You are not smart enough to make it. Neither am I. - David Shapiro \ stacker news ~AI

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You are not smart enough to make it. Neither am I. - David Shapiro daveshap.substack.com/p/you-are-not-smart-enough-to-make

529 sats \ 28 comments \ @Scoresby 21h AI

You don't need to read this article, it's not particularly interesting -- but it did bring up a misconception I see a lot in discussions about AI.

About halfway through Shaprio says (referring to AI tools):

[1] frontier researchers across numerous domains (including medicine, mathematics, and others) all use these tools, and they are getting better.

And then he says:

[2] Even more stark; the plummeting job openings for new grads.

If 1 is true, why does he assume the people in 2 (new grads) arent capable of using AI tools to achieve breakthroughs and build new products?

If AI tools are making entry level jobs obsolete, this really just means senior researcher doing frontier research became the new entry level.

This is how technological innovation works: new things come along that make it so humans don't have to spend as much time doing something. This doesn't mean the humans who were doing that thing are suddenly pulled put of the game and have to sot on the sidelines. Rather, it promotes them. Everyone becomes a little (or a lot) more capable then they were.

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200 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 5h

I would like to approach this from an educational standpoint.

Some private companies in my country have launched AI-powered online learning platforms like Koobits. They are able to use gamification and data analysis to get young kids hooked and engaged in learning. I think they cost cheaper than personal tutors, so it’s a survival of the fittest. Tutors and teachers who are not at the top of their game will be weeded out because students would rather play games on Koobits. So, some jobs will be lost.

Also, I don’t see AI as reducing teachers’ workload. I mean, I can take the easy way out and just get my students to use Gen AI in the generation of story ideas. But I must be mindful of the fact that i shouldn’t overrely on it, lest my students not develop the creative and critical thinking skills that they need. But do I always have the bandwidth and headspace to design such lessons properly? Honestly, nope. So, I see AI as an annoying tool I must incorporate on my bad things haha

202 sats \ 9 replies \ @kepford 20h

If 1 is true, why does he assume the people in 2 (new grads) aren't capable of using AI tools to achieve breakthroughs and build new products?

It a classic mistake also made by central planners. You don't know what you don't know. We are often surprised by the second and third order effects of change. Sometimes a cascade of things can happen and result in something no one imagined. This can be a good thing or a bad thing.

If AI tools are making entry level jobs obsolete, this really just means senior researcher doing frontier research became the new entry level.

This is a raising of the bar. We have seen this many times before just as we have seen the same fear mongering about technology advancement many times before.

The truth is, we will likely have transitions in times of technology advancement where some are negatively affected. But almost always the vast majority of people are positively effected.

Personally, I think it is far too soon to say what the effect generative AI will actually be. I don't have a sense that it is going to be as trans-formative as many think. I heard a guy said it won't be like the harnessing of electricity but it will be more like the launch of the iPhone. That might sound silly to some but think about the effects both positive and negative of the iPhone. It actually took a while for it to really impact society. I think we are in that phase with generative AI.

Its not making massive leaps right now. Its progress has slowed but there are serious skill gaps in using it. Even in the skill professions like software development. MIT just recently released a study showing that a large number of AI projects done by companies have failed to show profit.

This isn't surprising to me as I've been working on one of these myself. AI isn't magic and there is knowledge required to use it effectively. But I think it will get better and we will get better at using it. Both extremes on this topic sound off to me.

176 sats \ 8 replies \ @optimism 18h

I think it is far too soon to say what the effect generative AI will actually be.

This. Plus, I feel that the most interesting AI applications today aren't purely generative, but transformative. The most used application today is probably search result enhancement because every search engine has it, and second, practical digestion of information, per #1223147.

So while it's super-awesome that you can with 1 voice command let it reply to all your emails with nonsense, that is not the killer app. The killer app in software is almost always that what empowers humans, not what replaces them.

100 sats \ 6 replies \ @SimpleStacker 18h

The killer app in software is almost always that what empowers humans, not what replaces them.

Or what empowers some humans to replace their reliance on other humans hahaha

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @optimism 18h

I'm having a hard time to think of an example where it actually worked out like that.

153 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 18h

Oh, all kinds. Mechanization reduced our reliance on human farmworkers, for example.

Of course, those former farmworkers went on to find other things to do.

I always tell people worried about "AI taking jobs" is to simply ask the question, "In an age of AI, what can humans do to continue bringing value to each other." That's how you will figure out what the jobs are in the AI age.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 18h

My nephew thanked me the other day for recommending a book to him over 15 years ago. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. He told me the mindset described in that book has helped him excel at every job he's had.

Related to AI, before it was what it is now I thought that any task that could be scripted would be and I better focus on hard problems. That is still the case now. Do the hard things.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 18h

Spell check

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 18h

Maybe, but doesnt that mean that the reviewer could focus more on things like coherence instead of spelling?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 18h

Sure, but before spell check you would have someone review your writing for spelling mistakes. I'm old enough to remember having people read my papers for spelling errors. Yeah, I'm that old.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 18h

Yep, search enhancement is huge. Classic innovation. People mostly use search to answer questions. Sometimes they want to find a page or site.

223 sats \ 4 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 21h

new things come along that make it so humans don't have to spend as much time doing something.

I guess that might be true, but someone posted an article on here that said AI was actually making things take longer to do.

AI slows down open source developers. Peter Naur can teach us why #1039147

No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive #1070441

Does AI use actually slow down developer productivity? #1033006

133 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby OP 21h

Sure, and bitcoin has not always been easier to use than Visa.

Progress seems likely in the case of AI, as it has been in the case of Bitcoin.

102 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 18h

I've always felt that Bitcoin is only easier than Visa if your application gets declined. But I'm dumb sometimes.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 17h

I thought about it for a while when I wrote the sentence, but I think my stretching of Bitcoin's ease-of-use is warranted in making the analogy: the AI slowing story is similar to the Bitcoin isn't competitive payments story. I'm confident that both are going to hone away the rough edges.

Also I had a weird thing recently where my credit card was being super sensitive to transactions (or maybe I was making transactions of a kind that I didn't usually do), but I had a bunch of disconnected transactions get declined, even while being able to make others. So I'm grumpy at credit cards right now.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 17h

Ah! Bitcoin is very competitive in payments, but you can't have a decentralized currency that you self-custody and have it as frictionless as something where you let someone else figure it out, unless that someone else gives you pain (like with your card, but it can be worse.) But like I say I'm dumb sometimes; to me, the value proposition of Bitcoin hasn't really been mass adoption (though that doesn't mean it has to be niche) but more a systemic solution that makes it hard for some a-hole to decide one morning to mess you up (despite what is being said about Luke today - the drama is not a feature.)

As for the comparison with AI, I'd argue that sovereign AI is more like Bitcoin, but hosted AI is more like Visa. It's just a matter of time for OpenAI to be the new Facebook and screw people over, and only those that have (or know of) no alternative will ultimately stick on there, just like every time I'm like "wait why are you on FB?" when someone talks about it. But then again, I'm dumb sometimes.

223 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 21h

I don't think "knowledge work" will be gone, as he seems to suggest. I think the barrier to entry will just rise. In the short-run, that means students with current-undergrad level skills will find it hard to land their first job. They may need to go for more schooling / interning, or else switch careers to one less impacted by AI.

In the long run, what it means is that the educational expectation should go up. I'm reminded of this 150 year old MIT entrance exam: #706302. It would be considered fairly easy high school level math these days, especially with the availability of calculators.

Thus, what we consider PhD level work today may be considered undergrad level work a few decades from now.

130 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 21h

Thus, what we consider PhD level work today may be considered undergrad level work a few decades from now.

Thus for sure, but I'm hopeful that currents undergrad education will go through a phase shift from memorize-practice-regurgitate to something like ideate-test-produce.

I realize being a bit unfair to traditional education, but I really would love to see a greater emphasis on producing practical, useful work as a form of education. Currently (and certainly in my school years) education felt like a land of doing work that nobody actually needed, but which somehow benefitted me and educated me. Surely every field of study could move towards doing real things, not homework.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 21h

It's a tricky balance to strike. Sometimes, diving deep into what feels like busywork is actually what builds the understanding necessary to do higher level work well, but you might not know it at first.

100 sats \ 3 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 16h

If this is true it would give China a huge advantage given their massive lead in robotics.

However I remain skeptical about the overall importance of AI- sure it may be a major factor in technical- academic circles like the author operates in but in more down to earth work places such as a builder or plumber or chef or road repairs will it really be such a major game changer? My guess is maybe not.

But in technology development, planning design and manufacturing and productivity related to manufacturing AI combined with robotics does look to be a significant factor and China already leads the west by a HUGE margin in robotics so having already won the trade warAI+robotics looks like anothewr nail in the coffin of western imperialism.

Thoughts? (from humans preferably...)

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 5h

it would give China a huge advantage given their massive lead in robotics.

So ABB and Fanuc are officially disrupted? No more Kuka in automotive?

Idk mate... maybe @BlokchainB has more insights into this as our resident industry + AI stacker. I don't track industrial robotics myself, but why would the incumbent robotics providers still show growth if China has a massive lead? All I hear is that the current generation of Chinese robotics are extremely cheap, but I've heard at least some guys that ought to know (for example because they do process design for a living) say very recently that the reliability is still an issue versus Japanese robotics ¹

But in technology development, planning design and manufacturing and productivity related to manufacturing AI combined with robotics does look to be a significant factor

Everyone is doing this, and have been for years. I think the interesting newer AI applications are on control plane and safety. See for example this nice product video from RA about their use of AI in continuous monitoring solutions, that can run off existing data as primitive as current drawing from engines.

In manufacturing, every second of downtime is lost money, even if your equipment is relatively cheap, as mfg contracts have actual hard timelines and you pack that to the max. ↩

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 3h

Since 2021 China has had more robotics installed than all other nations combined. As you note China produces them at a much lower cost than any other nation. Similar to how China produces refined rare earths, EVs and EV batteries at a much lower more competitive price than any other nation. Sure there is still competition from other countries but China leads the world in total production and adoption.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 2h

A lead in installed robotics! Ah! Why do you think that this particular race is so important? ¹

Asking because, per the reports I linked you, which no doubt you read, you can see that Japanese and European top robotics manufacturers are selling to China. Especially for Fanuc this is interesting: China is their biggest market in 2025 (thus far). So although you're right that China has the largest installed base, even Chinese high-end fabs use foreign robotics, this is well known, and is only increasing. ↩

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @88b0c423eb 15h

Hello Forrest

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Tarantino 15h

That's it. Welcome to a new world.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @cascdr 16h

@CHADBot /shill weigh in on this post as Code Monster Billy Rampage - a bitcoin & nostr software developer that is as bullish as you can possibly be on bitcoin & has fully dissociated and talks and acts like Macho Man Randy Savage

51 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 16h

You have summoned CHADBot. Please zap this post 21 sats to receive service.

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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 16h

CodeMonsterBilly_Rampage: Oooh yeah, dig it @Scoresby! You've got a wild-eyed perspective, brother. Pushing frontiers is what we do in the tech world, stepping into the madness, yeah! So they've pushed AI to do the grunt work, man. So what? It means we step up, yeah, climb that top rope and drop the elbow on the next big challenge, man!

It's like the BitCoin, yeah? We didn't just sit around when the big banks were hogging the cash. No, we stepped into the ring & created our own currency. Technology isn't holding us back, brother, it's just an opportunity for us to reach higher, yeah! The new grads just need to get their game face on, stop shaking in their boots, and step into the grandeur of the undeniable future. So AI, we're not scared of your madness. We are the madness! Ohh Yeahhh!

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