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Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

hyperdev.matsuoka.com

21–30 of 58 posts

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#21

Look, maybe AI for professional programming is overhyped, but for the huge number of professionals who need to program as a part of their job, but programming is decidedly NOT their job, but who do not have programmers available to them, LLM's are.monunmental. For these people, these LLMs are huge productivity enhancers. We shouldn't be measuring productivity gain by professional programmers, but by the larger popula…

The thing is, the main reason the hype for software engineers is because they're the main cost of extremely lucrative SAAS companies. If you could do software without the engineers, that's basically just a VC's wet dream of extremely low cost of revenue. On top of very low marginal costs, typically 0 delivery costs (compared to shipping), often unencumbered by things like tariffs.

So like, 2-10xing the productivity of someone who gets paid But juicing an already extremely juicy fruit? Now that's worth 70x ARR.

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#22

Look, maybe AI for professional programming is overhyped, but for the huge number of professionals who need to program as a part of their job, but programming is decidedly NOT their job, but who do not have programmers available to them, LLM's are.monunmental. For these people, these LLMs are huge productivity enhancers. We shouldn't be measuring productivity gain by professional programmers, but by the larger popula…

The thing is, the main reason the hype for software engineers is because they're the main cost of extremely lucrative SAAS companies. If you could do software without the engineers, that's basically just a VC's wet dream of extremely low cost of revenue. On top of very low marginal costs, typically 0 delivery costs (compared to shipping), often unencumbered by things like tariffs. So like, 2-10xing the productivity o…

What's the end game? Why pay that SAAS paycheck if the AI can do it directly for the clients?

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#23
Revenue does exist .. showing demand/value. Also, valuation multiple of 25-70x ARR is in that "captn .. the engine is gonna blow up anything sir". Also, given their current design surface, rapid changes to the "core intelligence layer/substrate" & good usage workflow patterns that are still being discovered ... we are probably creating tech debt faster than value. Specs are great .. but we also discover the [stable/actual/valid] spec as we build (and often at the end of the build).

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#25

Look, maybe AI for professional programming is overhyped, but for the huge number of professionals who need to program as a part of their job, but programming is decidedly NOT their job, but who do not have programmers available to them, LLM's are.monunmental. For these people, these LLMs are huge productivity enhancers. We shouldn't be measuring productivity gain by professional programmers, but by the larger popula…

lol and Chamath is over here saying vibe coding is overhyped:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoCodeSaaS/comments/1mvb3tm/chamath...

Professional coders are the only ones who can get anything real out of llms(well, maybe a 19% decrease in productivity but it’s not fake.

Do you have a source on that “impact is monumental for non developers”? Because most of what I’ve been reading is that group is mostly vaporware.

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, the main reason the hype for software engineers is because they're the main cost of extremely lucrative SAAS companies. If you could do software without the engineers, that's basically just a VC's wet dream of extremely low cost of revenue. On top of very low marginal costs, typically 0 delivery costs (compared to shipping), often unencumbered by things like tariffs. So like, 2-10xing the productivity o…

What's the end game? Why pay that SAAS paycheck if the AI can do it directly for the clients?

It can’t.

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#27

Look, maybe AI for professional programming is overhyped, but for the huge number of professionals who need to program as a part of their job, but programming is decidedly NOT their job, but who do not have programmers available to them, LLM's are.monunmental. For these people, these LLMs are huge productivity enhancers. We shouldn't be measuring productivity gain by professional programmers, but by the larger popula…

lol and Chamath is over here saying vibe coding is overhyped: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoCodeSaaS/comments/1mvb3tm/chamath... Professional coders are the only ones who can get anything real out of llms(well, maybe a 19% decrease in productivity but it’s not fake. Do you have a source on that “impact is monumental for non developers”? Because most of what I’ve been reading is that group is mostly vaporware.

There is a big gulf between the know-nothing vibe-coding and a professional programmer using a LLM, with lots and lots of people somewhere in the middle, who can code, but is slow at it because they are always learning on the fly, coding just a few hours a week, targeted at small goals, like data wrangling in a pipeline, small applications to replace clunky and error prone Excel books. No, I don't have a study to back it up, just my own experiences in how much I have done this last year. Maybe it doesn't apply to corps with a lot of top down beuraceacy, but in small to medium-sized enterprises, I am convinced it is an engine of agile innovation

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#28
post #20

The “X% AI coded” metric needs to die. It is completely meaningless. The nature of development work is changing. A project can be 100% written by AI but guided so closely by humans that the process wasn’t much faster. Alternatively, AI can make a project faster by helping with architecture and other things beyond writing code. When people quote “70% AI coded”, it implies that 100% is some mythical goal that means AI…

Everyone knows this including the Companies that say these things and their customers.

They leverage/exploit the fact that it takes time to Verify anything. [Hype-verification gap]

Their theory goes if you use that time delay to beat the drum louder than the next guy you have a shot at attracting more customers, investors, employee, govt support than if you dont. Those who don't do it appear less Ambitious or Capable. Exploit and amplify that also.

Chimps have 3 inch brains. And this is all easier to do than solving quantum field equations. So they do it happily, cluelessly, patting each other on the head about how fascinating they are.

As soon as one chimp troupe (corp) does it well, everyone else does the same, and that's when the entire system experiences a phase transition.

It's no more about what individual chimps or companies say or think, a super structure has emerged, which traps everyone Inside the super structure, into patterns they can't escape.

Stories emerge about what the super structure is then doing. Outsider and Insider stories start diverging. And we get a bifurcation point a moment in chaos theory where one neat line splits into 2, 4, 1000, until you can’t tell what’s signal and what’s noise[1] It’s all feedback where every claim feeds on every other claim, a forest of branches growing out of thin air and verification moves too slowly to prune it.

So what's the message to the kids watching it all and getting absorbed by it? Recognize when you have jumped into the chaos stream between bifurcation and verification. When everything starts to sound urgent, revolutionary, world-changing but no one can show you how or why youre standing dead center in chaos. Stories multiply faster than facts can catch up, where everyone’s pretending to see patterns that arent there yet. The louder it gets, the less meaning there is.That’s your cue to walk sideways. Dont let it drain your attention, time and energy. There are better things to do in life. [1]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Lo...

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, the main reason the hype for software engineers is because they're the main cost of extremely lucrative SAAS companies. If you could do software without the engineers, that's basically just a VC's wet dream of extremely low cost of revenue. On top of very low marginal costs, typically 0 delivery costs (compared to shipping), often unencumbered by things like tariffs. So like, 2-10xing the productivity o…

What's the end game? Why pay that SAAS paycheck if the AI can do it directly for the clients?

Maybe they think the LLMs will never be able to do sales or… I don’t know… make vision boards (or whatever it is CEOs do).

Re: Is AI a Bubble? I Didn't Think So Until I Heard of SDD

#30

Look, maybe AI for professional programming is overhyped, but for the huge number of professionals who need to program as a part of their job, but programming is decidedly NOT their job, but who do not have programmers available to them, LLM's are.monunmental. For these people, these LLMs are huge productivity enhancers. We shouldn't be measuring productivity gain by professional programmers, but by the larger popula…

> For these people, these LLMs are huge productivity enhancers.

Yes, it allows them to solve their desperate need to combine spreadsheets, creating one big merged spreadsheet with pockets of corrupted data and fake last-names. It either lies undiscovered until clients complain, or I notice and have to redo the work for them properly, without an LLM. :p

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