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Have a Coherent AI Policy

brianmeeker.me

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Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#11

Post by drodgers »

ergonaught wrote: post #7
mikestorrent wrote: post #4

> You must understand what your AI generated code does Absolutely yes. > You must be able to do your job if your AI tooling disappears Absolutely not. Look, I'm an alright programmer. Not good, far from great. Interpreted languages work for me; add all that strong typing and compilation and it starts to go beyond what I'm interested in. Nonetheless, pre-AI, I have shipped many very functional, production-grade applic…

If you can't do the job without AI, you can't do the job. Spoiler alert: if you can't do the job, you're not going to be doing the job much longer.

'If you can't build a TODO list app using only punchcards, then you can't do your job...'

Obviously our ambitions expand due to better tools. I now commit to and deliver much more work than before LLMs, and — before then — ditto for frontend frameworks, generation 4 languages etc.

There are projects I now start without thinking twice that I never would have considered a few years ago.

That's what productivity looks like, and it makes you more valuable, and your job more secure (up until the ASI kills us all...).

Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#12

Post by esafak »

ergonaught wrote: post #7
mikestorrent wrote: post #4

> You must understand what your AI generated code does Absolutely yes. > You must be able to do your job if your AI tooling disappears Absolutely not. Look, I'm an alright programmer. Not good, far from great. Interpreted languages work for me; add all that strong typing and compilation and it starts to go beyond what I'm interested in. Nonetheless, pre-AI, I have shipped many very functional, production-grade applic…

If you can't do the job without AI, you can't do the job. Spoiler alert: if you can't do the job, you're not going to be doing the job much longer.

AI allows you to do things you could not do before so it is fair to say they can't do the new job without AI.

Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#13

Post by ngriffiths »

As a fun exercise replace AI with "junior" and "junior" with "mid-level." It holds up pretty well, as a manager you have responsibility for the work your team does and "make everyone put in more hours for no reason" is dumb. Maybe it comes across a bit neglecting of the "juniors" (in particular, it doesn't show any desire for figuring out ways for AI/"the juniors" to grow their responsibilities in a sustainable way).

Imagine reading that version as someone who doesn't know how big companies work. "But then they'll just fire all the mid-level managers, since they don't do any of the actual work!" Haha, boy would you be wrong.

Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#14

Post by SeanAnderson »

sublinear wrote: post #6
mikestorrent wrote: post #4

> You must understand what your AI generated code does Absolutely yes. > You must be able to do your job if your AI tooling disappears Absolutely not. Look, I'm an alright programmer. Not good, far from great. Interpreted languages work for me; add all that strong typing and compilation and it starts to go beyond what I'm interested in. Nonetheless, pre-AI, I have shipped many very functional, production-grade applic…

> only a fool would pretend he can do everything the same without it now Unless you're working in a coding sweatshop, I don't see why you need AI to do what people have been doing for decades just fine without breaking a sweat. What are you working on?

Your competition's behavior necessarily affects you unless your company has an unassailable moat.

If other companies are able to tolerate larger amounts of tech debt while shipping new features faster then you'll be out of a job at some point when your company loses market share.

It's fine if you disagree with the idea that AI lets established companies ship faster. I'm not here to argue that. But I think it's pretty easy to empathize with "why might one need to change their behavior due to this new technology?"

Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#16

Post by rsoto2 »

ergonaught wrote: post #7
mikestorrent wrote: post #4

> You must understand what your AI generated code does Absolutely yes. > You must be able to do your job if your AI tooling disappears Absolutely not. Look, I'm an alright programmer. Not good, far from great. Interpreted languages work for me; add all that strong typing and compilation and it starts to go beyond what I'm interested in. Nonetheless, pre-AI, I have shipped many very functional, production-grade applic…

If you can't do the job without AI, you can't do the job. Spoiler alert: if you can't do the job, you're not going to be doing the job much longer.

in before the mods accuse you of being "too mean"

Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#17

Post by rsoto2 »

esafak wrote: post #12
ergonaught wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't do the job without AI, you can't do the job. Spoiler alert: if you can't do the job, you're not going to be doing the job much longer.

AI allows you to do things you could not do before so it is fair to say they can't do the new job without AI.

What if I can do everything the AI can like read, interpret, and implement code(and not in a likely copyright-breaking way) but also reason about it better.

Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#18

Post by rsoto2 »

mikestorrent wrote: post #4

> You must understand what your AI generated code does Absolutely yes. > You must be able to do your job if your AI tooling disappears Absolutely not. Look, I'm an alright programmer. Not good, far from great. Interpreted languages work for me; add all that strong typing and compilation and it starts to go beyond what I'm interested in. Nonetheless, pre-AI, I have shipped many very functional, production-grade applic…

I can do everything the same without it, because I'm still not using it. Why would I want to be a guinea pig for the world's richest companies and also atrophy my brain.

Re: Have a Coherent AI Policy

#20

Post by sublinear »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #14
sublinear wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only a fool would pretend he can do everything the same without it now Unless you're working in a coding sweatshop, I don't see why you need AI to do what people have been doing for decades just fine without breaking a sweat. What are you working on?

Your competition's behavior necessarily affects you unless your company has an unassailable moat. If other companies are able to tolerate larger amounts of tech debt while shipping new features faster then you'll be out of a job at some point when your company loses market share. It's fine if you disagree with the idea that AI lets established companies ship faster. I'm not here to argue that. But I think it's pretty…

> unless your company has an unassailable moat

Is not working in SV enough of a moat?

> If other companies are able to tolerate larger amounts of tech debt while shipping new features faster then you'll be out of a job at some point when your company loses market share.

I'm saying that B2B services are very common outside of SV and more focused on stability, compliance, long-term maintenance, and the operational knowhow that comes with all that rather than just shipping new features. It's not that there isn't some competition, but that the business is built on much more comprehensive partnerships than just being a software vendor. I can't believe I'm saying this, but "synergy" sometimes isn't just a meaningless buzzword.

When you try to jam "AI" into the mix, the disruption harms the business value. Many including myself would like to be enlightened if you think otherwise.

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