> The company may still learn almost nothing.
Not a problem if the hired "AI" now does that job. /i
When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
121–130 of 298 posts
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#122In my large enterprise world, AI adoption hasn't made it outside of the development teams - only developers have access to Github Copilot. Code takes 6-12 months to make it from commit to production. Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. AI makes these post-development bottlenecks w…
> Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. So much of Management (both mid and executive) still considers Software as if it were an assembly line; "We make software just like how Ford makes cars". Code as a product. Which isn't to say that most software development isn't woefully ineff…
> So much of Management (both mid and executive) still considers Software as if it were an assembly line; "We make software just like how Ford makes cars". Code as a product.
Which, it should be noted, is the dumbest idea ever. The Ford assembly line makes more-or-less identical copies of the same design. How do you do that with software? The cp command.
If someone thinks like that, they probably read some business book and either didn't understand the book, don't understand their own business, or is following some guru who has one of those problems.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#123The post hits the nail on the head with the messy middle. There is simply no motivation to develop this sort of intelligence loop as a dev who has their own responsibilities which their job depend on. Management can ask as nicely as they want, but I’m not going to selflessly share my productivity gains with the broader company for free. I might share a tool if it’s useful. All the learning of how to wrangle AI or set…
Another angle I see is that AI tools start by benefiting the individual and the user captures the increased productivity (you could argue appearance thereof) in the form of slack time. Some tedium almost eliminated here, a problem handed off and crushed over there, and we've got an extra hour or four back in our day.
Does that person rationally go find more work to take on with that reclaimed time? Probably not unless it's their company or exceptional motivating circumstances exist.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. So much of Management (both mid and executive) still considers Software as if it were an assembly line; "We make software just like how Ford makes cars". Code as a product. Which isn't to say that most software development isn't woefully ineff…
> So much of Management (both mid and executive) still considers Software as if it were an assembly line; "We make software just like how Ford makes cars". Code as a product. Which, it should be noted, is the dumbest idea ever . The Ford assembly line makes more-or-less identical copies of the same design. How do you do that with software? The cp command. If someone thinks like that, they probably read some business…
> If someone thinks like that
So like 95% of business school graduates?
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#125In my large enterprise world, AI adoption hasn't made it outside of the development teams - only developers have access to Github Copilot. Code takes 6-12 months to make it from commit to production. Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. AI makes these post-development bottlenecks w…
> Code takes 6-12 months to make it from commit to production. That seems wild, niche/highly specialized field?
Nope. Banking.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#126If you're a regular engineer like me, there's no real upside to using AI in a company setting. They're boiling us. Of course, the HN elite (investors, execs, celebrities, and top-tier engineers) will say otherwise because "how can you be against innovation man?"
AI/LLMs aren't innovation the way TCP/IP, linux, or postgres were. To be clear: claude/codex/gemini/grok/whatever exist for profit, to squeeze the last drop of productivity out of you until there's nothing left, and then you're disposable (laid off).
If you like AI, use open source models, use them in your side projects.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. So much of Management (both mid and executive) still considers Software as if it were an assembly line; "We make software just like how Ford makes cars". Code as a product. Which isn't to say that most software development isn't woefully ineff…
> So much of Management (both mid and executive) still considers Software as if it were an assembly line; "We make software just like how Ford makes cars". Code as a product. Which, it should be noted, is the dumbest idea ever . The Ford assembly line makes more-or-less identical copies of the same design. How do you do that with software? The cp command. If someone thinks like that, they probably read some business…
Precisely, cars are more-or-less identical copies, at each position along the assembly line its just one of a handful of variants of the step that needs to be executed.
Software is less like an assembly line and more like plumbing:
Some people design which type of pipe needs to be routed from here to there.
The implementor actually pipes the outputs of one function, in a variable, and then taps it off as an argument to another function.
Software development is like plumbing really, so a good manager of a pipeworks and plumbing company might actually make a good manager for software companies as well.
This is also why its actually not so surprising that LLM's are mastering programming skills, it's essentially just being a plumber, and a lot of people are happy they no longer need to be a plumber. Physicists, engineers, scientists, ... they have much more complicated tasks compared to plumbers, programmers and code monkeys.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#128In my large enterprise world, AI adoption hasn't made it outside of the development teams - only developers have access to Github Copilot. Code takes 6-12 months to make it from commit to production. Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. AI makes these post-development bottlenecks w…
> Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. So much of Management (both mid and executive) still considers Software as if it were an assembly line; "We make software just like how Ford makes cars". Code as a product. Which isn't to say that most software development isn't woefully ineff…
> They're not going to dredge up decade old institutional knowledge
Worse—they'll get the people who hold that knowledge laid off, and at least 50% of the institutional knowledge won't be documented anywhere that even could be fed to the LLM.
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#129The post hits the nail on the head with the messy middle. There is simply no motivation to develop this sort of intelligence loop as a dev who has their own responsibilities which their job depend on. Management can ask as nicely as they want, but I’m not going to selflessly share my productivity gains with the broader company for free. I might share a tool if it’s useful. All the learning of how to wrangle AI or set…
Another angle I see is that AI tools start by benefiting the individual and the user captures the increased productivity (you could argue appearance thereof) in the form of slack time. Some tedium almost eliminated here, a problem handed off and crushed over there, and we've got an extra hour or four back in our day. Does that person rationally go find more work to take on with that reclaimed time? Probably not unles…
I see a lot of this talk on HN
yet I don't see anyone question whether management will be just as excited to see that less work is needed and that it'd just result in layoffs
Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing
#130In my large enterprise world, AI adoption hasn't made it outside of the development teams - only developers have access to Github Copilot. Code takes 6-12 months to make it from commit to production. Development speed was never the bottleneck; it's all the other processes that take time: infra provisioning, testing, sign-offs, change management, deployment scheduling etc. AI makes these post-development bottlenecks w…
The Mythical Man Month should really be a mandatory reading for anyone working in software… and I don’t mean reading a Claude summary
I asked who hadn’t read that in an engineering meeting recently. No one had heard of it. Now, I have been in tech for my entire life. That book was given to me in 1993 as I was just starting out in college.
NO ONE in my meeting was familiar with the title or author.
I felt a little more impending doom upon realizing that.