> I run into problems, figure out solutions that don't seem to be documented anywhere else, and then I don't post about them.
I don't understand this. Presumably you've only been able to build software your entire career because, when you hit a wall, usually someone online had too and shared the solution.
This feels like throwing a sandwich in the trash rather than let a hungry person eat it.
I do have to agree, but I have a different reason for writing less.
I just enjoy doing stuff that ships. That tends to take up a lot of my bandwidth.
I couldn't care any less about whether or not someone (or something) uses my code (that's why it's MIT-licensed). I'm also not particularly interested in being credited for stuff (as long as I am not the target of a lawyerpult).
I've enjoyed using an LLM, and plan to do a lot more of it. I even let it write a bunch of stuff. It's maybe not stuff that has my "imprimatur," but that's fine. People seem to understand it better.
It's unfortunate to think that some people may want to restrain themselves from sharing as much in the form of blog posts, but on the other hand, if you're still using AI in your day to day work from cloud providers, perhaps we'll still benefit from that data in one way or another.
I mean, OpenAI couldn't guarantee that someone's data was not used for training, even though he had the "don't train on my data" setting turned on. I still don't understand what that means. And Anthropic probably does a similar thing, right? Did they share details how they derive from our data for training purposes?
I get this sentiment, but I think there's probably a LOT of people who are doing good things, cool things, helpful things, who are helped by Al Gore's free and open Internet. But most of them don't bother to upvote, or post a "thank you" or anything because the medium makes everything so frictionless. It's only the OSS zealots and the people who have issues who you'll hear from. The vocal minority. It's kinda shitty, but learning to ignore the haters and bad actors is table stakes. But feeding AI farms is the new threat, and that' definitely something unsolved. Going dark is certainly a solution. Small enclaves of invite-only blogs and tweets, I guess...
Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? I replied to you here an hour ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50023297, and since then you've posted this personal attack. Not cool.
I didn't mean to post a personal attack against the author. It was targeted at others, not the author. This is a limitation of the English language since the particular users weren't qualified. In any event, I have now edited it to remove the sentence. I will be more careful.
> Put it this way: I've been pretty pissed off at "helping bad people" with my freely given information since roughly the summer of 2022. It's all been downhill from there in terms of giving a shit about doing this sort of thing.
Instead of letting bad people monetize one's freely shared work, one could also post things that aren't monetizable but help people anyway.
That's maybe not "obvious", as society trains people only to think in terms of "money equals value", but it's not very hard to figure out either.
As a simple example: people tend to focus on "new tech gadgets", but the remarkable lack of effort put into making existing stuff better (like Linux UX) simply by employing known things provides lots of opportunity.
This feels like throwing a sandwich in the trash rather than let a hungry person eat it.
Direct link in case it's needed. https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2026/10/08/idle/
For some reason the first time I tapped the link it didn't go directly to the article, which confused me. Subsequent times it goes straight through.
> Put it this way: I've been pretty pissed off at "helping bad people" with my freely given information since roughly the summer of 2022.
I think this is slightly selfish. If you write and your stuff goes into LLM's, that's the best gift you can give to humanity.
> The web is broken. You can keep it.
I do have to agree, but I have a different reason for writing less.
I just enjoy doing stuff that ships. That tends to take up a lot of my bandwidth.
I couldn't care any less about whether or not someone (or something) uses my code (that's why it's MIT-licensed). I'm also not particularly interested in being credited for stuff (as long as I am not the target of a lawyerpult).
I've enjoyed using an LLM, and plan to do a lot more of it. I even let it write a bunch of stuff. It's maybe not stuff that has my "imprimatur," but that's fine. People seem to understand it better.
if they don't want to write anymore, that's okay, they don't owe it to anybody
but I will disagree with the rationale
I want enable and empower everyone, even though it includes bad actors, because I know it includes good actors
I believe that on balance, humans, the world, the future, are all good
I reject misanthropy and pessimism
Oh, one of the few blogs I was following. Sad to see this news.
It's unfortunate to think that some people may want to restrain themselves from sharing as much in the form of blog posts, but on the other hand, if you're still using AI in your day to day work from cloud providers, perhaps we'll still benefit from that data in one way or another.
I mean, OpenAI couldn't guarantee that someone's data was not used for training, even though he had the "don't train on my data" setting turned on. I still don't understand what that means. And Anthropic probably does a similar thing, right? Did they share details how they derive from our data for training purposes?
I get this sentiment, but I think there's probably a LOT of people who are doing good things, cool things, helpful things, who are helped by Al Gore's free and open Internet. But most of them don't bother to upvote, or post a "thank you" or anything because the medium makes everything so frictionless. It's only the OSS zealots and the people who have issues who you'll hear from. The vocal minority. It's kinda shitty, but learning to ignore the haters and bad actors is table stakes. But feeding AI farms is the new threat, and that' definitely something unsolved. Going dark is certainly a solution. Small enclaves of invite-only blogs and tweets, I guess...
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Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? I replied to you here an hour ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50023297, and since then you've posted this personal attack. Not cool.
I didn't mean to post a personal attack against the author. It was targeted at others, not the author. This is a limitation of the English language since the particular users weren't qualified. In any event, I have now edited it to remove the sentence. I will be more careful.
[flagged]
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
What is a more plausible interpretation?
> Put it this way: I've been pretty pissed off at "helping bad people" with my freely given information since roughly the summer of 2022. It's all been downhill from there in terms of giving a shit about doing this sort of thing.
Instead of letting bad people monetize one's freely shared work, one could also post things that aren't monetizable but help people anyway.
That's maybe not "obvious", as society trains people only to think in terms of "money equals value", but it's not very hard to figure out either.
As a simple example: people tend to focus on "new tech gadgets", but the remarkable lack of effort put into making existing stuff better (like Linux UX) simply by employing known things provides lots of opportunity.