Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years.

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 09:58:22 GMT

jmax@mastodon.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 09:58:22 GMT

@robpike Yeah.

(While we're all still here, speaking as one of the beneficiaries of your work, thank you for everything.)

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 09:50:13 GMT

reggiehere@mastodon.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 09:50:13 GMT

@gerdesj

"I trained as a [insert aborted career here]
and ended up in IT."

Could be a mantra for an entire generation.

@robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 09:01:10 GMT

ori@hj.9fs.net — Tue, 12 May 2026 09:01:10 GMT

If it was restricted to programming I would be merely sad. We got sufficiently good at automating artwork before programming.

CC: @robpike@hachyderm.io

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:55:30 GMT

swetland@chaos.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:55:30 GMT

@robpike I'm hoping there may be an opportunity to rebuild from the ashes afterwards, because I cannot see how this is going to be sustainable once the industry finishes destroying its ability to build software that's not a complete incomprehensible disaster.

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:54:47 GMT

ori@hj.9fs.net — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:54:47 GMT

Forests come back because thousands of individual seeds decide to sprout. Wounds heal because millions of cells take action.

Individuals need to reject LLMs, and the harmful companies and ideology behind them, if we're to see anything get better.

CC: @robpike@hachyderm.io

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:30:40 GMT

einalex@chaos.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:30:40 GMT

@tmcfarlane not sure either..

To me, this is not working...that would be analog to dating a romance scammer and calling the experience "being in a relationship"
@robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:29:32 GMT

ozzelot@mstdn.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:29:32 GMT

@lykso
welp, can it destroy itself faster please, this slow death of it has grown quite annoying
@robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:27:09 GMT

paulschoe@mastodon.world — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:27:09 GMT

@sstrader

From this essay:

#Trump announced his main weapon would be tariffs, but then lost his trade war with China ...

It would serve the USA for Ukraine to win; but Trump switched to support Russia ...

Ukraine has performed ever better. The US failed to see its own interests ...

Trump left Iran with uranium in the hands of a more radical regime which holds new economic power ...

Instruments to influence Iranian society were willfully demolished in early 2026.

@petrillic @robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:27:07 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:27:07 GMT

@einalex @robpike well they work right up until they don't. We had engineering to deal with that before, but apparently that was dull.
Would an AI Bro want to fly a plane his chat bot built? Or walk his family across a bridge one of them sketched up? (a few took their families down in a sub that an A-level mechanics student could have told you was a bad idea, so I'm not actually sure the answer to either of those is a "no").

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:18:19 GMT

einalex@chaos.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:18:19 GMT

@tmcfarlane I'm not blaming them. I'm well aware they were working according to standards. I'm saying our understanding of the conditions was insufficient, so best practice engineering by lots of talented, experienced, well-intended humans still resulted in failure.

Contrast that with no-understanding low-effort llm usage. The notion that the results will "work" is comical and tragic.

@robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:09:55 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:09:55 GMT

@golemwire @robpike exactly. These tools skip the "why" and the "how" of the things they do. Even if you ask them to explain the "why" of something, you can't trust the answer. At least if I ask a good teacher why they want me to do X a certain way they can (I hope), give me an honest answer that I can research further (even if it is that best of honest answers "I don't know").

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:06:30 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:06:30 GMT

@einalex @robpike my friends mini-ATX motherboard is not sitting in a mini-ATX case that is definitely a case.
Now, he could have taken measurements, and built that case. Even modified another design. he could have understood what he did, and he would then be able to modify it without paying billionaires to do so.
LLMs are an intellectual catastrophe, and a moral failing. But we look stupid if we deny the daily reality of people using them.

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:04:33 GMT

golemwire@social.golemwire.com — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:04:33 GMT

Now that's one of my biggest concerns about it. Lots of loss of creativity; such a focus on the ends, with little regard to the means. And if you don't care for the means, which takes you to the end, you'll eventually be hindered trying to reach the end, too. #AI

CC: @robpike@hachyderm.io

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 08:04:07 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 08:04:07 GMT

@einalex @robpike On the specific cases of both Tacoma bridge, and the Millenium bridge, you do a disservice to the *engineers* that built those to the understood specs. Tacoma wasn't built with unprecedented winds in mind, and the millenium bridge was fine until unexpectedly large crowds did something we didn't realise they did.
We're doing a terrible thing with LLMs which is *exactly* the opposite of what the studious, learned, and hard working engineers on both those bridge actually did.

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:53:51 GMT

murodegrizeco@toad.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:53:51 GMT

@robpike

We could just call it "sabotage".

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:51:43 GMT

einalex@chaos.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:51:43 GMT

@tmcfarlane
Point being: something is something because of its characteristics, but is classified as something by human observers because of (usually) different, perceived features.

We're comically bad at this, hence why the rules of trade in engineering are written in the blood of the victims of our prior misconceptions and mistakes.

"llm works" is a result of low requirements, rare/short use (hasn't failed yet), low stakes, and ignorance", rather than one of problem complexity.

@robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:36:19 GMT

einalex@chaos.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:36:19 GMT

@tmcfarlane Nobody argues that llms don't produce something. The argument is that the thing created is a weird aproximation of the thing desired, and is produced at greater cost (which is differently distributed).

If you allow me an example of catastrophic failure of human engineering: bridge designs ignoring resonance.
- Tacoma bridge (wind caused)
- Millennium bridge (pedestrian caused)

Both seemed like bridges before failure. Design without understanding made them traps instead.

@robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:27:24 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:27:24 GMT

@einalex @robpike that's not reality. I was at his house for dinner, there were 6 of us there. I was the only one not using these tools. Everyone else is using them daily. Two of those were kids.
He built an actual object, a working case. It doesn't matter to him that it is built on the stolen work of others. He wanted to do a thing, and it did it (the object exists, that's not something that can be argued against).

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:18:07 GMT

einalex@chaos.social — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:18:07 GMT

@tmcfarlane hrm, maybe he got gaslighted into "llms are really working"... in that case deep diving how they work would probably drastically change his outlook. @robpike

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:17:58 GMT

robpike@hachyderm.io — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:17:58 GMT

@nelson (blush) What a lovely compliment, thank you.

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:16:40 GMT

kototama@merveilles.town — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:16:40 GMT

@robpike sad I'm a bit jealous that you were able to retire before the madness

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:15:14 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:15:14 GMT

@einalex @robpike this particular friend is definitely not "neurotypical", and wouldn't have got as far as he has without being curious. I get the desire to just get stuff done.
In fact, he *did* describe what he'd genuinely learned about approaching tasks using an LLM, and that was in itself interesting.
But he hadn't learned how to do the thing he wanted to do. He'd learned how to pay someone else to do it for him, and he was weirdly excited about that bit.

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:12:12 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:12:12 GMT

@nickzoic ...and he did it in ways I don't think 99% of the population would even imagine, with simple geometry, rotations, and extrusions and symmetry, and extruded swept shapes. (what I'd later know as CSG).
It completely blew my mind that there was this entirely different way of seeing the world.
And that's the joy of learning, and I really cannot fathom why people would want to skip that.

Reply to Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. on Tue, 12 May 2026 07:09:03 GMT

tmcfarlane@toot.community — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:09:03 GMT

@nickzoic dad always used to ask me questions about how I thought things worked (to keep me curious I guess). I caught a glimpse of him working over his shoulder and asked him what he was doing, and in the process I asked him how he make a model of a chair.
He opened an empty document and proceeded to build a proper sculpted, curved, chair (the style with baton for a back rest). No child's sketch. A real chair. He did it in about 5 minutes...