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[return to "The Influentists: AI hype without proof"]
1. minima+mc[view] [source] 2026-01-14 21:40:04
>>LucidL+(OP)
There are two major reasons people don't show proof about the impact of agentic coding:

1) The prompts/pipelines portain to proprietary IP that may or may not be allowed to be shown publically.

2) The prompts/pipelines are boring and/or embarrassing and showing them will dispel the myth that agentic coding is this mysterious magical process and open the people up to dunking.

For example in the case of #2, I recently published the prompts I used to create a terminal MIDI mixer (https://github.com/minimaxir/miditui/blob/main/agent_notes/P...) in the interest of transparency, but those prompts correctly indicate that I barely had an idea how MIDI mixing works and in hindsight I was surprised I didn't get harrassed for it. Given the contentious climate, I'm uncertain how often I will be open-sourcing my prompts going forward.

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2. tobr+Fe[view] [source] 2026-01-14 21:48:08
>>minima+mc
Could you clarify that last paragraph for me? I’m not sure what ”contentious climate” is here. AI antihype? I don’t understand the connection to not being harassed for something, isn’t that a good thing rather than something that would make you uncertain if you want to share prompts in the future?
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3. minima+5i[view] [source] 2026-01-14 22:01:33
>>tobr+Fe
"AI tech bro creates slop X because they don't understand how X actually works" is a common trope among the anti-AI crowd even on Hacker News that has only been increasing in recent months, and sharing prompts/pipelines provides strong evidence that can be pointed at for dunks. Sharing AI workflows is more likely to illicit this snark if the project breaks out of the AI bubble, though in the case of the AI boosters on X described as in the HN submission that's a feature due to how monetization works that platform. It's not something I want to encourage for my own projects, though.

There's also the lessons on the recent shitstorms in the gaming industry, with Sandfall about Expedition 33's use of GenAI and Larian's comments on GenAI with concept art, where both received massive backlash because they were transparent in interviews about how GenAI was (inconsequentially) used. The most likely consequence of those incidents is that game developers are less likely on their development pipelines.

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4. habine+Ml[view] [source] 2026-01-14 22:18:22
>>minima+5i
Counterpoint: If the tech was actually that good, nobody could dunk on it and anyone who tried would be mocked back.

If your hand is good, throw it down and let the haters weep. If you scared to show your cards, you don't have a good hand and you're bluffing.

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5. minima+8o[view] [source] 2026-01-14 22:28:21
>>habine+Ml
You'd think so, but with the recent extreme polarization of GenAI the common argument among the anti-AI crowd is the absolute "if AI touched it, it's slop". For example in the Expedition 33 case (which won Game of the Year), even though the GenAI asset was clearly a placeholder and replaced 2 days after launch, a surprisingly large number of players said sincerely "I enjoyed my time with E33 but after finding out they used GenAI I no longer enjoy it."

In a lesser example, a week ago a Rust developer on Bluesky tried to set up a "Tainted Slopware" list of OSS which used AI, but the criteria for inclusion was as simple as "they accepted an AI-generated PR" and "the software can set up a MCP server." It received some traction but eventually imploded, partially due to the fact that the Linux kernel would be considered slopware due to that criteria.

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6. helium+Bp[view] [source] 2026-01-14 22:32:58
>>minima+8o
oh yeah, most of us would agree those remarks are unreasonable
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