Have LLMs made anyone's life substantially better?
I'm a software engineer working for a huge company. We have access to AI tools, which is cool, and it saves me time in the sense that it is quicker to write code. Yet, despite writing code taking time, I never thought that it was a tedious usage of time. As a developer, the times that I got to actually sit down and start banging out code were some of the most fun times I've had at my job. And, of course, I got paid for it :). So I'll have to give AI *0 pts* there because it made things easier which I didn't think were very hard.
Of course, the company isn't going to just give me productivity improving software and say "alright buddy you finished all your work early, here's a gold star sticker, now go play outside". They expect me now to accomplish wayyyy more now that I have access to AI. I genuinely think I'm having to do more work after AI than I had to before AI, doing all of the innumerable things that go along with a programming task outside of coding. My job has gotten harder, not in a "fun challenge" way but rather in a "grueling race to the bottom" way, so I'm going to have to give AI *-1 points* there.
I'm bitching about it but at least I still have a job, which is more than what can be said for some of my colleagues, who were laid off because of AI. (They wanted to raise more money and had the bright idea that they could fill in the gaps in their workforce with AI). It's not just my company, lots of companies are saying that they are firing their workers and replacing them with AI. Of course, despite me having a job still, the Sword of Damocles is still hanging over my head. Management believes in a not-so-secret-way that we all can and will be replaced. I genuinely feel a sense of contempt from upper management that I've never felt before. So, AI gets *-1 points* for job security/career advancement.
Not that anyone cares about this anymore, but the AI writes shitty code. It screws up the codebase. It's almost impossible to read AI code after a few iterations of vibe-coding. This fills me with a deep sense of dread. I guess I'm a luddite for thinking that code quality matters, regardless, it matters to me, so I give AI *-1 points* there.
Then, my personal/home life. I open social media and it's slop, slop everywhere. What bums me out is that I feel like an idiot for engaging with anything. Wow, a beautiful painting, someone must have put a lot of heart and thought into that, nope, it's AI, you fucking idiot, you moron. The worst is when someone posts a picture that's like "this is what real human art looks like, isn't it better?" and I say "yes, it is better" and they're like SIKE! that's AI too, bitch! And, I liked it less after knowing it was AI? "but it's the same painting, you hypocrite" says the greasiest, smelliest tech bro on earth, but the worst part is, he's right. So, I give the AI *-1 points* for the death of anything having meaning I guess.
With labor being cheaper because of AI, surely that means that the products I consume are going to be cheaper, right? Well, not that I can tell. AI gets *0 points* here.
One area in which AI has improved my life is as a research partner for various interests that I have. I've recently been reading some fairly complicated books of philosophy and there's some parts of the books where I have no idea what the author is talking about or trying to say. So, I ask Claude and it does a pretty good job of explaining what's going on, and I am able to go back and understand it. Way to go Claude, AI gets *+1 points* here.
For those keeping score at home with my frankly arbitrary scoring rubric, the final score is *-3*, meaning AI is a net negative in my life. What do you think, fellow nerds? Has AI made life better? Has it made life worse? What's your AI Positivity Score(tm)?