Carrier is right a lot because he knows how to research. The link to a primer on that is within this article. This is shorter than most of his posts, and doesn’t bother with technical details because the details aren’t that difficult with AI.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/38652
I should mention, he doesn’t allow AI in his comments. Something we might consider if this forum traffic ever picks up again.
Also note, within the AI post, be links to the related post of how to do your own research. In that, he explains how that phrase has come to be associated with conspiracy theorist, but they don’t research critically, instead:
The conspiracist plays on a truth—that we should not just gullibly trust what experts say, but vet whether they are telling us the truth or even reliably discerning it in the first place—to push a falsehood: that we should never trust what experts say.
Well that’s a heck of a bedtime story.
It sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. He makes a lot of sense. Don’t think I want to invest much time checking his links, we’ll see soon enough.
We’ve screwed ourselves in so many directions.
If it’s global finances build on puffed up bllshit or a catastrophic storm that blindsides your neighborhood and livelihood.
.. or the BD Syndrome of idiotic billion dollars projects that are fundamentally pointless squandering of precious resources.
When it comes to what people and societies’ need to survives, but so it is. Our apathy brought this upon ourselves.
How can one not, on some psychological level, have to confront the reality of being a deadman walking syndrome, since we don’t know when our particular corner of the world will collapse and crush us.
So far as I’m concerned, what I have left is embracing my today with all the awareness and gratitude I can muster. Especially given the fact of being the Chicago kid who arrived where he dreamed of getting to.
As someone who has used AI extensively in coding, I can tell you it is both incredible and horrible. With very little well formed prompting it can chunk away and create code that really is amazing (that it created stuff that works, not necessarily “great code”). But as was mentioned in his article, it’s also a huge timewaster, because you have to undo, undo, fix, fix, undo, review review etc. I felt as if I was becoming its assistant. And the one thing not mentioned, but I could see it already in the little team I was on, in a work environment there’s always an emphasis in productivity. Great, but what it really translates into is a coder actually losing skills. Why take the time to dig into the “wonderful” code when you have three other projects stacked up? You don’t, and so over time skills will slip. Anyway, the damage will be done by the time any of these money grubbing pigs figure it out. And even if they do, I’m sure they’ll find a way to mitigate it, and it won’t be to hire back all the developers you laid off.
Looking for ideas for a medieval fantasy role-playing game setting, I asked Chat Mistral for some suggestions. After a few days, I had a forty-page text describing the Barony of Rawnis.
Dissatisfied with both the working conditions and the result, I turned to Copilot, on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, I do believe .
As a result, this Wednesday, February 18, I had:
- The City and Barony of Rawnis (alpha version), a descriptive text of the city and barony, 53 pages, 84 with the append ices ,
- A list presenting dozens of non-player characters, with brief descriptions, totaling 50 pages,
- The Game Master’s Secrets, totaling 50 pages,
- A price list: 8 pages,
- A description of a caravanserai, totaling 6 pages,
- Two narrative arcs, which can serve as the basis for scenarios, tot alin g 27 pages.
- a text of presentation, 2 pages
My first impressions:
- You have to be creative. For example, I was the one who noticed that we didn’t have any fishermen in the population of a port.
- You have to control everything. The AI can generate a table with the total population you want, but if you recalculate, i t’s missing some.
- Partly for the reasons Copilot explains, it provides texts with outdated or clearly incorrect information.
- It tends to take the easy way out. When you want details, under the guise of streamlining and harmonizing, it omits information.
- The interaction is addictive: I’m in the middle of creating something, and my interlocutor is encouraging me.
- You have to be very precise in your prompts and don’t hesitate to rehearse and modify them.
Incidentally, I’m not satisfied with the plan chosen for the general document, but that’s my fault.
I started another thread, a very limited one, on scenario building, with unsatisfactory results, but I’m not happy with the basic options I provided.
Thanks for that description. I quit just before AI kicked in but I figured it would be like you described. I started writing code when you opened a blank page and wrote IF Then and DO While. Soon after, there was code behind spreadsheets and simplified database packaged systems. People with limited skills could get something started, it would help them, until something didn’t come out right. Then they’d call me and I was supposed to fix it when really it needed to be scrapped.
In my last year, the new kid was combining packages that wrote Java with “wizards” that wrote the business rules, and nobody was understanding the SQL. I could see trouble coming, but they didn’t listen to the old guy.
AI seems to be writing unmanageable code faster. In a few years, it won’t work, but will it be fixable?
Interesting, similar experience here. I quit when it was clear the company was not only going whole hog on AI assisted coding, but was also putting in new “productivity” goals. And the CIO to pitch it literally told folks how he created this big system “over the weekend, so it shouldn’t take anyone too long”, and told the team of young coders that he didn’t see any reason why anyone would get a CS degree. Said that to a team of young coders who relatively recently got out of college with CS degrees! What a tool. Anyway, and then the real kicker was that this big wonderful “system” he bragged about, when turned over to a junior coder to get production ready, took the coder several months because while the bosses system worked, it was garbage and unmaintainable. Boy I think I scooted just in time. 
I can see it now: “Hi junior coder guy, how well do you know SQL?” Coder: “Sequel? Which tv show are you talking about?”
