George Prokopakis

Software developer, CS instructor, Unix and coffee addicted.
Ars longa, vita brevis.
Also:

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

Coding Summer 2026
Activities and events for my current and past students.
https://t.co/cItgXLjFRs

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

OpenCoffee Athens #129
Friday, May 8

https://t.co/rLboe57fAW

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

I'm a big fan of learning by doing. You learn more by active engagement rather than passive listening.

-- Dr. Terrence Sejnowski

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

"We're at a beginning, not an end, of software development. There's so much more to build. Let's get to work."
And for us, teachers, more work is required to prepare future developers.

https://t.co/3TL86zfPRj

[Dan Vega @therealdanvega]

Someone new to coding showed me their vibe-coded project. 90,000 lines of code. They were proud. I didn't know where to start. 🧵

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

2nd Automation and Robotics Expo.
25-27 April 2026
Metropolitan Expo, Athens, Greece

https://t.co/UDj2JJUlof

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

So you’re not too late, and don’t let the haters get you down.

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

And the answer is: you need to understand systems. Which means you need to understand code.
Your goal should be to own a product end-to-end, from requirements to production.
https://t.co/uSdfEHp7oY

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

Every major abstraction — compilers, high-level languages, object-oriented programming — was pitched as making software engineers obsolete. But in reality, the demand for people who understand systems didn’t disappear, it actually grew.

[Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg]

I recently received an email titled “An 18-year-old’s dilemma: Too late to contribute to AI?” Its author, who gave me permission to share this, is preparing for college. He is worried that by the time he graduates, AI will be so good there’s no meaningful work left for him to do to contribute to humanity, and he will just live on Universal Basic Income (UBI). I wrote back to reassure him that there will still be plenty of work he can do for decades hence, and encouraged him to work hard and learn to build with AI. But this conversation struck me as an example of how harmful hype about AI is.

Yes, AI is amazingly intelligent, and I’m thrilled to be using it every day to build things I couldn’t have built a year ago. At the same time, AI is still incredibly dumb, and I would not trust a frontier LLM by itself to prioritize my calendar, carry out resumé screening, or choose what to order for lunch — tasks that businesses routinely ask junior personnel to do.

Yes, we can build AI software to do these tasks. For example, after a lot of customization work, one of my teams now has a decent AI resumé screening assistant. But the point is it took a lot of customization.

Even though LLMs can handle a much more general set of tasks than previous iterations of AI technology, compared to what humans can do, they are still highly specialized. They’re much better at working with text than other modalities, still require lots of custom engineering to get it the right context for a particular application, and we have few tools — and only inefficient ones — for getting our systems to learn from feedback and repeated exposure to a specific task (such as screening resumés for a particular role).

AI has stark limitations, and despite rapid improvements, it will remain limited compared to humans for a long time.

AI is amazing, but it has unfortunately been hyped up to be even more amazing than it is. A pernicious aspect of hype is that it often contains an element of truth, but not to the degree of the hype. This makes it difficult for nontechnical people to discern where the truth really is. Modern AI is a general purpose technology that is enabling many applications, but AI that can do any intellectual tasks that a human can (a popular definition for AGI) is still decades away or longer. This nuanced message that AI is general, but not that general, often is lost in the noise of today's media environment.

Similarly, the progress of frontier models is amazing! But not so amazing that they’ll be able to do everything under the sun without a lot of customization. I know VC investors who are scared to invest in application-layer startups because they are worried that frontier AI model companies will quickly wipe out all of these businesses by improving their models. While some thin wrappers around LLMs no doubt will be replaced, there also remains a huge set of valuable applications that the current trajectory of progress of frontier models won’t displace for a long time.

Without accurate information about the current state of AI and how it is likely to progress, some young people will decide not to enter AI because think think AGI leaves them no meaningful role, or decide not to learn how to code because they fear AI will automate it — right when it is the best time ever to join our field.
Let us all keep working to get to a precise understanding of what’s actually possible, and keep building!

[Original text: https://t.co/OfxCVPGKoq ]

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

On Friday, Nov 14, 18:00-20:30 EET we will host at New York College, Kallithea building, A1 auditorium, the PyData Piraeus Meetup, presenting:
Large Language Models in Knowledge Graphs, and
Information Retrieval and Matching at Scale

https://t.co/xz8eu5X8AI

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

OpenCoffee #125
Startups in Greece are back for one more season.
A good chance for inspiration, learning, and socializing.

https://t.co/HOUODM09jc

[François Chollet @fchollet]

The 3rd edition of my book Deep Learning with Python is being printed right now, and will be in bookstores within 2 weeks. You can order it now from Amazon or from Manning.

This time, we're also releasing the whole thing as a 100% free website.

I don't care if it reduces book sales, I think it's the best deep learning intro around, and more people should be able to read it.

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

Hacktoberfest

an annual event, lasting one month, "October".

It celebrates and encourages participation in open-source software by promoting contributions to public repositories on GitHub. https://t.co/aCCay9IXRf

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

Python: The Documentary | An origin story
Premieres Aug 28, 2025

https://t.co/TnXCcL6xVy

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

@guangxing028 Hi, flexibility, hierarchy, use of sprints. Negative: frequent annoying bugs - however, support is quite good.

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

The 3Ps.
Write about something you are:
- Proud of
- Pained by
- Passionate about

#reading_books
#writing_for_developers

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

Perspectives:
Artificial Intelligence: Ethics, Man, and Governance in the Emerging World
(in Greek)

https://t.co/Nx56B4ycKD

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

@clickup Me: I'll just finish this one thing real quick.
Also me: It's 3 hours later and I'm still trying to set the date on the task because @clickup randomly loses information.

[George Prokopakis @gprok]

"Engineers are pragmatic beings. While they love reading purely theoretical academic papers, they love hands-on knowledge even more.
If something can be applied immediately after reading the blog post, it’s likely to be appreciated by the audience."

#reading_books