If AI is helping people code a lot faster and better, why aren’t the products I regularly use getting way better?
If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
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Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#2My theory... Being able to code well or fast doesn't one to one translate to a good end user experience. The strength of your org's ability to determine good features and iterate on them from a product perspective is what matters, and that /can/ potentially happen faster if AI is enabling faster development, but it's not guaranteed.
Even if we had a magic box that results in perfect code coming out every time for a given feature description, that doesn't mean the feature itself is good or well thought out.
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#3My guess would be that the hurdle in creating better products isn't in code completion.
User research, UX improvements, feature ideation and creation, etc, are all the same as they have always been. Getting the code out faster doesn't help if its in service of a bad feature.
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#4Writing the same code 10% faster isn't necessarily going to make it better. Also the biggest improvements have been among novices, and the products you regularly use were predominantly written (or at least reviewed) by more experienced people.
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#5It has been around for what, a year?
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#6This is a personal anecdote, and just one data point, but still. I work on websites for customers, and frequently I'll need to (for example) iterate through some spreadsheet data, or convert a big object of this format to some other format. These are tedious tasks that don't take a _huge_ amount of time, but instead of grinding on a particular function for 30 minutes, I have a workable thing I can tweak in five minutes. I'd say this helps me "code faster and better."
Does it make the end product better? Not really: I would have gotten there with a function written by me or some LLM. But like everything I've been asked to do my professional career, it allows me to do more with less. More dumb functions in less time.
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#7They don’t code better but they code faster.
I imagine for first pass prototypes, AI will greatly accelerate the process. But getting to the fine details and getting things done well will still take same amount of time.
AI-guided coding will help code up “good enough” implementations, which is great for research and testing ideas but not for production.
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#8Where did that premise come from?
Copilot mostly helps people code faster, or with less knowledge required. I'd expect output quality to go down, not up.
And it's like anything in capitalism. Companies could choose higher quality, but instead they do whatever gives the highest profit. which is usually adequate quality at low cost.
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#9We're still very much in the early days.
Code AI tools today absolutely crush at creating proof of concept apps. You can test your idea and get market validation in days vs months.
They are getting better at medium/large codebases, but still have a ways to go before being super useful and it translating to a huge increase in productivity. Currently it's really good for helping with the menial tasks (creating docs, unit tests, understanding and onboarding) but not quite there yet when it comes to integrating gen ai code in large codebases, but it's only a matter of time.
Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?
#10Some possibilities:
1. The products you use are not developed by people using LLMs.
2. The products you use may be using LLMs in development, but only recently so you'll see a delay before any improvement.
3. The products you use are using it, and maybe it's helping with quality, but not anywhere that users care about or notice.
4. The products you use are using it, and it's not helping with quality, just churning out more code.