this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Ok i doubt anyone is going to be willing to have this discussion, but here i am. My assessment is as follows: it would seem to me that to be of value, "ai" doesnt need to be perfect, it just needs to be better than the average programmer. If it can produce the same quality code twice as fast, or if it can produce code thats twice as good in the same amount of time. If I want it to code me a video game, i would personally judge it by how well it does against what i would expect from human programmers. Currently there is no comparison, im no coding expert but even i find myself correcting ai for even the simplest of code, but thats only temporary. Ten years ago this tech didnt even exist, ten years from now(assuming it doesnt crash our economy in more ways than one) i would imagine the software will at least be comparable to an entry level programmer.
I guess what Im getting at is that people rail against ai for faults that a human would make worse. Like self driving cars, having seen human drivers i am definitely wanting that tech to work out. Obviously its ideal for it to be perfect and coordinate with other smart cars to reduce traffic loads and inprove safety for everyone. But as long as its safer than a human driver, i would prefer it. As long as it codes better than your average overworked unpaid programmer, it becomes a useful tool.
That being said, I do see tons of legitimate reasons to dislike AI, especially in its current form. A lot, id say most, of those issues dont actually lie with AI at all, or even with llms. Most of the issues ive heard with AI development are actually thinly veiled complaints about capitalism, which is objectively failing even without AI. The others are mostly complaints about the current state of the tech, which i find to be less valid. Its like complaining that your original ipod didnt have lidar built in like they do now. Nixing the capitalism issue about how this tech will be used, and how its currently being funded, and its environmental impacts, and the fact that this level of research is unsustainable and will collapse the economy, give the tech time and it will mature. That almost feels like sarcasm given those very real issues, but again, those are all capitlism issues. If we were serious about saving our planet, a guardian AI that automatically drone strikes sorices of intense pollution would go a long way. If youre worried about robots takin yer jerbs, try not being capitalism-pilled and realise that humans got by for eons without jobs or class structures. Post scarcity is almost mandatory under proper AI, and capitlism exists to ensure that post scarcity cant happen.
Very cogent take, enjoy the incoming downvotes.
Downvotes mean nothing other than stifle conversations on lemmy anyways, and fortunately i woke up to find that a bunch fo people were willing to have pretty solid discussions on the matter. All in all, it definitely seems people here are more willing to doscuss the problems than somewhere like c/fuckai
I learned something and i like to think i got people thinking, so id say it was worthwhile :)
Wait, we're not at c/fuckai? I must have gotten lost. LoL.
I've hugely appreciated the nuanced and balanced debate!