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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   3507 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 16, 2025

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... what are you working on?

I find it kind of hard to work on software projects for fun knowing AGI will make it significantly easier to work on if I wait a year before starting. In fact this might always be true.

Labor done in 2025 will be so much less leveraged than labor done in 2026, and so on.

I find it kind of hard to work on software projects for fun knowing AGI will make it significantly easier to work on if I wait a year before starting. In fact this might always be true.

This strikes me somewhat like saying "I don't want to work on learning to play an instrument because music recordings will make it a lot easier to have music in my home". That's true if all you care about is the end result. But if you were going to do this for fun to begin with, presumably you were going to do it because you enjoy the craft. So why wait for different tools? The enjoyment of the craft will be just as much today as it is a year from now.

In my case, the goal is the end product. I want a videogame with every single feature I want in a game and none of the features I don't want, and whenever I run out of content I can make more content. The software project is "for fun", in that the game is for fun and tailored to me specifically, I don't think it will ever be commercially viable, but 70% of the fun is (or would be if I ever get anywhere) the game itself, 25% is being able to think about game design features and add and tweak things, 5% is the actual coding line by line. If I could tell an AI what features I want and have it keep adding them cohesively and coherently on a global level without hallucinating or forgetting details from months ago, I would easily drop the 5% line by line coding part.

Instead I keep getting bored and losing motivation because I get too ambitious and it takes too long to do what I want to do before I get to enjoy it in a playable state.

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