Maybe I just live in a bubble, but from what I’ve seen so far software engineers have mostly responded in a fairly measured way to the recent advances in AI, at least compared to some other online communities.

It would be a shame if the discourse became so emotionally heated that software people felt obliged to pick a side. Rob Pike is of course entitled to feel as he does, but I hope we don’t get to a situation where we all feel obliged to have such strong feelings about it.

Edit: It seems this comment has already received a number of upvotes and downvotes – apparently the same number of each, at the time of writing – which I fear indicates we are already becoming rather polarised on this issue. I am sorry to see that.

There’s a lot of us who think the tension is overblown:

My own results show that you need fairly strong theoretical knowledge and practical experience to get the maximal impact — especially for larger synthesis. Which makes sense: to have this software, not that software, the specification needs to live somewhere.

I am getting a little bored of hearing about how people don’t like LLM content, but meh. SDEs are hardly the worst on that front, either. They’re quite placid compared to the absolute seething by artist friends of mine.

Software people take a measured response because they’re getting paid 6 figure salaries to do the intellectual output of a smart high school student. As soon as that money parade ends they’ll be as angry as the artists.