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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
#262[flagged]
Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worry this is looking at where the ball is now instead of where it's going. The recent disproof of an Erdos conjecture should put to rest the idea that LLMs will reach a skill ceiling before they reach superintelligence. I believe we are headed for a world of superintelligent AI where LLMs are much better at logical thinking than humans, the same way that chess engines are much better at chess than humans. In that…
I don't buy that at all. It doesn't matter how great the LLMs get, the act of creating software using them will still require a great deal of skill. Most people just don't think in terms of software. Try asking a non-developer in your life what their dream software would be for their work, or their hobby. If they don't have what Nilay Patel calls "software brain" I'd be surprised if they came up with something action…
> Try asking a non-developer in your life what their dream software would be for their work, or their hobby. If they don't have what Nilay Patel calls "software brain" I'd be surprised if they came up with something actionable.
I've posted this in numerous comments because I think it bears repeating: there are tech-savvy non-developers who are actually building and shipping stuff with AI. I personally know a few who have been successful in acquiring initial customers.
You can say "but their apps won't scale", "their apps aren't secure", etc. and you might be right but these criticisms ignore the fact that most human-built software suffers from issues around scalability, security, etc. What AI in the hands of a relatively tech-savvy person is capable of is building functional, usable applications that are pretty decent compared to what you might get if you paid an experienced contractor tens of thousands of dollars to build.
A whole generation of young people has grown up with the internet, smartphones, etc. They might not be trained software engineers or have a "software brain" but in many cases they probably have a better intuitive sense for digital product design than a 30 or 40-something engineer who has been staring at an IDE for the past decade(s).
Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
#264I started an agentic experience app in domaining , people don’t seem to take it that well , they are afraid of letting AI run on its own.
Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically IDE free since May 2025. I actually reinstalled vscode when setting up a new machine and I think I've launched it twice? cc -> local automated testing -> github -> PR -> heavy integration tests -> review (github ui, +/-) -> manual test locally -> merge -> deploy -> manual test remotely -> synthetic user testing -> repeat
Do you not need to use the debugger sometimes? Or can cc debug by itself
> Do you not need to use the debugger sometimes? Or can cc debug by itself
A key feature of AI coding assistants and coding agents is troubleshooting. It turns out that LLMs excel at pattern matching, specially when coupled with feedback signals. It turns out that troubleshooting represents just that. A few years ago people searched the likes of stack overflow to fix problems, and it turns out LLMs can do the equivalent of that much faster.
Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't buy that at all. It doesn't matter how great the LLMs get, the act of creating software using them will still require a great deal of skill. Most people just don't think in terms of software. Try asking a non-developer in your life what their dream software would be for their work, or their hobby. If they don't have what Nilay Patel calls "software brain" I'd be surprised if they came up with something action…
> Try asking a non-developer in your life what their dream software would be for their work, or their hobby. If they don't have what Nilay Patel calls "software brain" I'd be surprised if they came up with something actionable. I've posted this in numerous comments because I think it bears repeating: there are tech-savvy non-developers who are actually building and shipping stuff with AI. I personally know a few who…
> there are tech-savvy non-developers who are actually building and shipping stuff with AI
I absolutely believe that. I think those are people with "software brain" who are on their way to becoming real developers.
By the point they can write apps that are secure and scale... they'll have learned enough about software development to be employable as software developers. They'll be part of a new breed of developer who never memorized the syntax of a programming language, but they'll still be at the starting point of learning a HUGE volume of other stuff that's necessary to build good software.
If we want to stay employed, we need to be notably better at building software than they are.
Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I worry this is looking at where the ball is now instead of where it's going. The recent disproof of an Erdos conjecture should put to rest the idea that LLMs will reach a skill ceiling before they reach superintelligence. I believe we are headed for a world of superintelligent AI where LLMs are much better at logical thinking than humans, the same way that chess engines are much better at chess than humans. In that…
[deleted]
Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> If you're worried about non-technical vibe coders taking your job, the correct response is to be much better at building software than those vibe coders. That means you need more skill, more ambition, and more experience. It's hard! This is a false fear. The real risk isn't that some 19 year-old vibe coder is going to replace you, it's that there's simply less need for more experienced engineers. The market is shri…
> The real risk isn't that some 19 year-old vibe coder is going to replace you, it's that there's simply less need for more experienced engineers. The market is shrinking.
That last sentence is verifiably false if you look at SWE job postings and their recovery since 2022.
It’s also a poor take in general, buying very much into the narrative propagated primarily by OpenAI and, especially, Anthropic, who nonetheless continue to hire large numbers of SWEs while paying double the market rate.
Re: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
#269How 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,…
As software engineers we’ve now suddenly become a sort of “god of the gaps” - our existence is only justified in the (fewer and fewer) situations where the AI can’t do the job just as well on its own