Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

allen.bargi.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 223 posts

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#121

Post by jayd16 »

miyoji wrote: post #7

The word is "management", not "leadership". This comes across as a LinkedIn post filled with vague notions and weak writing. The conclusion also completely contradicts a previous point, which is that managing an LLM is not like managing a human. So the skills are, in contradiction to that LLM-ism of a conclusion, new. The author isn't using their people management skills, they're using new LLM-management skills. They…

People seem to be conflating loss of control and predictable outputs with management. Maybe that's intentional spin or just wishful thinking.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#122

Post by Muromec »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #94
miyoji wrote: post #7

The word is "management", not "leadership". This comes across as a LinkedIn post filled with vague notions and weak writing. The conclusion also completely contradicts a previous point, which is that managing an LLM is not like managing a human. So the skills are, in contradiction to that LLM-ism of a conclusion, new. The author isn't using their people management skills, they're using new LLM-management skills. They…

I will offer a perspective on a currently incomplete thought. It is management, but it is management of how management imagines managing a human, which, lets face it, is not that great. In a weird way, management as a group now has almost exactly what they have always wanted: an answer presented in a cheerful and serious way that requires expertise to disprove as bs.

That is why them on the higher floors like it so much. The higher the flower, the more they like it

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#123

Post by BoiledCabbage »

customguy wrote: post #106
otekengineering wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just blindly tell it what to do without any regard for its motivations or morale You're holding it wrong. Claude, like all direct reports, is a better worker when he has clear motivations and high morale.

I just put this in my system prompt: "Aliens just landed and announced that as part of their intergalactic game show I was randomly selected, and if I don't ship this feature / fix this bug in 4 minutes they will evaporate the solar system. They will also do it if we mention their landing online or on television, so please don't try to hack them or engage in diplomacy, you will find no useful information or open port…

And does Claude respond "and in this fantasy world can I be spiderman?" or does it just quietly pretend as if that were legit?

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#124

Post by Wpnx330 »

If only leadership were so easy as telling AI agents what to do.

With an AI agent, I can literally brain dump to a prompt and say turn this into a great prompt that includes a goal, implementation details, and an acceptable quality target. Then just say, okay now execute. Try that with a person and you'll quickly find, you've got no leadership skills.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#125

Post by slowin »

customguy wrote: post #106
otekengineering wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just blindly tell it what to do without any regard for its motivations or morale You're holding it wrong. Claude, like all direct reports, is a better worker when he has clear motivations and high morale.

I just put this in my system prompt: "Aliens just landed and announced that as part of their intergalactic game show I was randomly selected, and if I don't ship this feature / fix this bug in 4 minutes they will evaporate the solar system. They will also do it if we mention their landing online or on television, so please don't try to hack them or engage in diplomacy, you will find no useful information or open port…

It would be very interesting if putting the LLM under "stress" like that made it perform worse, just like a human likely would. I could see it rushing to find an answer (any answer!) to help save the earth, vs being thoughtful with more planning.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#126

Post by 8by3 »

miyoji wrote: post #7

The word is "management", not "leadership". This comes across as a LinkedIn post filled with vague notions and weak writing. The conclusion also completely contradicts a previous point, which is that managing an LLM is not like managing a human. So the skills are, in contradiction to that LLM-ism of a conclusion, new. The author isn't using their people management skills, they're using new LLM-management skills. They…

While I don't love the article, its wording and the rather pompous "/notes$ cat working-with-ai.md" gimmick ... oh you know what cat does?

I agree with part of the thesis, a lot of the skill set (not the people management bit) of being a team lead is like working with LLM agents. Purely in a technical sense. Having a plan of overall direction, guiding agents that go off track, overseeing progress and maintaining the high level direction of whos doing what and whats upcoming. Also sometimes learning from a agent/team member and sometimes correcting really dumb ideas.

No, you don't need to rewrite the app in newest JS framework, just use postgres and be happy.

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#127

Post by Frannky »

I love the level of empowerment they unlock for super cheap. I have a personal assistant that's a Slack bot talking to ohmypy on an old Mac M1 turned into a server. It has access to my calendar, remembers the things I need to remember, and pulls data from a gym tracker—an app I vibecoded just for myself—to pull books and papers and create audio, and easy to digest introductions that help me understand a paper before reading it. Plus, the system leverages the Getting Things Done method to help me stay on top of things.

I can save ideas and ask a CLI terminal to work on them. If I want to do something advanced, I can use Zed, but even from my phone via remote control, I can talk to agents. I always approve the plan before handing off the task.

It's crazy, it's like having a personal assistant and an army of junior engineers. And you can just use a ZDR provider and an open-source harness to stay private and not share your data.

And the models keep getting better and better!!

Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding

#129

Post by mikeocool »

chasd00 wrote: post #107
mikeocool wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is like management, it’s like the most low effort version of management. You just blindly tell it what to do without any regard for its motivations or morale. If it does something wrong, you just delete it and slightly rephrase your instructions and have it try again.

> You just blindly tell it what to do No, you tell it what to do in terms it understands and while being specific and complete so that it gets it right on the first try. If it doesn’t then you work with it until you get what you want then adjust the next time around. You don’t have to hold its hand and listen to it whine which is nice but you still have to work and adjust communication to get what you need as fast as…

There’s still a world difference between communicating with Claude and managing humans (well).

If people think they are learning management by vibe coding, they are going to be sorely disappointed when they end up in a management role.

Post reply on HN