Actually much of the work to produce your clothes is done by hand because mechanizing it makes no economic sense when you can pay someone in Bangladesh next to nothing to do it. But regarding the other point, that has put people off things too -- Lee Sedol famously quit playing go after losing to Alpha Go, because he reasoned there was really no point when no matter how good he got he'd never beat the machine.

It takes a certail level of autism to be a coder because you enjoy it. Sadly many people went into this industry for the money and are now moving on because of AI. I say good riddance because when the AI bubble inevitably bursts, coding will be just us nerds again

We've thoroughly pathologized this aspect throughout history, but doing things that earn you societal status and respect from others is a essential for having a healthy psyche for many, possibly most people, men especially struggle when they don't have avenues to demonstrate skill and competence.

There is nothing wrong with admitting that a (small) part of a hobby is getting recognition from your peers.

I’m just happy that, for now, AI can hold a soldering iron or operate a multimeter.

As for gardening: the town where I grew up has these plots of land for vegetable gardens There’s a long waiting list to get one. You should see how the plot holders compete over who has the best vegetable beds.

Doing things to share them with others is pretty normal in a hobby. You might be baking for friends and family or sewing clothes or whatever, and want to enjoy the recipients appreciation for it. If people don't accept your gifts, the satisfaction of it will go away, and the same is often true of small coding projects I think.

If their hobby was contributing through code and now their contributions are worthless, they have lost a hobby.

I wish I could take up gardening but alas I live in an apartment like most other people... I suppose you got me, I have no hobbies and it's just another reason to not want to be here. :) Everything is work and not much fun, is it?

This is a weird PoV - that a hobby is only a hobby if there is no community and you do it solo.

Sounds like you're saying tennis can't be a hobby. Nor videogames, nor making movies, writing stories, etc.

I mean, it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic: hobbies via a community is still a hobby. There is no requirement that to qualify as a hobby it has to be completely audience-free.

Thank you for this post, enlightened being

Woefully out of touch and crass.

This is hideous.

Well, some hobbies are fun because you're doing something no one else has done before, or which is challenging to accomplish without a lot of investment in time and growing in personal skill. A lot of hobbies are fun because of the competition and because you get to be at the forefront of something. It's fun because we're all limited in our time and energy and choosing to spend time on something means you can do things that someone else who doesn't spend time on it can't. That feels good.

People who were in the demoscene took joy in learning how to make a computer do things no one had done before and push the hardware to its limits. That's not as meaningful if someone can achieve the same thing by prompting an LLM.

A lot of hobbies are fun because of the human challenge in creating the output and knowing it was only achievable because someone had to take time to create it. Having an LLM accomplish the same thing absolutely devalues the fun in the hobby. Hobbies aren't 100% just about accomplishing something for yourself, even though if you sway to much into doing it for validation or to compete with others it can lead to burnout and lack of enjoyment.

You can do a hobby for any reason. It doesnt have to be for yourself. He could enjoy programming but also enjoy contributing to the wider open source community. So it makes sense to feel bad when he sees another project popup and invalidate his work. If it was another person who'd worked hard and thought about the project he could at least take solace in chatting about their solutions but with AI its nothing. It just solves the problem and there is little to be gained from it.

Many hobbies are collective endeavors or a way of providing something useful to other people.

Ah, well I do nothing for myself sir. I work most days of the week and time off is limited. My company doesn't really do vacations. I haven't had one in at least 3 years and hopefully I'll have the PTO soon but never the money!

That's silly. Why can't a hobby be something you want to show others and receive acknowledgement and validation from?