Well written, and very recognizable. I felt pretty much the same as the author at the time of my firstborn. The second kid's birth I don't even remember, haha. I can say that 8 years later the love for the children and my partner has only deepened. Family life is unrelenting and exhausting at times, but I'm one of the lucky ones with a fabulous partner and healthy, smart and fun kids-- until the teenage years change the picture all over again, maybe?
Data point: I have a medium-complexity data transformation use case that I still prefer pandas for.
Reason: I can speed things up fairly easily with Cython functions, and do multithreading using the Python module. With polars I would have to learn Rust for that.
But if you care about factuality, why would you use generative at all, rather than RAG or some old-school fuzzy full-text search? The whole things sounds like "we have a technique (LLM) that gives results once considered impossible, so it must be the magic box that solves all end every problem".
This is a well-written article, and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. But when you compare how much $$$ mediocre but heavily marketed games, and "casino mechanics" games still make, it's hard to blame VCs and executives for it. I'd be very interested in learning how you could encourage people to become more discerning consumers.
Hear, hear. I was especially appalled by seeing aforementioned reactionaries listed alongside thinkers that likely would've pulled this manifested to shreds (e.g. Bertrand Russell).
This resonates. I'm currently reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus and he, as an existentialist, reasons that life is indeed worth living. Combine that with the utilitarian argument (e.g., Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape), and you've roughly got my views summarized. It points towards pushing sentient beings (a bit broader than humanity) forward, indeed.
