Now what? / 接下来呢？

Here’s an impressive Show HN project: a comprehensive, reverse-engineered, LLM-written technical documentation of how a calculator’s operating system works. What a resource!

这是一个令人印象深刻的 Show HN 项目：一份由大语言模型（LLM）编写的、详尽的逆向工程技术文档，揭示了计算器操作系统的工作原理。真是宝贵的资源！

Insert a standard paragraph about how we live in interesting times. I keep seeing projects like this increasingly more often: complex, working beasts – that would previously have been nigh impossible to implement by one person in their spare time – are now springing up like mushrooms after the rain. Here an Apple Lisa emulator; there a modern implementation of a long-forgotten language from the 1960s.

此处省略一段关于我们正处于“有趣时代”的陈词滥调。我发现这类项目正变得越来越频繁：那些曾经几乎不可能由个人在业余时间完成的复杂工程，如今正像雨后春笋般涌现。这边是一个 Apple Lisa 模拟器，那边是一个对 20 世纪 60 年代早已被遗忘的编程语言的现代实现。

Someone asked a simple question in the comments under that Show HN. Sadly, it seems to be gone now; I can’t find it anymore. It went something like this: “Okay, so you’ve built this. Now what?”

在那篇 Show HN 的评论区里，有人问了一个简单的问题。遗憾的是，那条评论似乎已经消失了，我再也找不到了。大意是这样的：“好吧，你已经把它做出来了。接下来呢？”

Excellent question! And one, I think, that we need to be asking ourselves more often these days. I know I want to.

好问题！我认为，在当今时代，我们确实需要更频繁地问自己这个问题。我知道我想要这样做。

It’s all too easy to focus on the (very real) excitement that arises when you see a working result of your prompt appear out of nothing in front of your eyes. But that’s just a dopamine rush that will pass soon. Imagine it passed already; imagine you have your creation in front of your eyes. Now what?

当我们看到提示词生成的成果凭空出现在眼前时，很容易沉浸在那份（非常真实的）兴奋感中。但这仅仅是多巴胺带来的快感，很快就会消退。试想一下，如果这种快感已经过去，你的作品就摆在眼前，接下来呢？

Is it because someone is actually going to use your creation, in anger? Have you actually solved someone’s problem? Is that someone you, perhaps?

是因为真的有人会去使用你的作品吗？你是否真的解决了某人的问题？或者，那个人是你自己吗？

That reverse-engineered documentation – is anyone going to read it? Will it facilitate someone’s learning? Will it make them more knowledgeable? If there are any hallucinations or inaccuracies in it, will they be able to point them out?

那份逆向工程文档——会有人读吗？它能促进他人的学习吗？能让他们变得更博学吗？如果其中存在幻觉或不准确之处，他们能指出来吗？

Have you learned something by doing this? Will you be able to carry that knowledge forward to your future experience?

你在完成这个项目的过程中学到了什么吗？你能将这些知识运用到未来的实践中吗？

Or are you in it just because of that dope rush? Will it just bit-rot on GitHub, unused, undiscovered, after you announce it to the world and the trickle of upvotes inevitably dries up? Will it just be a bookmark, one of thousands soon to become millions, in the Babel library of all imaginable software? Or will you keep prompting for more rushes?

还是说，你仅仅是为了追求那种快感？当你向世界宣布它，而那点点赞数不可避免地枯竭后，它是否会像被遗忘的比特一样在 GitHub 上腐烂，无人问津？它是否只会成为“巴别图书馆”中数以百万计的书签之一？又或者，你打算继续通过提示词来获取更多的快感？

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Let me be clear: I’m not picking on any project in particular. I won’t be judging you if your honest answer is “dope rush”. It’s fine to desire one; it’s fine to experience one once in a while. It’s a value in itself.

声明一下：我并不是在针对任何特定的项目。如果你的诚实回答是“为了快感”，我也不会评判你。渴望快感没问题，偶尔体验一下也没问题。这本身就有其价值。

But – need I remind you? – there are ethical and societal hazards to using LLMs: using them carries a cost, and it’s our responsibility to offset that cost in some way. And even LLMs aside, it’s probably not a good idea for your actions to be rush-driven. It’s good to have a conscious purpose.

但是——我需要提醒你吗？——使用大语言模型存在伦理和社会风险：使用它们是有代价的，我们有责任以某种方式抵消这种代价。抛开大语言模型不谈，如果你的行为仅仅是由快感驱动的，那可能并不是什么好事。拥有自觉的目标才是好的。

I have some LLM-facilitated pet projects, so I think it’s only fair to answer “Now what?” publicly, as honestly as I can.

我也有一些由大语言模型辅助的个人项目，所以我认为公开且诚实地回答“接下来呢？”是公平的。

Edsger: For the most part, I think, I did it for its hack value. But also I taught myself a lot about modding the reMarkable, and I have plans to reuse parts of Edsger for something more practical, something I see myself using: an integration between it and Clerk.

Edsger：我认为在很大程度上，我做它是为了“黑客价值”（hack value）。但同时，我也学到了很多关于改装 reMarkable 的知识，并且我计划重用 Edsger 的部分代码来实现更实用的功能，即我打算使用的功能：它与 Clerk 的集成。

clj-concraft and JMorfeusz: I’ve touched on it in the blog post already. Long story short, it’s about (1) learning about the underlying mechanisms, (2) planning to use them as building blocks of a project that sees some, if niche, use.

clj-concraft 和 JMorfeusz：我已经在博客文章中提到过。简而言之，这关乎两点：(1) 学习底层机制，(2) 计划将它们作为项目的基石，使其发挥一定的（尽管是小众的）用途。

Smaller things / toys: I admit some of these were rush-only. But there are some that I am regularly using myself (my .emacs.d comes to mind); and, for a more playful example, the one-shot editor for poems in Pilish was posted as an aid to a Facebook group with monthly challenges for poets that I’m a part of.

较小的项目/玩具：我承认其中一些纯粹是为了快感。但也有一些是我经常使用的（比如我的 .emacs.d 配置）；再举一个更有趣的例子，那个用于 Pilish 诗歌的一次性编辑器，是我为了帮助我所在的 Facebook 诗歌挑战小组而发布的。