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Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

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Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#81

Post by herpdyderp »

rglover wrote: post #27
some-guy wrote: post #15

These claims wouldn't matter if the topic weren't so deadly serious. Tech leaders everywhere are buying into the FOMO, convinced their competitors are getting massive gains they're missing out on. This drives them to rebrand as AI-First companies, justify layoffs with newfound productivity narratives, and lowball developer salaries under the assumption that AI has fundamentally changed the value equation. This is my…

> My manager told me that the time to deliver my latest project was cut to 20% of the original estimate because we are "an AI-first company". Lord, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Oh, they for sure know what they're doing.

Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#82

Post by heavyset_go »

jryio wrote: post #18

I completely agree with the thesis here. I also have not seen a massive productivity boost with the use of AI. I think that there will be neurological fatigue occurring whereby if software engineers are not actively practicing problem-solving, discernment, and translation into computer code - those skills will atrophy... Yee, AI is not the 2x or 10x technology of the future ™ is was promised to be. It may the case th…

> I think that there will be neurological fatigue occurring whereby if software engineers are not actively practicing problem-solving, discernment, and translation into computer code - those skills will atrophy...

I've found this to be the case with most (if not all) skills, even riding a bike. Sure, you don't forget how to ride it, but your ability to expertly articulate with the bike in a synergistic and tool-like way atrophies.

If that's the case with engineering, and I believe it to be, it should serve as a real warning.

Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#83

Post by atleastoptimal »

All these bearish claims about AI coding would hold weight if models were stuck permanently at the capabilities level they are now with no chance at improvement. This is very likely not the case given improvements over the past year, and even with diminishing returns models will be significantly more capable both independently and as a copilot in a year.

Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#84

Post by mattmanser »

quantumcotton wrote: post #44
wrs wrote: post #2

This makes some sense. We have CEOs saying they're not hiring developers because AI makes their existing ones 10X more productive. If that productivity enhancement was real, wouldn't they be trying to hire all the developers? If you're getting 10X the productivity for the same investment, wouldn't you pour cash into that engine like crazy? Perhaps these graphs show that management is indeed so finely tuned that they'…

Today you will learn what diminishing returns are :) You can only utilize so many people or so much action within a business or idea. Essentially it's throwing more stupid at a problem. The reason there are so many layoffs is because of AI creating efficiency. The thing that people don't realize is it's not that one AI robot or GPU is going to replace one human at a one to one ratio. It's going to replace the amount…

The reason there were so many layoffs is because cheap money dried up.

Nothing to do with AI.

Interest rates are still relatively high.

Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#87

Post by codebje »

mcny wrote: post #36
nicce wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> implements some logic from scratch where there certainly is more than one suitable library, making this code we now own - is some behemoth of a PR trying to do all the things Depending on the amount of code, I see this only as positive? Too often people pull huge libraries for 50 lines of code.

> Too often people pull huge libraries for 50 lines of code. I used to be one of those people. It just made sense to me when I was (I still am to some extent) more naïve than I am today. But then I also used to think "it makes sense for everyone to eat together at a community kitchen of some sort instead of cooking at home because it saves everyone time and money" but that's another tangent for another day. The reaso…

Also there are people occasionally poisoning the community pot, don't forget that bit.

Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#88

Post by SchemaLoad »

heavyset_go wrote: post #66
com2kid wrote: post #9

Multiple things can be true at the same time: 1. LLMs do not increase general developer productivity by 10x across the board for general purpose tasks selected at random. 2. LLMs dramatically increases productivity for a limited subset of tasks 3. LLMs can be automated to do busy work and although they may take longer in terms of clock time than a human, the work is effectively done in the background. LLMs can get me…

> LLMs can get me up to speed on new APIs and libraries far faster than I can myself, a gigantic speedup. If I need to write a small bit of glue code in a language I do not know, LLMs not only save me time, but they make it so I don't have to learn something that I'll likely never use again. I wax and wane on this one. I've had the same feelings, but too often I've peaked behind the curtain, read the docs and got fam…

Yeah LLMs get me _an_ answer far faster than I could find it myself, but it's often not correct. And then I have to verify it myself which was exactly the work I was trying to skip by using the LLM to start with.

If I have to manually verify every answer, I may as well read the docs myself.

Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#89

Post by Seattle3503 »

some-guy wrote: post #15

These claims wouldn't matter if the topic weren't so deadly serious. Tech leaders everywhere are buying into the FOMO, convinced their competitors are getting massive gains they're missing out on. This drives them to rebrand as AI-First companies, justify layoffs with newfound productivity narratives, and lowball developer salaries under the assumption that AI has fundamentally changed the value equation. This is my…

> My manager told me that the time to deliver my latest project was cut to 20% of the original estimate because we are "an AI-first company".

If we can delegate incident response to automated LLMs too, sure, why not. Let the CEO have his way and pay the reputational price. When it doesn't work, we can revert our git repos to the day LLMs didn't write all the code.

I'm only being 90% facetious.

Re: Where's the shovelware? Why AI coding claims don't add up

#90

Post by tomrod »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #77
rglover wrote: post #19

Most of it doesn't exist beyond videos of code spraying onto a screen alongside a claim that "juniors are dead." I think the "why" for this is that the stakes are high. The economy is trembling. Tech jobs are evaporating. There's a high anxiety around AI being a savior, and so, a demi-religion is forming among the crowd that needs AI to be able to replace developers/competency. That said: I personally have gotten imp…

At least in my experience, it excels in blank canvas projects. Where you've got nothing and want something pretty basic. The tools can probably set up a fresh React project faster than me. But at least every time I've tried them on an actual work repo they get reduced to almost useless. Which is why they generate so much hype. They are perfect for tech demos, then management wonders why they aren't seeing results in…

Exactly. It quickly builds a lot of technical debt that must be paid down, especially for people writing code in areas they aren't deep in.

For tight tasks it can be super helpful -- like for me, an AI/Data Science guy, setting up a basic reverse proxy. But I do so with a ton of scrutiny -- pushing it, searching on Kagi or docs to at least confirm the code, etc. This is helpful because I don't have a mental map about reverse proxy -- so it can help fill in gaps but only with a lot of reticence.

That type of use really doesn't justify the billion dollar valuations of any companies, IMO.

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