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Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

johnjwang.com

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Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#81

Post by staticassertion »

garciasn wrote: post #68
staticassertion wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if your background just has you fooled. I worked on a data science team and code was always a commodity. Most data scientists know how to code in a fairly trivial way, just enough to get their models built and served. Even data engineers largely know how to just take that and deploy to Spark. They don't really do much software engineering beyond that. I'm not being precious here or protective of my "art" or…

I understand that you’re trying to apply your experience to what we do as a team and that makes sense; but, we’re many many stddev beyond the 15K LOC target you identified and have no issues because we do indeed take care to ensure we’re building these things the right way.

So you understand and you agree and confirm my experience?

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#82

Post by bdangubic »

staticassertion wrote: post #63
garciasn wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lead a team of Data Engineers, DevOps Engineers, and Data Scientists. I write code and have done so literally for my entire life. AI-assisted codegen is incredible; especially over the last 3-4m. I understand that developers feel their code is an art form and are pissed off that their life’s work is now a commodity; but, it’s time to either accept it and move on with what has happened, specialize as an actual artis…

I wonder if your background just has you fooled. I worked on a data science team and code was always a commodity. Most data scientists know how to code in a fairly trivial way, just enough to get their models built and served. Even data engineers largely know how to just take that and deploy to Spark. They don't really do much software engineering beyond that. I'm not being precious here or protective of my "art" or…

> We know you don't value aesthetic code lol. Single variable names, `df1`, `df2`, `df3`.

https://degoes.net/articles/insufficiently-polymorphic

> My job has barely changed semantically, despite rapid adoption of AI.

it's coming... some places move slower than other but it's coming

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#83

Post by seba_dos1 »

lunar_mycroft wrote: post #70
kolinko wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the November/December Opus and Claude Code, I found I don't need to read the code any more. Architecture overview sure, and testing yes, but not reading the code directly any more. Me (and my friends similarly) inspect code indirectly now - telling agents to write reports about certain aspects of the code and architecture etc.

I've seen the code these models produce without a human programmer going over the results with care. It's still slop. Better slop than in the past, but slop none the less. If you aren't at minimum reading the code yourself and you're shipping a significant amount of it, you're either effectively the first person to figure out the magic prompt to get the models to produce better code, or you're shipping slop. Personal…

Yeah, these models have definitely become more useful in the last months, but statements like "I don't need to read the code any more" still say more about the person writing that than about agents.

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#84

Post by staticassertion »

bdangubic wrote: post #82
staticassertion wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if your background just has you fooled. I worked on a data science team and code was always a commodity. Most data scientists know how to code in a fairly trivial way, just enough to get their models built and served. Even data engineers largely know how to just take that and deploy to Spark. They don't really do much software engineering beyond that. I'm not being precious here or protective of my "art" or…

> We know you don't value aesthetic code lol. Single variable names, `df1`, `df2`, `df3`. https://degoes.net/articles/insufficiently-polymorphic > My job has barely changed semantically, despite rapid adoption of AI. it's coming... some places move slower than other but it's coming

> https://degoes.net/articles/insufficiently-polymorphic

lol this is not why people do "df1", "df2", etc, nor are those polymorphic names but okay.

> it's coming... some places move slower than other but it's coming

What is coming, exactly? Again, as said, I work at a company that has rapidly adopted AI, and I have been a long time user. My job was never about rapidly producing code so the ability to rapidly produce code is strictly just a boon.

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#86

Post by garciasn »

staticassertion wrote: post #81
garciasn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that you’re trying to apply your experience to what we do as a team and that makes sense; but, we’re many many stddev beyond the 15K LOC target you identified and have no issues because we do indeed take care to ensure we’re building these things the right way.

So you understand and you agree and confirm my experience?

I have worked at many places and have seen the work of DEs and DSs that is borderline psychotic; but it got the job done, sorta. I have suffered through QA of 10000 lines that I ended up rewriting in less than 100.

So, yes; I understand where you’re coming from. But; that’s not what we do.

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#87

Post by skeletoncrew2 »

I’d posit that AI is good at tasks that managers have to do: it is a world composited primarily of processes and procedures set up by humans, about other humans. In other words it is just like an ai trained on text. At the worker level you have to interact with the real, outside world in some way. If I could have AI take the wheel for every share point tracker management manages to cook up, I’d be raving about it too.

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#88

Post by gerdesj »

indistinction wrote: post #71
gerdesj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MD here, of a really small company (and I'm not a doctor). I'm (mildly) excited by LLMs because I love a new shiny tool that does appear to have quite some utility. My analogy these days is a screwdriver. Let's ignore screw development for now. The first screwdrivers, which we still use, are slotted and have a habit of slipping sideways and jumping (camming out). That's err before LLMs ... something ... something. Fa…

>A modern LLM will hallucinate like a nineties raver on ecstasy but if you listen carefully and phrase your prompts carefully and ignore the chomping teeth and keep them hydrated, you may get something remarkable out of the creature 8) Like what - the world's most advanced blowjob?

Perhaps I should have gone for Sherlock Holmes doing morphine as an analogy. Mind you the '90s raver fits for some models or is it the prompter ...

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#89

Post by Eufrat »

gerdesj wrote: post #67
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #13

I think executives are excited about AI because it confirms their worldview: that the work is a commodity and the real value lies in orchestration and strategy. It doesn't help that the west has a clear bias wherein moving "up" is moving away from the work. Many executives often don't know what good looks like at the detail level, so they can't evaluate AI output quality.

MD here, of a really small company (and I'm not a doctor). I'm (mildly) excited by LLMs because I love a new shiny tool that does appear to have quite some utility. My analogy these days is a screwdriver. Let's ignore screw development for now. The first screwdrivers, which we still use, are slotted and have a habit of slipping sideways and jumping (camming out). That's err before LLMs ... something ... something. Fa…

> I'm (mildly) excited by LLMs because I love a new shiny tool that does appear to have quite some utility.

I really think a lot of folks were conned by a smooth operator and a polished demo, so now everyone has to suffer though having this nebulous thing rammed down our throats regardless of its real utility because people with higher pay grades believe it has utility.

It feels like a lot of “AI is inevitable; you are failing to make this abundant future inevitable by your skepticism.”

Re: Why are executives enamored with AI, but ICs aren't?

#90

Post by hiq »

garciasn wrote: post #58
orochimaaru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And one executive talks to other executives not to their engineers. I think this is more peer pressure than anything else.

I lead a team of Data Engineers, DevOps Engineers, and Data Scientists. I write code and have done so literally for my entire life. AI-assisted codegen is incredible; especially over the last 3-4m. I understand that developers feel their code is an art form and are pissed off that their life’s work is now a commodity; but, it’s time to either accept it and move on with what has happened, specialize as an actual artis…

> their life’s work is now a commodity

Which parts of it exactly? I've considered for loops and if branches "commodities" for a while. The way you organize code, the design, is still pretty much open and not a solved problem, including by AI-based tools. Yes we can now deal with it at a higher level (e.g. in prompts, in English), but it's not something I can fully delegate to an agent and expect good results (although I keep trying, as tools improve).

LLM-based codegen in the hands of good engineers is a multiplier, but you still need a good engineer to begin with.

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