Don't take the black pill
65 points by Malp
65 points by Malp
We are learning that software quality was maintained only through the will of software engineers combined with their accidentally strong negotiation position in the job market
I don't know why, but this hit me hard.
Great talk:
Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
Been my philosophy for years; highly recommended ;)
Yeah, as long as it's under the header Benevolent Noncompliance like in the talk. There's a popular but way less appealing kind of ask for forgiveness, not permission out there.
Disliking AI, but using it anyways
I'm a professional. There are many things I don't "like" or "dislike", but I use them anyways. If the boss wants something done a particular way, I should examine it objectively and provide recommendations. Regardless, I do my best to deliver a good product. That's what I'm paid to do.
Regardless, I do my best to deliver a good product. That's what I'm paid to do.
Probably not your intent, but this really messages "just following orders" to me without having your own morals.
There's a difference between blindly doing something unethical and operating within the constraints, technology and processes of my employer. I'm referring to the second. If I were directed to do something unethical, I would refuse or leave.
However, if my boss or team wants to do something technical I disagree with, I should push back, explain my concerns, and make my recommendations. If the decision doesn't go my way, I can disagree and still do my best to execute it well. Maybe I'm wrong.
I think there's a few different layers to unpack here.
In your original post you mentioned using AI from the perspective of what your boss wants, but I don't think Andrew is explicitly talking about that case. I think he's talking about people who are begrudgingly using it, either at work or in personal project, because they feel like they have to, not because it was somehow mandated in the context of their job security. (Although this has of course happened.)
I don't think you're wrong to come to the conclusion you have. One major difference is that some people do see AI as unethical, in which case, the option to refuse or leave would kick in, as you mentioned.
Yes, I think Andrew could have been clearer saying "Hating AI, but choosing to use it anyway". There's nothing black-pilled about being forced to do something unpleasant in order to not lose your livelihood. (very minor nit pick to an otherwise great talk)
I really appreciate this talk. I definitely have found myself feeling some of that black pill mentality around the state of computers, especially as I consider how I want to approach raising my preschooler and how to approach computers and tech with them. What I want to take from this talk is some renewed motivation to claim the power to make technology serve me/us as opposed to fearfully running damage control on the exploitative nature of it all.
Anyone knows the name of that discord-like project he doesn’t want to mention in the talk?
According to the comments: https://codeberg.org/awebo-chat/awebo
For anybody reading, the project tracks new Zig to get all the new async I/O goodies but was hit by some regressions in Zig's translate-c because it recently became fully independent from LLVM.
Other contributors and I took this as an opportunity to contribute some fixes to translate-c and in my case I also switched for a bit to my other projects, mainly https://zine-ssg.io, which I had neglected for a few months while going all-in on awebo.
I plan to resume development of awebo in a month or two, I just want to leave Zine in a good spot before switching again (I have a had time paging between different projects too often and prefer doing continuous work for a while before switching back).
Great talk, but ironic to publish this on YouTube…
I mean, if you give a talk like that, you probably will value reach over the moral purity of not uploading it to youtube.