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AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

simonwillison.net

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Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#81

Post by kvgr »

falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

I just build a programming language in couple of hours, complete with interpreter with claude code. I know nothing about designing and implementing programming languages: https://github.com/m-o/MoonShot.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#82

Post by bartread »

falloutx wrote: post #58
pousada wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> percentage of good, well planned, consistent and coherent software is going to approach zero So everything stays exactly the same?

I get this comment everytime I say this but there are levels to this. What you think is bad today could be considered artisan when things become worse than today.

I mean, you've never used the desktop version of Deltek Maconomy, have you? Somehow I can tell.

My point here is not to roast Deltek, although that's certainly fun (and 100% deserved), but to point out that the bar for how bad software can be and still, somehow, be commercially viable is already so low it basically intersects the Earth's centre of gravity.

The internet has always been a machine that allows for the ever-accelerated publishing of complete garbage of all varieties, but it's also meant that in absolute terms more good stuff also gets published.

The problem is one of volume not, I suspect, that the percentages of good versus crap change that much.

So we'll need better tools to search and filter but, again, I suspect AI can help here too.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#84

Post by oblio »

Chance-Device wrote: post #50
pousada wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> percentage of good, well planned, consistent and coherent software is going to approach zero So everything stays exactly the same?

Underrated comment. The reason that everyone complains about code all the time is because most code is bad, and it’s written by humans. I think this can only be a step up. Nailing validation is the trick now.

Validation was always the hard part, outside of truly novel areas - think edges of computer science (which generally happen very rarely and only need to be explored once or a handful of times).

Validation was always the hard part because great validation requires great design. You can't validate garbage.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#85

Post by 9rx »

zsoltkacsandi wrote: post #74
9rx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve never seen a product/project manager questioning themselves: does this feature add any value? Should we remove it? To be fair, it is a hard question to contend with. It is easier to keep users who don't know what they're missing happier than users who lost something they now know they want. Even fixing bugs can sometimes upset users who have come to depend on the bug as a feature. > In agile methodologies we m…

I didn’t mean the Agile Manifesto prescribes individual productivity measurement. I meant what often happens in “agile in the wild”: we end up tracking throughput proxies (story points completed, velocity, number of tickets closed, burndown charts) and treating that as success, while the harder question (“did this deliver user/business value?”) is weakly measured or ignored. Also, agile isn’t really “removing manager…

> we end up tracking throughput proxies (story points completed, velocity, number of tickets closed, burndown charts) and treating that as success

That sounds more like scrum or something in that wheelhouse, which isn't agile, but what I earlier called pre-agile. They are associated with agile as they are intended to be used as a temporary transitionary tool. One day up and telling your developers "Good news, developers. We fired all the managers. Go nuts!" obviously would be a recipe for disaster. An organization wanting to adopt agile needs to slowly work into it and prove that the people involved can handle it. Not everyone can.

> Also, agile isn’t really “removing managers from the picture” so much as shifting management from command-and-control to enabling constraints, coaching, and removing impediments.

That's the pre-agile step. You don't get rid of managers immediately, you put them to work stepping in when necessary and helping developers learn how to manage without a guiding hand. "Business people" remain involved in agile. Perhaps you were thinking of that instead? Under agile they aren't managers, though, they are partners who work together with the developers.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#86

Post by oblio »

kvgr wrote: post #81
falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

I just build a programming language in couple of hours, complete with interpreter with claude code. I know nothing about designing and implementing programming languages: https://github.com/m-o/MoonShot .

You built something.

Now comes the hard or impossible part: is it any good? I would bet against it.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#87

Post by graemep »

zsoltkacsandi wrote: post #45
falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

Completely agree. There is a common misunderstanding/misconception in product development, that more features = better product. I’ve never seen a product/project manager questioning themselves: does this feature add any value? Should we remove it? In agile methodologies we measure the output of the developers. But we don’t care about that the output carries any meaningful value to the end user/business.

Its also about marketing. People buy because of features.

The people making the buying decisions may not have a good idea of what maximises "meaningful value" but they compare feature sets.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#88

Post by raincole »

localhoster wrote: post #19

TBH, I have found AI addictive, you use it for the first time, and its incredible. You get a nice kick of dopamine. This kick of dopamine, is decreasing with every win you get. What once felt incredible, is just another prompt today. Those things don't excite you any more. Plus, the fact that you no longer exercise your brain at work any more. Plus, the constant feeling of FOMO. It deflates you, faster.

Isn't it just like programming?

Many of programmers became programmers because they find the idea of programming fascinating, probably in their middle school days. And then they went to be professionals. Then they burned out and if they were lucky, transited to management.

Of course not everyone is like that, but you can't say it isn't common, right.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#89

Post by jasode »

falloutx wrote: post #29

I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI. You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean the…

, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product.

Many types of software have essential complexity and minimal features that still require hundreds/thousands of software engineers. Having just 4 people is simply not enough man-hours to build the capabilities customers desire.

Complex software like 3D materials modeling and simulation, logistics software like factory and warehouse planning. Even the Linux kernel and userspace has thousands of contributors and the baseline features (drivers, sandbox, GUI, etc) that users want from a modern operating system cannot be done by a 4-person team.

All that said, there a lots of great projects with tiny teams. SQLite is 3 people. Foobar2000 is one person. ShareX screensaver I think is 1 developer in Turkey.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#90

Post by mrtksn »

co_king_3 wrote: post #66
mrtksn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are quite accurate for programming, these days they almost always create a code that will compile without errors and errors are almost always fixable by feeding the error into the LLM. I would say this is extremely precise text generation, much better than most humans. Just like with CNC though, you need to feed it with the correct instructions. It's still on you for the machined output to do the expected thing.…

> LLMs are quite accurate for programming, these days they almost always create a code that will compile without errors and errors are almost always fixable by feeding the error into the LLM. What domains do you work in? This description does not match my experience whatsoever.

I'm primarily into mobiles apps these days but using the LLMs I'm able to write software in languages that I don't know with tech that I don't understand well(like bluetooth).

What did you try to do and the LLM failed you?

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