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So where are all the AI apps?

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Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#431

Post by achenatx »

zdc1 wrote: post #133
paxys wrote: post #28

It is incredibly easy now to get an idea to the prototype stage, but making it production-ready still needs boring old software engineering skills. I know countless people who followed the "I'll vibe code my own business" trend, and a few of them did get pretty far, but ultimately not a single one actually launched. Anyone who has been doing this professionally will tell you that the "last step" is what takes the maj…

Even if you have the app, you get to start the fun adventure of marketing it and actually trying to grow the damn thing

one of the apps I built is an app that you give it a website, it scrapes it, then places the google ads.

Over time it tries to improve the ads.

Right now it is showing a 5% click through rate over a few weeks. I have no idea if that is good or not, but it saved me the hassle of having to worry about google ads for another app

If the marketing platform works, then it would drive traffic to itself.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#432

Post by skeledrew »

camdenreslink wrote: post #321
skeledrew wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isn't much profit incentive actually, as everyone has access to the same capabilities now. It'd be like trying to sell ice to Eskimos.

Most businesses do not have the capacity to use LLMs to produce software. If you have an idea that you can create into real high quality software that there is a demand for, then you should absolutely do it.

What's preventing them?

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#434

Post by Schiendelman »

nevertoolate wrote: post #424
Schiendelman wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me more! I'm trying to figure out how you got that.

I understand that you are serious. I am also serious here. Have you built anything purely with LLM which is novel and is used by people who expect that their data is managed securely, and the application is well maintained so they can trust it? I have been writing specifications, rfcs, adrs, conducting architecture reviews, code reviews and what not for quite a bit of time now. Also I’ve driven cross organisational p…

Well, I was a QA engineer and an SDET before being a product manager, how does that change your opinion?

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#435

Post by nevertoolate »

Schiendelman wrote: post #434
nevertoolate wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that you are serious. I am also serious here. Have you built anything purely with LLM which is novel and is used by people who expect that their data is managed securely, and the application is well maintained so they can trust it? I have been writing specifications, rfcs, adrs, conducting architecture reviews, code reviews and what not for quite a bit of time now. Also I’ve driven cross organisational p…

Well, I was a QA engineer and an SDET before being a product manager, how does that change your opinion?

I think it is great!

The issue is that validation needs presence and it is the limiting factor - common knowledge, but is part of the “physics”. Also maintenance gets really tricky if the codebase has warts in it - which it will have. I get much more easy to understand architecture out of an LLM driven code generation process if I follow it and course correct / update the spec process based on learnings.

Example: yesterday I’ve introduced a batch job and realized during the implementation phase that some refactoring is needed so the error boundary can be reused in the batch application from the main backend. This was unplanned and definitely not a functional requirement - could be documented as non-functional. There was a gap between the agent’s knowledge and mine even though the error handling pattern is well documented in the repository. Of course this can be documented better next time if we update the process of openspec writing but having these gaps is inevitable unless formal and half-formal definitions are introduced - but still there needs to be someone with “fresh eyes” in the loop.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#436

Post by whereistejas »

My take on AI-apps is that now its possible to build apps that we kind of wanted to build, but never did because it was too inconvenient.

I'm stealing this idea from this paragraph [1]: > The book points out that the major value in a flying car (as with supersonic) would not be in taking the same trips you do now, only a bit faster. Instead, it would be in taking the trips you don’t take now, because they’re too inconvenient.

[1]: https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/where-is-my-flying-car

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#437

Post by paulddraper »

pydry wrote: post #425
paulddraper wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, PyPI packages are a strange measurement. These tend to be utilities, and a lot of AI coding either reduces the need for utilities, or uses them but doesn't publish to a package index.

Why would AI increase coding productivity for everything except utilities and libraries? I think it's probably one of the better ways to measure productivity, actually. Software packages are unencumbered by non coding related bottlenecks.

I think it would affect it as well.

But libraries exist because software is expensive and therefore should be heavily reused.

If software is relatively cheap, there is relatively less need to save and reuse it.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#438

Post by peteforde »

habinero wrote: post #393
peteforde wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share this particular cynicism. I have a list of ideas a mile long that gets longer every day, and LLMs help me burn through that list significantly faster. However, the older I get, the more distraught I get that most people I meet "IRL" are simply not sitting on a list of problems they simply lack time to solve. I have... a lot of emotions around this, but it seems to be the norm. If someone doesn't see or experi…

> most people I meet "IRL" are simply not sitting on a list of problems they simply lack time to solve. I have... a lot of emotions around this, but it seems to be the norm This sounds unnecessarily judgmental. Doing this is your hobby. Other people have different ways they want to spend their time. That doesn't make you superior, just different.

Honestly... no, that's not it.

You're describing arrogant superiority, which is a real thing. It is definitely me sometimes! I can own that.

What I'm describing is an observation that despite my closely held progressive ideals, most people simply do not appear to see the world through the lens of "lots of things could be better and I see several ways to start fixing them".

I could say a lot of [probably shitty and judgmental] things about perhaps why this divide exists and the myth of the wisdom of crowds vs the genius inventor.

We can concede that all great ideas are inevitably built on the shoulders of previous great ideas by people who often go uncredited - bless the lab techs - but this thread is about the fact that most people aren't even trying to be near where the innovations happen.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#439

Post by jhatemyjob »

queenkjuul wrote: post #398
pjmlp wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still sucks for gaming, those are Windows games running on Proton, not much different from running arcade games with MAME, Amiga games with WinUAE,...

I think it is different. As someone joked, "thanks to Wine, Win32 is the 'stable Linux ABI'" -- translating system calls is a lot different than emulating hardware, and the results prove it

And with the R&D that went into the Steam Frame, the difference between x64 and arm64 is becoming negligible. You can target x64 Windows and can reasonably expect it to run on Android via Winlator.

Re: So where are all the AI apps?

#440

Post by TeMPOraL »

threetonesun wrote: post #193
TeMPOraL wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is incredibly easy now to get an idea to the prototype stage Yup. And for most purposes, that's enough . An app does not have to be productized and shipped to general audience to be useful. In fact, if your goal is to solve some specific problem for yourself, your friends/family, community or your team, then the "last step" you mention - the one that "takes majority of time and effort" - is entirely unnecessary,…

I agree, although I'd also say for the majority of problems the first part of even prototyping it is probably a waste of time and most people would be better off asking a simple AI hooked up to search if an appropriate solution already exists, or can be easily made with existing tools.

At this point if you know about GitHub Pages[0] and know how to copy-paste, it's easier to get an LLM to make you a tool than to find one that works and is free of web entrepreneurship bullshit (ads, trackers, malware, dark patterns, etc.).

--

[0] - It would've been even easier if web browsers didn't nerf file:// protocol, but that ship has sailed.

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