times more to fix it in little bits for a total effort cost of 10-100 (or higher) times more.
Same. I'm a DevOps engineer, so a jack of all trades master of none type of guy, and Claude Code backfills my knowledge gaps and turns me into kind of a superhero. I think it's key to already have a pretty good idea of what you're looking at, though.
A lot of the time people relate an anecdote about how Claude helped do some cool thing, my reaction is that it's not a thing I would have thought about doing in the first place, and that I still can't really imagine wanting to do myself, even though it indeed sounds cool.
This is no exception.
> I honestly don’t understand AI naysayers.
As an AI naysayer, I see and appreciate the productivity gains, I don’t like the associated cost, mostly the spike in workflow centralization and opaqueness.
Maybe because the scale of investment out strips the value?
What trillion dollar problem is AI solving?
>projects I simply could not have ever approached alone.
Learned helplessness.
> projects I simply could not have ever approached alone.
I think that's part of the divide between enthusiasts and naysayers. If you use GenAI on things that you couldn't approach alone, it's an incredible tool. If you use it on stuff that you're pretty good at, it's not a gamechanger (and if you're an expert, it's a minor boost at best). Many people's job are about doing what they're an expert at.