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Two kinds of AI users are emerging

martinalderson.com

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Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#151

Post by sevenzero »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #142

I'd argue 2 types of users are * People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations and treating it basically as intern/boring task executor (whether its some code boilerplate, or pooping out/shortening some corporate email), or as tool to give themselves summary of topic they can then bite into deeper. * People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are int…

I started to outsource thinking at my job as my company made it very clear that they do not want/cant afford thinking engineers. Thinking requires time and they want to deliver quickly. So they cater towards the very realistic deadlines our PMs set for features (/s). Funnily enough the features have to be implemented ASAP according to the customers, but the customer feedback takes like 6 months due to them using the new feature for the first time 6 months after delivery. I just dont care anymore. Gonna leave the learning part up to my time off, but getting generally tired of the industry as a whole, so just putting in minimal effort to pay my bills until things explode or get better. So for me its definitely outsourcing thinking at work.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#152

Post by 3D30497420 »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #142

I'd argue 2 types of users are * People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations and treating it basically as intern/boring task executor (whether its some code boilerplate, or pooping out/shortening some corporate email), or as tool to give themselves summary of topic they can then bite into deeper. * People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are int…

> People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are interested only in results, and are not interested in knowing more about the topic or honing their skills in the topic

And this may be fine in certain cases.

I'm learning German and my listening comprehension is marginal. I took a practice test and one of the exercises was listening to 15-30 seconds of audio followed by questions. I did terribly, but it seemed like a good way to practice. I used Claude Code to create a small app to generate short audio (via ElevenLabs) dialogs and set of questions. I ran the results by my German teacher and he was impressed.

I'm aware of the limitations: Sometimes the audio isn't great (it tends to mess up phone numbers), it can only a small part of my work learning German, etc.

The key part: I could have coded it, but I have other more important projects. I don't care that I didn't learn about the code. What I care about is I'm improving my German.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#153

Post by jjav »

somat wrote: post #104
danpalmer wrote: post #29

I've noticed a huge gap between AI use on greenfield projects and brownfield projects. The first day of working on a greenfield project I can accomplish a week of work. But the second day I can accomplish a few days of work. By the end of the first week I'm getting a 20% productivity gain. I think AI is just allowing everyone to speed-run the innovator's dilemma. Anyone can create a small version of anything, while b…

Isn't this true of any greenfield project? with or without generative models. The first few days are amazingly productive. and then features and fixes get slower and slower. And you get to see how good an engineer you really are, as your initial architecture starts straining under the demands of changing real world requirements and you hope it holds together long enough to ship something. "I could make that in a week…

> Isn't this true of any greenfield project?

That is a good point and true to some extent. But IME with AI, both the initial speedup and the eventual slowdown are accelerated vs. a human.

I've been thinking that one reason is that while AI coding generates code far faster (on a greenfield project I estimate about 50x), it also generates tech-debt at a hyperastonishing rate.

It used to be that tech debt started to catch up with teams in a few years, but with AI coded software it's only a few months into it that tech debt is so massive that it is slowing progress down.

I also find that I can keep the tech debt in check by using the bot only as a junior engineer, where I specify precisely the architecture and the design down to object and function definitions and I only let the bot write individual functions at a time.

That is much slower, but also much more sustainable. I'd estimate my productivity gains are "only" 2x to 3x (instead of ~50x) but tech debt accumulates no faster than a purely human-coded project.

This is based on various projects only about one year into it, so time will tell how it evolves longer term.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#154

Post by sevenzero »

danpalmer wrote: post #29

I've noticed a huge gap between AI use on greenfield projects and brownfield projects. The first day of working on a greenfield project I can accomplish a week of work. But the second day I can accomplish a few days of work. By the end of the first week I'm getting a 20% productivity gain. I think AI is just allowing everyone to speed-run the innovator's dilemma. Anyone can create a small version of anything, while b…

> Anyone can create a small version of anything

Yup. My biggest issue with designing software is usually designing the system architecture/infra. I am very opposed to just shove everything to AWS and call it a day, you dont learn anything from that, cloud performance stinks for many things and I dont want to get random 30k bills because I let some instance of something run accidentally.

AI sucks at determining what kinda infrastructure would be great for scenario x due to Cloud being to go to solution for the lazy dev. Tried to get it to recommend a way to self host stuff, but thats just a general security hazard.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#155

Post by deafpolygon »

There’s also an emerging group of users (such as myself) who essentially use it primarily as an “on-demand” teacher and not as a productivity tool.

I am learning software development without having it generate code for me—preferring to have it explain each thing line-by-line. But… it’s not only for learning development, but I can query it for historical information and have it point me to the source of the information (so I can read the primary sources as much as possible).

It allows me to customize the things I want to learn at my own pace, while also allowing me to diverge for a moment from the learning material. I have found it invaluable… and so far, Gemini has been pretty good at this (probably owing to the integration of Google search into Gemini).

It lets me cut through the SEO crap that has plagued search engines in recent years.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#156

Post by isqueiros »

3D30497420 wrote: post #152
PunchyHamster wrote: post #142

I'd argue 2 types of users are * People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations and treating it basically as intern/boring task executor (whether its some code boilerplate, or pooping out/shortening some corporate email), or as tool to give themselves summary of topic they can then bite into deeper. * People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are int…

> People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are interested only in results, and are not interested in knowing more about the topic or honing their skills in the topic And this may be fine in certain cases. I'm learning German and my listening comprehension is marginal. I took a practice test and one of the exercises was listening to 15-30 seconds of audio…

Seems like you are part of the first group then, not the second. The fact that you are interested in learning and are using it as a tool disqualifies you from someone who has little clue and just wants to get something out (i.e. just spit out code)

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#157

Post by unlikelymordant »

jjav wrote: post #153
somat wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this true of any greenfield project? with or without generative models. The first few days are amazingly productive. and then features and fixes get slower and slower. And you get to see how good an engineer you really are, as your initial architecture starts straining under the demands of changing real world requirements and you hope it holds together long enough to ship something. "I could make that in a week…

> Isn't this true of any greenfield project? That is a good point and true to some extent. But IME with AI, both the initial speedup and the eventual slowdown are accelerated vs. a human. I've been thinking that one reason is that while AI coding generates code far faster (on a greenfield project I estimate about 50x), it also generates tech-debt at a hyperastonishing rate. It used to be that tech debt started to cat…

In your experience, can you take the tech debt riddled code, and ask claude to come up with an entirely new version that fixes the tech debt/design issues you've identified? Presumably there's a set of tests that you'd keep the same, but you could leverage the power of ai in greenfield scenarios to just do a rewrite (while letting it see the old code). I dont know how well this would work, i havn't got to the heavy tech debt stage in any of my projects as I do mostly prototyping. I'd be interested in others thoughts.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#158

Post by 3D30497420 »

isqueiros wrote: post #156
3D30497420 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are interested only in results, and are not interested in knowing more about the topic or honing their skills in the topic And this may be fine in certain cases. I'm learning German and my listening comprehension is marginal. I took a practice test and one of the exercises was listening to 15-30 seconds of audio…

Seems like you are part of the first group then, not the second. The fact that you are interested in learning and are using it as a tool disqualifies you from someone who has little clue and just wants to get something out (i.e. just spit out code)

As I reread the original post, I'm not actually not sure which group I fall into. I think there's a bunch of overlap depending on perspective/how you read it:

> Group 1: intern/boring task executor

Yup, that makes sense I'm in group 1.

> Group 2: "outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are interested only in results"

Also me (in this case), as I'm outsourcing the software development part and just want the final app.

Soo... I probably have thought too much about the original proposed groups. I'm not sure they are as clear as the original suggests.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#159

Post by gloomyday »

sevenzero wrote: post #151
PunchyHamster wrote: post #142

I'd argue 2 types of users are * People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations and treating it basically as intern/boring task executor (whether its some code boilerplate, or pooping out/shortening some corporate email), or as tool to give themselves summary of topic they can then bite into deeper. * People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are int…

I started to outsource thinking at my job as my company made it very clear that they do not want/cant afford thinking engineers. Thinking requires time and they want to deliver quickly. So they cater towards the very realistic deadlines our PMs set for features (/s). Funnily enough the features have to be implemented ASAP according to the customers, but the customer feedback takes like 6 months due to them using the…

This is a fatalistic attitude, but I can totally get behind. It has become harder to associate my job with contributing with society.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#160

Post by notarobot123 »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #142

I'd argue 2 types of users are * People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations and treating it basically as intern/boring task executor (whether its some code boilerplate, or pooping out/shortening some corporate email), or as tool to give themselves summary of topic they can then bite into deeper. * People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are int…

> The second group is one that thinks talking to a chatbot will replace senior developer

And the first group thinks that these tools will enable them to replace a whole team of developers.

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