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AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

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Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#131

Post by mensetmanusman »

giantg2 wrote: post #98
Hendrikto wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could have written it but it would have taken me about 3x longer when all is said and done. Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself. Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?

"Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself." And if this is true, you will have to coach AI each time whereas a person should advance over time.

The AI in this example is 1/100 the cost.

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#133

Post by veidr »

Hendrikto wrote: post #71
bentt wrote: post #60

The best code I've written with an LLM has been where I architect it, I guide the LLM through the scaffolding and initial proofs of different components, and then I guide it through adding features. Along the way it makes mistakes and I guide it through fixing them. Then when it is slow, I profile and guide it through optimizations. So in the end, it's code that I know very, very well. I could have written it but it…

> I could have written it but it would have taken me about 3x longer when all is said and done. Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself. Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?

It is in many ways much like coaching a n00b, but a n00b that can do 10 hours of n00b work in 10 minutes (or, 2 minutes).

That's a significant difference. There are a lot of tasks that can be done by a n00b with some advice, especially when you can say "copy the pattern when I did this same basic thing here and here".

And there are a lot of things a n00b, or an LLM, can't do.

The study you reference was real, and I am not surprised — because accurately gauging the productivity win, or loss, obtained by using LLMs in real production coding workflows is also not junior stuff.

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#134

Post by athrowaway3z »

Hendrikto wrote: post #71
bentt wrote: post #60

The best code I've written with an LLM has been where I architect it, I guide the LLM through the scaffolding and initial proofs of different components, and then I guide it through adding features. Along the way it makes mistakes and I guide it through fixing them. Then when it is slow, I profile and guide it through optimizations. So in the end, it's code that I know very, very well. I could have written it but it…

> I could have written it but it would have taken me about 3x longer when all is said and done. Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself. Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?

> Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?

On a tangent; that study is brought up a lot. There are some issues with it, but I agree with the main takeaway to be weary of the feeling of productivity vs actual productivity.

But most of the time its brought up by AI skeptics, that conveniently gloss over the fact it's about averages.

Which, while organizationally interesting, is far less interesting than to discover what is and isn't currently possible at the tail end by the most skillful users.

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#135

Post by FpUser »

thecupisblue wrote: post #65
zarzavat wrote: post #26

If you search back HN history to the beginnings of AI coding in 2021 you will find people observing that AI is bad for juniors because they can't distinguish between good and bad completions. There is no surprise, it's always been this way. Edit interesting thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27678424 Edit: an example of the kind of comment I was talking about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27677690

Pretty much, but it already starts at the prompting and context level. Senior engineers either already know exactly where the changes need to be made and can suggest what to do. They probably know the pitfalls, have established patterns, architectures and designs in their head. Juniors on the other hand don't have that, so they go with whatever. Nowadays a lot of them also "ask ChatGPT about its opinion on architectu…

>"they will fill up their context with tries/retries until it works"

Or until it does not. On numerous occasions I've observed LLMs get stuck in the endless loop of fix: one thing, break the other. Senior is capable of fixing it themselves and juniors may not even have a clue how the code works.

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#136

Post by cjonas »

bentt wrote: post #60

The best code I've written with an LLM has been where I architect it, I guide the LLM through the scaffolding and initial proofs of different components, and then I guide it through adding features. Along the way it makes mistakes and I guide it through fixing them. Then when it is slow, I profile and guide it through optimizations. So in the end, it's code that I know very, very well. I could have written it but it…

Ya the early "studies" that said AI would benefit low skill more than senior never seem grounded in reality.

Coding with AI is like having a team of juniors that can complete their assignments in a few minutes instead of days. The more clear your instructions, the closer it is to what you wanted, but there are almost always changes needed.

Unfortunately it really does make the junior dev position redundant (although this may prove to be very short-sighted when all the SR devs retire).

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#137

Post by ay »

raincole wrote: post #108
giantg2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself." And if this is true, you will have to coach AI each time whereas a person should advance over time.

At least you can ask AI to summarize a AGENT.md or something and it will read it diligently next time. As for humans, they might not have the motivation technical writing skill to document what they learnt. And even if they did, the next person might not have the patience to actually read it.

"Read diligently" - that’s a very optimistic statement. I can not count how many times Claude (LLM I am most familiar with, I had it write probably about 100KLOC in the past few months) explicitly disobeyed what was written in the instructions.

Also, a good few times, if it were a human doing the task, I would have said they both failed to follow the instructions and lied about it and attempted to pretend they didn’t. Luckily their lying abilities today are primitive, so it’s easy to catch.

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#138

Post by tarsinge »

Hendrikto wrote: post #71
bentt wrote: post #60

The best code I've written with an LLM has been where I architect it, I guide the LLM through the scaffolding and initial proofs of different components, and then I guide it through adding features. Along the way it makes mistakes and I guide it through fixing them. Then when it is slow, I profile and guide it through optimizations. So in the end, it's code that I know very, very well. I could have written it but it…

> I could have written it but it would have taken me about 3x longer when all is said and done. Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself. Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?

Sure it’s a lot of work, but the noob in question has all the internet knowledge and can write multiples times faster than a human for a fraction of the costs. This is not about an individual being more productive, this is about business costs. Long term we should still hire and train juniors obviously, but short term there is lot of pressure to not do it as it makes no sense financially. Study or not the reality is there is not much difference in productivity between a senior with a cursor license and a senior and a junior that needs heavy guidance.

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#139

Post by billy99k »

At the moment, AI isn't good enough yet. Juniors can't tell the difference between bad coding practices or unmaintainable code. If the output is completely broken, they probably also have a hard time fixing it.

Seniors don't have these issues, so it will only make them more effective at their job.

Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

#140

Post by JustExAWS »

Simulacra wrote: post #116
falcor84 wrote: post #94

> Architecture: Without solid architecture, software quickly loses value. Today AI can’t truly design good architecture; it feels like it might, but this kind of reasoning still requires humans. Projects that start with weak architecture end up drowning in technical debt. I strongly disagree about this in regards to AI. While AI might not yet be great at designing good architecture, it can help you reason about it, a…

My friend works in legislative affairs for the government, and he uses the AI to reason with himself. To think through issues, and to generate new ideas. He uses it much like a private colleague, which in the world of just words, seems like a good idea.

That’s actually a horrible use of most chatbots if you don’t specifically prompt them to give you a devil’s advocate take.
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