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Domain expertise has always been the real moat

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Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#151

Post by fragmede »

michaelchisari wrote: post #92
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domain expertise combined with a QA mindset could replace SWE, but consistent QA mindset is rare

I disagree. At some point of complexity, building it yourself is faster, better and (as we're finding out) cheaper. And more fun, although that varies person to person. Wrestling with a code generator also creates a sunk cost fallacy where progress grinds to a halt but you still try and use the tools to fix the problems the tools created. Or you go in and fix things yourself, in a codebase you don't truly understand.…

Who's got better marketing? Is it even a product that customers care about rock solid and performant? Which ones cheaper and has the least friction to getting started? Which one's CEO golfs with your company's CEO?

Time and time again, the market proves worse is better, from the format wars of the 80's and 90's, to Microsoft Windows still being dominant (and oh yeah, Teams). Sometimes quality does win, but if being built in 3 days means they can make a profit charging 1/100th the price of Z, I wouldn't count the cheap ones out of the game just because Z is better.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#152

Post by threethirtytwo »

4fff wrote: post #130
threethirtytwo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chatgpt can already do a big part of this job since most of the "therapy" needs to be self directed. So consult the AI and have it tell you what you need to do.

You cannot be serious surely? Why do you think people get trained by a PT in person? Its not simply training - it actually goes well beyond into the realm of 'wellness'. man you are a certified bozo.

Only about 10% to 20% of PT genuinely sessions need to be in person. It's similar to going to a doctors office, not every appointment technically needs to happen in person. That makes most PT sessions basically AI-able.

It takes a lot of balls to call me a bozo when it's obvious you're the one who's an idiot.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#153

Post by stronglikedan »

crab_galaxy wrote: post #100
andai wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vibe coded a simple game (10,000 tokens of source code) with two popular coding agents. (Once each, to compare.) One spent 200,000 tokens, to produce 10,000. The other spent 1.9 million. It could have been a single LLM call (10k tokens). lmao (I note that the latter was designed by a company whose main source of revenue is token spend...)

What about the other 998 million tokens?

lots and lots of simple games

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#154

Post by consumer451 »

letitgo12345 wrote: post #73
consumer451 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used billions of tokens last month alone. I use Claude Code (Opus 4.6 at max effort) all day long, and I genuinely don't understand how this is possible. Is that usage paying off? This is very likely due to my lack of understanding, but... how?

Long codex sessions lead to a lot of cached token hits, esp when you resume them after a few hours.

I personally don't count cached hits as $used... Neither in my harnesses, nor in the LLM-enabled apps I create. A cached token cannot be counted 1:1 as to a non-cached token, that would be silly.

Wait... when some Claude 5x/20x users say they are getting "$2000 of tokens for $100," does the 2k value include cached tokens, counted at the same $/token either way?

We cannot be this dumb as a community, can we? I must be wrong/misunderstanding..

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#156

Post by TurdF3rguson »

I have the opposite take. Because Claude is also a domain expert at most things, and you can unit test your way to making things "just work".

If you ask me and a logistics dispatcher the task of building logistics dispatching software (whatever that is), I will get there first.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#158

Post by skydhash »

simonw wrote: post #128
toastmaster11 wrote: post #62

How much pontificating needs to be done before people acknowledge nobody has any idea what to do with AI on an individual level? First being good developer and learning how to use AI was sufficient, next it was being able to design architecture, then it was “taste” that made all the difference and now being an expert in the domain is the only thing that matters really. Until AI is basically in a stable, predictable,…

An idea that's beginning to solidify for me is that AI tools make software development harder . It's harder because they dramatically raise the bar for what's possible to do. An individual developer can take on significantly more challenging projects now, because the ultimate constraint has always been time and AI can help you get more done in the time available. But the stuff you can get done with that time is a who…

Not really. The primary stopper was never time or effort. It was need (and wisdom). If a project was important enough, you’d do it. If it’s not, it falls on the wayside.

Now with LLM tools, what you got is a slew of projects their creators aren’t even interested in. It’s theater.

Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat

#160

Post by dismalaf »

The problem is, discoveries that advance humanity are made by 0.01% of humans or less. The majority of people don't ever discover anything new, they just build or consume what already exists.

AI is, at best, as useful as those masses. Actual discoveries, actual novel software, actual human advancement is beyond AI and the domain of the same humans who've always advanced technology.

So yeah, AI is ok for copy-pasting the same shit that we used to plug together web frameworks for, it's fine for internet research (Gemini for me is like a supercharged Google with no ads or SEO garbage), it's fine for repetitive emails and making my "fuck you" emails sound professional, but actual expertise isn't going away any time soon.

Also, I disagree that software engineers can "just learn" non-software domains. If there's one thing I've found about most people who call themselves "engineers", it's that their thinking is way too rigid for many other domains.

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