Maybe not a million, although having a few million, even just in a bank account earning moderate interest (4.5% PA) is easily enough to retire forever.
Even with relatively simple things, frontier models get me about 90% of the way - and this is without evaluating how good that 90% actually is. It's the last 10% that the model fucking sucks at. And it's often the simplest things. It takes a lot of tokens and a lot of time to cajole the AI to get that last 10% working. And even then, I've just given up and had to go read the slop and fix the bug myself because it become so frustrating.
The physics of travelling at 600mph+ would affect the rough surface differently than at 60mph. Airplane wings experience erosion due to the high speed combined with particles in the air - dust, ice, volcanic ash, and rain/water. The erosion is a problem that sees significant mitigation. If the surface were made to be rough I'd expect some unexpected results, and it may even become a bigger problem. I do think the technique should be tested though.
I'd be willing to bet at least 10% of those 55% are married to or in relationships with immigrants and are going to say "Not like that!" when their loved ones are forced to leave the country. FAFO is coming for them.
And then the overwhelming remainder of those 55% very likely love talking about their Italian/Irish/Polish/Cuban/whatever heritage and see no sense of contradiction.
I'm doing agentic coding with Claude Max, and it's like giving methamphetamine to a software developer.
When I run out of tokens, I pay for extra. It doesn't feel good, but I do it because I didn't write the codebase - the drug dealer did. Just one more "fix" and the code should be good to ship. Oh no, out of tokens again? Just one more "fix", and another.
And the code that the AI writes is sprawling and almost incomprehensibly complicated. Overly complicated. It's like a tweaker wrote it, on methamphetamine.
I can make this comparison because many years ago I once had an ex that put methamphetamine (I didn't realize they had an addiction) in one of my vitamin capsules "as a joke", and I was up for 36 hours straight writing convoluted code, and then writing voluminous notes about the code I had yet to write. I had never done that drug before, or since (why they are an ex). I don't even drink. After that episode I re-read what I had written and it was quite scattershot.
And now I get the same exact feeling when using AI to write code, or have it write tickets, or plan out something, etc.
I use these tools daily, and it's like putting a drug dealer between me and the code. Sure it writes a lot more code than I could write without it, but at what cost? I really don't like where this is headed. And I don't think most software developers using AI realize what is happening.
That won't really change anything, and in fact make the problem worse. It would be like "getting high on your own supply". Or just making meth at home so you can do it all the time. There's still a "drug dealer" in between you and the code. And you're going to have to pay $$$$ for hardware good enough to not slow you down. I've tried local models on an nVidia 4060 and it's pretty slow.
If I wanted to spend a lot of time reading the code and figuring out what part actually needs changing, sure... but in this case it's faster to pay for more tokens and get the AI to do it.
For code I wrote, it's typically faster for me to modify it than to get the AI to do it.
The last time something like this happened, we got the great depression. Do you want another great depression? The next one will likely be far worse than the last one.
Mangione was a one-off, and a lot of people understand why he may have done what he did. Just wait until the American version of the French Revolution happens. If AI keeps stealing all the jobs, it will come sooner rather than later.
- Most of the nobility escaped the French Revolution unharmed. By the way, wealth is a lot portable for today's magnates than it was for the French nobility deriving their income from their land holdings.
- Some of those who went to the block were nobles but most were ordinary people.
- The leader of the revolution, Robespierre, was himself executed in the infighting after the French Revolution, a very neat own goal. Bonus fact: his time in power was called the Reign Of Terror.
- The First Republic lasted only 10 years before Napoleon Bonaparte took the throne.
In a turbulent time, always seek to be led by those with a proper understanding of revolutions and their context. Generally, those who romanticize the French Revolution don't pass that test.
I don't give a shit. When half of the middle class of America is unemployed, it's going to look very different than the French Revolution, whatever might happen.
> and a lot of people understand why he may have done what he did.
He didn't understand why he did what he did.
> just wait until the American version of the French Revolution happens
We should all be trying to actively prevent that. The French Revolution was a complete failure and mostly succeeded in killing poor people and launching Napoleon's wars.
That doesn't matter, and I don't think your comment makes any difference. The fact is that a lot of people understand why he (may have) did what he did.
>We should all be trying to actively prevent that. The French Revolution was a complete failure and mostly succeeded in killing poor people and launching Napoleon's wars.
The same or worse will happen if it happens here. But when half of middle class jobs are just gone, you don't leave the people with many alternatives but violence.
The Who is your evidence? Lol. The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people. It needed to happen. And centuries later, the French still don't accept bullshit, they will protest and riot when their protections are diminished in any way. America does protesy and riot too, though not to the same extent, but that will only get worse as things get bad.
Russia is not a good example either, their society has always been a clusterfuck, and probably always will be as long as there are people willing to throw other people put of windows so someone can stay ahead or in power.
> The Who is your evidence? Lol. The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people.
Many people have made comments that are similar in nature, the line from that song is the pithiest example I could think of to express the idea that replacing terrible leaders usually leads to more terrible leaders.
Spending decades fighting wars across Europe under Napoleon was good? I wonder how the troops that invaded Russia feel about the French Revolution lol
> The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people.
What? Napoleon marched them off to war "spending 30,000 lives per month". They didn't get a proper Republic until 1870 and turned into miserable colonial overlords. Moreover the 3rd Republic;s foreign policy helped cause WWI.
It's actually not a bad comparison. You might feel like you're getting 10x more done with AI but it's going to be 10x more buggy and/or 10x missing the edge cases, in the way AI usually misses the mark. I don't do coke, but I know plenty of people who do, and I would not trust them with anything important.
But I'd still rather be travelling and seeing the world than being nervous about my job being cut due to AI.
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