I have some thoughts about this goober (Simon Willison) that I need to get out of my head:
First the positives:
I think he's actually an experienced software engineer.
I think he care to check and test the LLM output.
But, by his own admission:
He uses LLM for tasks he knows well (So easier to check and little negative impact on learning)
He works mostly on hobby projects (so no obligation to actually maintain the stuff)
He can choose to not use new libraries (which in a professional setting is not always a luxury you can afford)
Tl;dr: an experienced dev who uses clankers to churn out tons of technically functional hobby software and thinks this gives him right to speak for all software engineers.
If you assume doubling of electricity production by 2050 (development + electrification) then 10% of that would mean more than double nuclear production.
5% would not really be a massive increase, my mistake, but would still mean more builds than retirement.
Yeah, I found his credulousness about "AI"quite amusing. Like when he went to a wrong station in Japan, because he asked ChatGPT. And posted about it, not realizing how much of a dumbass it made him look like. But it's starting to wear off.
But hey, he at least admits there is a bubble.
And also, I haven't unfollowed/muted/blocked Mike Masnick yet. And he's at least twice as annoying about AI.
Unrelated: Did chrome just detect me writing about AI to shill Gemini to me? (puts on tinfoil hat)
If we're talking about the general West, then there new nuclear is probably fucked. Rest of the world still builds for reasonable costs. Not nuclear bro amounts, but still.
I think we could see a future where nuclear makes 5-10% of the world's electricity, which would technically make it a niche source of power, but it would also be a massive increase from today.
The fact I can login every morning and ask an AI to review all my emails and chats from yesterday then given what it knows about my goals and my role it should suggest what I could have done better is amazing.
Bubble or not, AI is huge for personal productivity and overall improvement.
Simon Willison writes a fawning blog post about the new "Claude skills" (which are basically files with additional instructions for specific tasks for the bot to use)
How does he decide to demonstrate these awesome new capabilities?
By making a completely trash, seizure inducing GIF...
He even admits it's garbage. How do you even get to the point that you think that's something you want to advertise? Even the big slop monger companies manage to cherry pick their demos.
Automs