Don’t Make the Same Mistake as Me

There's a new apparent trend where

people who get way too into the AI

psychosis things find themselves

programming and using AI so much that

they end up like going to the hospital,

which if you've been keeping up with

anything that's been going on, that

shouldn't be a surprise. The report also

finds 45% of developers feel the value

of their current skill sets are

threatened. This is from Pluralsight. AI

skill threat describes developers fear,

anxiety, and worry that their current

competencies will become obsolete as

they adapt to AI assisted coding.

Pluralsight. This study focuses on the

fear of being left behind or fear of

missing out. FOMO to understand

employees perception of AI adoption.

Science direct. Individual fear of

missing out on the benefits of AI

technology and being rendered obsolete

by others or by society. Science Direct.

FOMO. AI may drive individuals to engage

in complex behaviors such as obsessive

focus on acquiring AI skills or

overzealous use of AI technologies.

Science Direct. Our results show that

Genai adoption heightens burnout by

increasing job demands. That's from

archive. Genai tools can amplify

cognitive load, inducing new forms of

oversight labor and escalate

expectations around output and pace.

This is from archive. The Genai movement

is also transforming professional norms

and altering career entry points

demanding continuous adaptation from

archive. And it goes on and it goes on.

Now I think a lot of people are seeing

this as some kind of new experience that

is happening. Uh first off, I don't

think that this experience is is new.

But I will say that this experience is

kind of pressured by a whole new set of

outcomes that say I when I was first

learning how to program or getting into

technology did not have to have. So this

video is going to be a little bit

different because I'm going to talk a

little bit about my past, some of the

things that uh caused some pretty big

issues for me uh in the same type of

category. And more than that, we're also

going to hear from my boy George Hots

about this exact topic. But before we

begin, I'd like to say thank you to the

sponsors. Hey, is that HTTP? Get that

out of here. That's not how we order

coffee. We order coffee via SSH

terminal.shop. Yeah. You want a real

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>> Well, maybe the coffee is not for you.

[singing]

[music]

>> Now, when I was a lot younger, I was

about 24, 25 years old, I was freshly

married and I was attempting to start a

company. One of the big things I would

do is I would program for over 24 hours

straight. You can, my wife will attest

to it. I would sit in the studio

apartment, sit next to the actual door

to leave our studio apartment and just

program non-stop by myself while my wife

would sleep all throughout the entire

night. And that's because a I just

really loved programming. I loved the

act of programming, but even more so, I

was trying to start a company and I had

this like constant fear/ anxiety that I

was falling behind, that I wasn't quite

actually outputting enough, that I

wasn't going to be able to launch this

product successfully. And it was

something that weighed on me constantly.

All my social interactions were colored

by this. I would often find myself

hanging out with friends and then asking

myself, man, I got to get back home.

Like this is taking too long. I was like

freaking out and I was actually having

almost some sort of like mental

breakdown there for quite some time,

quite large period of my life. And this

obviously caused a lot of issues. Like

honestly, it caused a lot of undue

stress on my wife. Uh this actually

probably hurt our marriage for quite

some time. And I do look back on that as

kind of one of my more foolish moments.

Now, I really do want it to be well

understood that I'm not saying that you

shouldn't work hard. I actually am a

huge proponent of, especially in your

younger years, to go out there and

really try hard at something. That you

shouldn't halfass anything two butt

cheeks whole ass that attempt. Really go

out there and make the most of it.

Because honestly, learning and becoming

deeply competent at something and

becoming excellent at your craft is an

extremely rewarding thing. And we live

in such a world that your imagination is

the only thing that's holding you back.

And of course that and the fable five

limits that they keep on resetting for

us over and over again. Come on, Dario.

Just give me a couple just give me a

couple more OF THEM TOKENS, DAARIO. And

the reason why I tell you that is that

you'll probably notice that there's a

lot of similarities to the things you're

seeing. People are feeling the same kind

of general like, oh, we're going to be

left behind. Now, the reason why I felt

it is obviously very, very different. I

was trying to start a company. There

were competitors in the space. I wanted

to be the best one. Now, that is going

to cause a natural kind of competition.

Oh, I better hurry up. I don't want to

be left behind. Now, this did not come

from a general angst that everyone's

going to be left behind. That this AI

hype beast ain't stopping and jobs are

in between the AI hype beast and its

gold and it's going to ramrod most of

them away and everybody's going to

become part of the permanent underclass.

And this is kind of like this new wave,

this new talking point that you see

non-stop where people are just

constantly telling you that you're

missing out, that you're going to be

left behind. Now, the same person, Seth

Rose, that actually gave me that nice

list of all the different kind of

statements and studies kind of going

over this feeling. I just said, "Hey,

you're not being left behind." And he

said, "I know. It's weird because it's

the feeling of falling behind, not

necessarily the reality. When models and

tools are changing every few days, it

creates that constant [ __ ] I need to

keep up mentality and it's super toxic.

I realize I'm in a bubble and already

ahead of so many people. This AI thing

is it's not the first time this has

happened and it's happened to a lot of

people in a lot of different situations,

including just generally to a whole

bunch of people graduating. How many

people graduating during 2020, 2021 or

going through boot camps felt this just

onslaught of all these different

technologies they had to learn or they

were going to be falling behind. I

remember actually getting in an argument

on Twitter saying, "Hey, React server

components, they're not that big of a

deal. I don't think you need to use

them. I don't think you need to go and

switch your company over to them. I

don't think your resume needs to be

sprinkled with them. I think you're

going to be going down the wrong way."

And I still I mean, hey, I still

actually feel justified by that with all

the different vulnerabilities and

everything, but I had people quote tweet

me being like, "This guy gives you the

worst advice if you're not keeping up.

If you're not just like, it's just

causing this swirl and this anxiousness

in people." And I just really want to

make sure that people understand that if

every single day you are learning and

you're making a step forward, that's a

good day. And guess what? on a couple

days. If you take a weekend off, that's

not going to dramatically change the

course of your life. And that's what

people don't understand is that t and I

had to unfortunately learn it by kind of

hurting my marriage and not being a good

husband and really not being a great

father during my kids' very early years

is that I didn't know how to step away.

I didn't know how to take that break.

And honestly, I still struggle with that

today. It's like such a learned or

ingrained problem inside of me that I

have to learn how to step away from

things because ultimately taking a day

off, taking a bit of time off is not

going to dramatically alter the course

of your life. Being engaged and focused

and working hard when it's time to work,

that is going to pay tons of dividends.

Learning and actually understanding the

underlying thing instead of pressing the

I'm going to be lucky tonight button.

Yeah, that's going to pay off a lot of

dividends. So, choose the good things.

Choose the good work. You don't have to

keep up with everything. And I do want

to say this also. When ChatJippidity 3.5

came out, this was not that long ago.

People actually looked at Chat Jippity

3.5 and said, "That's replacing me." I

[laughter] know

that's crazy, right? But people looked

at that. They said that. And what did

you constantly hear during the Chad

Shippity 35 and the Opus 3 Opus 35 era?

Oh, if you're not using these tools,

you're going to be left behind. Anything

you did during that time useful?

Virtually none. The way you set up

context, the way you use it, the way you

interact with it today looks almost

nothing like it did in the beginning.

Yet, in the beginning, so many people

were given this kind of hype scared

mentality that if they're not completely

engaged in the most latest and greatest

ways to do something, they're going to

fall behind. And now look at it. Every

last single thing about that era is

effectively void. You're not falling

behind. And I do mean that. You're not

falling behind. All right. Now, time for

my boy George Hots. Hey, by the way,

George Hots, open invite. Anytime you

want to come on to the standup and yap,

let me know. I love LLMs. I hate the

hype. Now, there's a couple things I

wanted to point out in this blog post.

First off, this one right here, I set up

a Linux box with open code on my local

GLM 5.2 last week. Bro is flexing just

running a quick local GLM52.

Damn, that's a sweet ass machine you got

there. Also, open code. Good choice.

Love it. And wow, I just said install

T-Mox with Geiood configuration works.

The year of the Linux desktop is finally

here. Let's go. It's actually not

because of models. It's because

Microsoft keeps fumbling the bag. But I

really specifically wanted to read these

two paragraphs cuz I think they are

incredible. What I don't like is two

things. One, the constant [ __ ] about

the window closing or the perpetual

underclass are falling hopelessly

behind. This is negative valance hype.

Not only is it not true, it's mostly

designed to make you feel bad about

yourself and to move to shitty San

Francisco where everything really does

suck like how these people claim.

[applause]

We don't love George Hots enough. Okay,

we don't love him enough. And two, the

straw man jumped from, "Oh, hey, it's a

fancy autocomplete, smart compiler,

better search engine to it's going to

like own the whole light cone, bro."

Like if you aren't in SF and at the

right parties, there's going to be a

flash of light in the sky one day and

you're not even going to know what

happened. But everything just changed.

He's talking about it like Jesus is

coming back. This is crazy. I'll bet

everything I have that this doesn't

happen. The people perpetuating this are

terrible people, but the justice is that

this is how they feel inside all the

time themselves. Now, two things

obviously. First off, he says everything

way cooler than I ever say. Dude, I just

I just love I just loved all those words

in that particular order. It was

absolutely fantastic. But also, can we

just take aside? I didn't I didn't

realize that George Hotz was related to

GK Chesterton. I mean, this man is

writing like he's a philosopher from

1927. WHAT WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? But

he's absolutely right. At the end of the

day, you're not being left behind in

this moment if you're not token maxing.

Okay? These companies telling you to go

token max, they make money off of you

token maxing. You do understand that,

right? Don't you realize that there's a

little bit of a perverse incentive when

the people who are selling shovels

telling you the only thing you ever need

to practice or do is dig holes? Now, I'm

not saying that you shouldn't go

investigate. In fact, right now, if we

go over here and we jump right over to

here, you'll see I actually have a

little loop-de-loop running right here

cuz I want to know, does this actually

work? Is this a waste of time? Or is

this something that's actually super

duper valuable and I should spend more

time kind of being in tune with it?

because at the end of the day, I want to

have an informed opinion, but I'm also

just not betting everything on this. And

I understand the risk of just spending

entirely too much money with this thing.

So, my personal best advice is this.

Enjoy this time period. You get to build

whatever you want. You get to

investigate whatever you want. When you

don't understand something, you get to

ask something that is a fantastic search

engine that can bring up the answer to

what you're asking. Even in just some

terrible English like I have, it still

works. I never got that. When I had a

question, my best solution was Stack

Overflow. And if it wasn't on Stack

Overflow, I'm reading the code. Like,

that's it. Those were my two options. I

couldn't be like, "Yo, this is broken.

What's going on? Why why poor K does

this happen?" In fact, last night, I

accidentally introduced a regression

into the game I was building. So, I was

just like, "Yo, launch Perf and tell me

what function did I just screw up?" It

went off and a half an hour later sent

me back being like, "Yo, here you go.

Here's exactly what you did wrong." And

I was like, "Oh, yeah. I remember doing

that. That makes me a complete idiot."

That is incredible. Like that is

fantastic. That saved me a lot of time

and it was super cool. So just like have

fun. Go explore. See what you can build.

This is a one of the few time periods in

which nobody knows what the future's

actually going to hold right now. I have

no idea. But I can tell you this much

that learning and becoming better at

your craft still, like I said a couple

years ago, like I said last year, and

like I still say today, is an excellent

choice. And I don't think you're being

left behind. The name is the datagen.