dm-cache writeback mode is both amazing and terrifying. It reorders writes, so not only do you lose data if the cache fails, you probably just corrupted the entire backing disk.
Yeah, when I used it on a workstation many years ago, I layered it on top of an MD RAID-1 SSD array for the cache and an MD RAID-5 HDD array for the bulk store.
I used writeback mode, but expected to wipe the machine if the caching layer ever collapsed. In the end, the SSDs outlived my interest in the machine, though I think I did failover an HDD or two while the rest remained in normal operating mode.
Wow, meanwhile it'd be so easy to just take cache flush commands as "only" reordering barriers without breaking the single-system consistency (don't use it for a backing store of a Raft/PAXOS cluster, though!).
We don't do any model training, and only use existing open source or hosted models. Code gets sent to those providers in context windows. They all promise not to train on it, so far.
It's safe to say that if either Chris or I believed this to be anti worker, we wouldn't be working on it. He's spent the last 10+ years working on Phoenix specifically to improve the lives of the people doing the work.
My experience with software development is maybe different than yours. There's a massive amount of not-yet-built software that can improve peoples' lives, even in teeny tiny ways. Like 99.999% of what should exist, doesn't.
Building things faster with LLMs makes me more capable. It (so far) has not taken work away from the people I work with. It has made them more capable. We can all build better tools, and faster than we did 12 months ago.
Automation is disruptive to peoples' lives. I get that. It decreases the value of some hard earned skills. Developer automation, in my life at least, has also increased the value of other peoples' skills. I don't believe it's anti worker to build more tools for builders.
> There's a massive amount of not-yet-built software that can improve peoples' lives, even in teeny tiny ways. Like 99.999% of what should exist, doesn't.
We agree on this completely, however you and I know there are plenty of people without jobs in the world who could be employed to do this work. You are spending your finite amount of time on earth working with services that are trying to squeeze the job market (they've said this openly) rather than spending it increasing the welfare of workers by giving them work.
> Automation is disruptive to peoples' lives.
You know the difference between automation and the goals of these companies. You know that they don't want to make looms that increase the productivity of workers, they want to replace the worker so they never have to pay wages again.
If we try really hard, I think we can make an exhaustive list of what viral fads on the internet are not. You made a small start.
none of these ephemeral fads are any indication of quality, longevity, legitimacy, interest, substance, endurance, prestige, relevance, credibility, allure, staying-power, refinement, or depth.
I think it sounds far more likely that 100M people signed up to poke at the latest viral novelty and create one meme, than that 100M people suddenly discovered they had a pressing long-term need for AI images all on the same day.
It's neither of these options in this false dichotomy.
100M people signed up and did at least 1 task. Then, most likely some % of them discovered it was a useful thing (if for nothing else than just to make more memes), and converted into a MAU.
If I had to use my intuition, I would say it's 5% - 10%, which represents a larger product launch than most developers will ever participate in, in the context of a single day.
Of course the ongoing stickiness of the MAU also depends on the ability of this particular tool to stay on top amongst increasing competition.
Apparently OpenAI is losing money like crazy on this and their conversion rates to paid are abysmal, even for the cheaper licenses. And not even their top subscription covers its cost.
Uber at a 10x scale.
I should add that compared to the hype, at a global level Uber is a failure. Yes, it's still a big company, yes, it's profitable now, but I think it was launched 10+ years ago and it's barely becoming net profitabile over it's existence now and shows no signs of taking over the world. Sure, it's big in the US and a few specific markets. But elsewhere it's either banned for undermining labor practices or has stiff local competition or it's just not cost competitive and it won't enter the market because without the whole "gig economy" scam it's just a regular taxi company with a better app.
It's quite hard to say for sure, and I will prefix my comment by saying his blog posts are very long and quite doomerist about LLMs, but he makes a decent case about OpenAI financials:
A very solid argument is like that against propaganda: it's not so much about what is being said but what about isn't. OpenAI is basically shouting about every minor achievement from the rooftops so the fact that they are remarkably silent about financial fundamentals says something. At best something mediocre or more likely bad.
All very fair caveats/heads up about Ed Zitron, but just for context for others: he is an actual journalist that has been in the tech space for a long time, and has been critical of lots of large figures in tech for a long time. He has a cohesive thesis around the tech industry, so his thoughts on AI/LLMs aren't out of nowhere and disconnected.
Basically, it's one of those things you may read and find that, all things considered, you don't agree with the conclusions, but there's real substance there and you'll probably benefit from reading a few of his articles.
While 100M signing up just for one pic is certainly possible, I note that several hundred million people regularly share photographs of their lunch, so it is very plausible that in signing up for the latest meme generator they found they liked the ability to generate custom images of whatever they consider to be pretty pictures every day.
Maybe make a video of how you're vibecoding a valuable project in an existing codebase, and how agents are saving you time by running your tools in a loop.
Seriously… thats the one thing I never see being posted? Is it because Agent mode will take 30-40 minutes to just bookstrap a project and create some file?
So they can cherry pick the 1 out of 10 times that it actually performs in an impressive manner? That's the essence of most AI demos/"benchmarks" I've seen.
Testing for myself has always yielded unimpressive results. Maybe I'm just unlucky?
reply