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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

#221

Post by leoedin »

unlikelymordant wrote: post #157
jjav wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

I built an inventory tracking system as an exercise in "vibe coding" recently. I built a decent spec in conversation with Claude, then asked it to build it. It was kind of amazing - in 2 hours Claude churned out a credible looking app.

It looked really good, but as I got into the details the weirdness really started coming out. There's huge functions which interleave many concepts, and there's database queries everywhere. Huge amounts of duplication. It makes it very hard to change anything without breaking something else.

You can of course focus on getting the AI to simplify and condense. But that requires a good understanding of the codebase. Definitely no longer vibe-coded.

My enthusiasm for the technology has really gone in a wave. From "WOW" when it churned out 10k lines of credible looking code, to "Ohhhh" when I started getting into the weeds of the implementation and realising just how much of a mess it was. It's clearly very powerful for quick and dirty prototypes (and it seems to be particularly good at building decent CRUD frontends), but in software and user interaction the devil is in the details. And the details are a mess.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#222

Post by Draiken »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #19
martinald wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an excel sheet next to it - they can test it against that. Plus they can ask questions if something seems off and have it explain the code.

I'm not sure being able to verify that it's vaguely correct really solves the issue. Consider how many edge cases inhabit a "30 sheet, mind-numbingly complicated" Excel document. Verifying equivalence sounds nontrivial, to put it mildly.

They don't care. This is clearly someone looking to score points and impress with the AI magic trick.

The best part is that they can say the AI will get some stuff wrong, they knew that, and it's not their fault when it breaks. Or more likely, it'll break in subtle ways, nobody will ever notice and the consequences won't be traced back to this. YOLO!

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#223

Post by cik »

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…

To me this misses a third group, those using these tools as a series of virtual teammates, a mock team member with which to ping pong possibilities.

This is actually the greatest use case I see, and interact with.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#224

Post by xmcqdpt2 »

defrost wrote: post #12

The "upside" description: On the other you have a non-technical executive who's got his head round Claude Code and can run e.g. Python locally. I helped one recently almost one-shot converting a 30 sheet mind numbingly complicated Excel financial model to Python with Claude Code. Once the model is in Python, you effectively have a data science team in your pocket with Claude Code. You can easily run Monte Carlo simul…

I work in finance and we have prod excel spreadsheets. Those spreadsheets are versioned like code artifacts, with automated testing and everything. Converting them to real applications is a major part of the work the technology division does.

They usually happen because some new and exciting line of business is started by a small team as a POC. Those teams don't get full technology backing, it would slow down the early iteration and cost a lot of money for an idea that may not be lucrative. Eventually they make a lot of money and by then risk controls are basically requiring them to document every single change they make in excel. This eventually sucks enough that they complain and get a tech team to convert the spreadsheet.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#225

Post by nisegami »

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 find myself in both groups depending on the project/task. I wonder what to make of that.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#226

Post by cbdevidal »

xmcqdpt2 wrote: post #220
PunchyHamster wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I use it to get some basic info about topic I know little of (as google search is getting worse by the day..). That then I check. Honestly the absolute revolution for me would be if someone managed to make LLM tell "sorry I don't know enough about the topic", one time I made a typo in a project name I wanted some info on and it outright invented commands and usages (that also were different than the project I w…

> Honestly the absolute revolution for me would be if someone managed to make LLM tell "sorry I don't know enough about the topic" https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04664 According to that OpenAI paper, models hallucinate in part because they are optimized on benchmarks that involve guessing. If you make a model that refuses to answer when unsure, you will not get SOTA performance on existing benchmarks and everyone will di…

Holy perverse incentives, Batman

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#227

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

Leynos wrote: post #170
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #67

Thought this was going to be more about programmers, but it was actually about non technical users and Microsoft’s product development failure. One tidbit I’d disagree with is that only those using the bleeding edge AI tools are reaping the benefits. There seem to be a lot of highly specialized tools and a lot of specific configurations (and mystical incantations) to get them to work, and those are constantly changin…

> “Add this configuration variable for this entry point; split this class into two classes, one for each of the responsibilities that are currently crammed together; update the unit tests to reflect these changes, including splitting the tests for the old class into two different test classes; etc” That's the type of input I give to Claude / Codex. Works for me.

Yes, but then you’re not the bleeding edge of agentic coding as described in this article, then. The bleeding edge is “Hey agent, turn this 30 sheet excel workbook into a Python script” and all of the AGENTS.md required to make that happen.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#228

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

georgeburdell wrote: post #73
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #67

Thought this was going to be more about programmers, but it was actually about non technical users and Microsoft’s product development failure. One tidbit I’d disagree with is that only those using the bleeding edge AI tools are reaping the benefits. There seem to be a lot of highly specialized tools and a lot of specific configurations (and mystical incantations) to get them to work, and those are constantly changin…

“Add this configuration variable for this entry point; split this class into two classes, one for each of the responsibilities that are currently crammed together; update the unit tests to reflect these changes, including splitting the tests for the old class into two different test classes; etc” Granted I'm way behind the curve, but is this not how actual engineers (and not influencers) are using it? I heavily micro…

You could hardly believe that this is how actual engineers are using it if you only browsed HN. Maybe HN is only influencers?

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#229

Post by copilot_king »

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…

[dead]

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#230

Post by chrisjj »

jsattler wrote: post #126

Some years ago, I was at a conference and attended a very interesting talk. I don't remember the title of the talk, but what stuck with me was: "It's no longer the big beating the small, but the fast beating the slow". This talk was before all the AI hype. Working at a big company myself, I think this has never been more true. I think the question is, how to stay fast.

> the fast beating the slow

This includes to the bottom of a cliff, note.

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