So, this post is a collection of three unrelated articles that I have read recently.

LLMs becoming boring Link to heading

Boring is good Article basically summarising the current state of LLMs. There are so many articles with this same topic and theme at the moment (personally I had my AI rant in a group chat :-D).

The main theme is that it seems that we are finally getting through the hype cycle with LLM based AI and what everyone is finding is that the value seems to be in very specific/niche use cases (e.g. helping me with TypeScript syntax). The use case for higher level code generation/problem solving seems to be spotty at best (at worst you have senior engineers quietly dropping the technology due to the amount of AI “slop” that is produced).

I have called it a “better autocomplete” before and I struggle to see any other way to look at it. Maybe a “better rubber ducky” in some cases?

NZ Banks are just intrusive Link to heading

$70k Tesla on credit Article written by a home loan advisor talking about the new (historically speaking) craziness with NZ banks being required to carry out due diligence on lenders to a crazy extent.

The guy talks about taking out cash instead of using your card at the pub if you’re buying people beers in order to hide it from your bank. I had a guy I worked with have a similar issue where he liked to pay for dinner when he was out with his mates an then have them pay him back that the bank had an issue with when he was trying to get a loan. I really don’t know how we got to this situation as a country.

Motivation Link to heading

Motivate yourself to do a thing you don’t want to do This was a really good one where the author really breaks down the mental state of anyone trying to do something that they don’t “want” to do (but know that they should do). I really liked it as well as the tips and trickts that came with it. It mirrors a lot of the Learning how to Learn course and the techniques that are taught about how to overcome procrastination.

Day 2 of trying to write every day for 30 days