What? This is a very confusing statement...

The word engineer does not refer to only software engineers. And even if it did, I've never met an engineer who thought of their professional work as art. Are you sure you dislike engineers in general? 'Cause that's a pretty big group you just generalized about.

Have you not heard the classic joke? The optimist sees the glass as half-full. The pessimist: half-empty. The engineer sees the glass as twice as big as it needs to be.

This is the essence of engineering - solving problems safely, efficiently and economically.

Many engineers are craftspeople and artists. What makes you think they can't separate their professional duties from their other interests?

I say "tech" in quotes because they aren't "tech" companies anymore. They surveil, exploit customers, and engage in anti-competitive activities to maintain their golden egg laying geese.

I have a whole lot of reasons to be... UNSURE about being in tech. VERY UNSURE.

The "Kamar-Taj" rule is, no knowledge is forbidden, only certain practices. If a model gives you detailed instructions on how to kill all humans, the knowledge itself isn't the problem. The problem is the person who acts on it.

Elisha Long's content is not for me. I also don't think it's relevant to the topic of mental health.

Speaking from experience, I can say that when I prioritized adequate time to do activities I find challenging and enjoyable, that were deliberately unrelated to my work-life in any way, that my mental health improved.

The depression didn't disappear. But it became manageable.

The eternal question for management seems to be "what can we get away with?".

A dev with quality problems in their output? Can em'. A dev with exceptional quality in their output? Can em'. A dev with just the right corners cut? Keep 'em, but no raise.

Is this regime right or fair? I don't think so, but it is the incentives that drive all of this.

I believe the only solution to this, at least in the for-profit software world, is to try to convince everyone to pay for quality. If the money is there, then maybe management will reward devs who care about quality user experiences.

I believe it is absolutely ridiculous to have token usage leader boards.

But isn't it also ridiculous for a rational human being to use as many tokens as possible regardless of whether or not that token usage is useful or valuable?

It seems obvious to me that AI service providers make more money the more tokens are used. It also seems obvious to me that companies who sell shovels during a gold rush stand to make a great deal of money, whether or not any gold is found. How is that a good thing writ large?

Anthropic, (and SpaceX), might IPO soon - a move that will grant them access to capital instantly. Capital that comes directly from the retirement plans of all of us.

All I'm saying is if you want to somehow sabotage the game somehow, this is definitely not the right strategy. Political influence would be far more effective.

What am I missing?

The more tokens you burn, the more demand for hardware there will be. More demand for hardware means higher stock prices -> more money in your employer's pocket.

The only question is how long that can last. If taken to an extreme, the output of the AI will get worse over time, and if it gets bad enough, for long enough, people will use it less and less, and demand will slowly evaporate.

My point is NOT: I hope this all comes crashing down.

My point IS: tokenmaxing is bad. AND weaponizing it will not have the intended effect, but in fact, it will, in the short term, do the opposite.

But when you factor in today's favorite business model of "make it shitty", perhaps this matters very little.

Agentic tools are "burglary tools" -> Younger folks should not study CS?