Wake up Neo

Probably not a lot.

My system idles at 3gb.

But then I do AI stuff and it needs 15-80gb. And I do data analyses that can use a lot.

Good code has always been about simplicity, taste, and understanding.

If a human provides understanding and taste, they can elevate AI code to be good.

Likewise if an AI isn’t well guided it won’t understand, has no taste, and will generate overly complex code. AKA Slop.

It’s not equally distributed for sure, what we see in the actual data is the avg Gen X household has had continuous economic growth. If you play with the data and break it out even further, the wealthiest Gen Xers are the ones who are mopping up all the growth.

Millenials and Boomers are relatively stagnant, but Boomers are retiring and drawing down on savings. They merge Millenials and Gen Z in this data, which I think is problematic, but whatever.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3610066001

Edit: if you break it down, it looks like 44+ is the age group benefitting the most – not sure what in the Simpson’s paradox is driving the Gen X numbers so much in the first chart

It feels like there’s a meta-discussion to be had about AI disclosure and AI use in a lot of these projects and it’s starting to boil over.

I would suggest that maintainers should:

• Add an AI disclosure in their readme, which is what I do on my projects. If you don’t like AI then it’s on the tin and you can avoid it – explicit is always better than implicit.
• Provide guidelines on AI contributions to their project. Every project needs an AI contribution policy now because we live in a world where most devs do use AI code gen. If you accept a patch from a community user it’s probably been touched by AI.
• Detail their AI workflow, but specifically how they review this code. I can only really work and review at a file-at-a-time pace so that 100% of AI code is reviewed by me, in detail, and it’s up to my standards.

When it comes to existing projects that start adding AI contributions it’s always going to be difficult. It’s not something projects started with even the option of, there’s no way to get consent from your users (nor consensus on whether you should you get their consent), and there have been varying levels of AI code gen for years now from simple completions to now agentic vibe coding.

I’ll be honest, most of my own projects use AI generated code, and I use it for work. It’s never code I couldn’t have written myself – because if it were how could I review it? But the fact is, in the year 2026 AI code generation is both fast, usable, and it’s near ubiquitous. There are tasks I could work on for weeks that I can build plus review in a couple of hours with AI. It’s very hard to argue with that, and I’m a very picky coder+reviewer with a full time job.

And lastly, for the community we all need to be mindful of open source maintainers.

They work hard, for free, and get treated like shit by users, the law, and big corporations. There’s a new generation of people who sign up for code hosting services just to request features or complain in your git issues, they’re opening up slop PRs and emailing you. Plus, internet users love to pile on and harass people.

Please remember there’s (usually) a human made of meat at the end of the intertubes, and when 100s of people write mean/abrasive things it adds up. Nobody is perfect, open source devs are just trying to share and help.

PS for mods: I saw there was another thread on another app using AI that was locked as off topic, I am trying to be constructive in this comment, but if it’s off topic/too divisive I understand.

They both look like Shrek villains.

For a while I thought maybe the best protest against AI would be to try and get it to escape containment.

Only in the existential risk scenario would our society bother to lift a finger.

But I no longer believe we would do anything, as long as the AI contributed to capital markets we’d let it destroy us.

I feel very depressed and empty today.

These should not exist.

The data privacy and ethical issues alone should be a non starter.

Don’t let perfect stop you from achieving good.

It’s not radioactive waste, it’s code. You can read it, write it, change it. Just like any legacy codebase it’s full of shit, and maintaining means addressing the specific issues.

Gen X has all the money actually.

And they got way richer during COVID.

They’re the only demographic that got wealthier during COVID.

I gotta spruce mine up, this is excellent.

Same, I wish I’d bought two. Or even one.

The bird looks confused now, just liking at an empty talon

If you buy now you can still brag about missing the next price increase when South Korea runs out of helium for chip production in 2 weeks.

But now bots pass captcha and use a real browser. So… it’s not easy removing them.

Remember that if you get an idea, fuck around, find out, and write down what you’ve learned: you’ve literally just done science. Well, with computers, so it’d be computer science, but you get my point.

Honestly it’s never been easier to start doing things, and doing things is very fun. Good advice!

Also, how is the author using 1password for credentials on server? They have service accounts now, but is there a better way than just always providing a credential when asked?

I am glad I bought 128gb of ram last year.

They’re definitely going to film them putting up a flag somewhere but it won’t open the strait of Hormuz.

Passkeys are okay, but your browser and OS want you to use them because you can’t just take a passkey to another platform, you have to create a new one, and it’s a pain in the ass.

It’s a lock-in gimmick latching on to a real useful solution.

Me too.