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When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

robert-glaser.de

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Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#161

Post by ambicapter »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #144
SoftTalker wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We make software just like how Ford makes cars". People who say this kind of thing probably have no idea how Ford makes cars either. The assembly line is the last step. All the research, design, engineering, and testing happens before any sheet metal is stamped out. So the comparison might be more true than not, but unknowingly.

It's not true at all. In software, the factory line is nothing but cp or httpd and neither costs nor produces any value. In cars, the factory line both costs and produces all the value.

Really? So all the designers and engineers at Ford who don't have an iota of a car built by the time they're done with their work aren't producing any value?

Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#162

Post by darth_avocado »

embedding-shape wrote: post #11
pards wrote: post #7

In 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…

> Large enterprises need to learn how to ship software faster They haven't even learned that "less code is better" yet, I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for them to suddenly learn "more advanced" things like that before they learn the basics.

From the article:

> The whole thing dies if it turns into employee scoring

All ICs know this and some management does, but I’m willing to put money that it will 100% become employee scoring.

Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#165

Post by pards »

ericmcer wrote: post #151
pards wrote: post #7

In 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…

That's enterprise tech also? I wonder what adoption is like at older non-tech companies. The office next to mine is being used to teach a bunch of 20-30 year olds how to be insurance brokers using a powerpoint presentation. Copy paste the presentation into an LLM and you just replaced them all. It feels like... things might be kind of dark in 10-20 years if we just keep barreling down this road.

It's scary. Our society is not set up to deal with mass unemployment.

Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#166

Post by Brian_K_White »

ambicapter wrote: post #161
Brian_K_White wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true at all. In software, the factory line is nothing but cp or httpd and neither costs nor produces any value. In cars, the factory line both costs and produces all the value.

Really? So all the designers and engineers at Ford who don't have an iota of a car built by the time they're done with their work aren't producing any value?

The design is like the electricity to the factory. You need it or else you get no cars at all, but it's a small percentage of the total resources consumed and produces no value at all directly.

Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#167

Post by ravenstine »

SoftTalker wrote: post #146
ravenstine wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kinda racks my brain how a lot of people don't think this way. For example, way before the current state of AI, I wrote my own CLI to make aspects of my job easier and easier to write scripts to automate; some colleagues have noticed my tool and said I should share it, and my diplomatically worded answer is no. I don't share it with anyone because of the negative return in both supporting it and everyone else bein…

> I wrote my own CLI to make aspects of my job easier I mean, according to your employment agreement, that code is owned by your employer, since you wrote it as an employee for use at work. They could easily demand that you share it, if they knew it existed. This just illustrates that smart people figure out their own productivity/time-saving shortcuts at work, and little scripts and tools like this are part of it. H…

Yeah, well, I challenge them to do that. In the meantime, I'll keep it to myself.

Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#168

Post by herpderperator »

asdfman123 wrote: post #132
dakiol wrote: post #126

If 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…

1) The game is not ending, it's changing. AI can sling a lot of code but we still need engineers that actually understand what the hell is going on. That's always been the bottleneck. It could eliminate junior positions, but seniors are fine for now. 2) It's been a hard lesson for me to learn because I'm naturally a contrarian, but you are hired to do what management wants you to do. If you resist, your best bet is t…

If you eliminate juniors over the next few years, there will be no seniors for the future when the current seniors retire.

Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#169

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #144
SoftTalker wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We make software just like how Ford makes cars". People who say this kind of thing probably have no idea how Ford makes cars either. The assembly line is the last step. All the research, design, engineering, and testing happens before any sheet metal is stamped out. So the comparison might be more true than not, but unknowingly.

It's not true at all. In software, the factory line is nothing but cp or httpd and neither costs nor produces any value. In cars, the factory line both costs and produces all the value.

> In cars, the factory line both costs and produces all the value.

Does that apply to phones?

Re: When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

#170

Post by themafia »

pards wrote: post #7

In 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…

> lock in ROI

On code you cannot possibly copyright. Yea they're all on the verge of "Locking in."

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