The AI Productivity Gap
bjorg.bjornroche.com
The AI Productivity Gap
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Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#2What I have noticed in my own work that a lot of the time that used to be for coding is now just waiting. I have three agents working on three different features in parallel, and I'll go back and forth with all of them, correcting things and steering etc, but then I find myself with three busy agents and nothing to myself except stare at the screen while they code away. There is a mental budget for me where I can't have more than those three running at the same time and still keep track so what I end up doing is just scrolling HN...
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#3"We can disagree about the specific numbers here, but if you think this is wildly off, you’ve probably never been a senior developer"
I'd even say the productivity gap is even smaller, if not negative in some areas...
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#4[deleted]
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#5Pre AI and Post AI code review hours are both 0.75 in this made up example. I find that implausible.
Even with the same amount of code, AI code is less trustworthy* and requires more attention... but we know it won't be the same amount, it will be more. This means it will take longer to review, or there will be unforeseen consequences of not spending that extra time.
*meaning no human eyes have looked at it and said "this doesn't make sense", or "this is cheating", or "this doesn't meet requirements", and won't be caught until code review if at all.
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#6What I have noticed in my own work that a lot of the time that used to be for coding is now just waiting. I have three agents working on three different features in parallel, and I'll go back and forth with all of them, correcting things and steering etc, but then I find myself with three busy agents and nothing to myself except stare at the screen while they code away. There is a mental budget for me where I can't h…
I stopped using coding agents after more than one and a half year of active use, it really started to become way too boring, and I’m t a point where I just hate having to babysit them and for the 200th time make it understand what the actual goal is… and to be honest, going back to writing code by hand without assistance is really hard at first you continuously have that little voice telling you how simple that would be with an agent. Then after a little bit you’re back to being productive, but I still get that voice in my mind. I’m wondering if that’s how addiction feels (way lighter of course).
That whole experience of going deep for a while into LLM coding, then trying to leave it behind made me pretty pessimistic about the future of our profession. We are creating a whole industry of people delegating their ability to work to a software stack currently controlled by basically 2 companies (that both have very sketchy financials). Doesn’t feel healthy
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#7[dead]
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#8Based on personal observation, a lot of productivity has been thrown out of the window with unneeded refactoring, rewrites and "what-if" scenarios that the AI agent will spot.
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#9> There’s no doubt that AI has already improved the productivity of engineering teams, and will only get better in the coming years.
They lost me by begging the question in the very first sentence.
Re: The AI Productivity Gap
#10"We can disagree about the specific numbers here, but if you think this is wildly off, you’ve probably never been a senior developer" I'd even say the productivity gap is even smaller, if not negative in some areas...
I think juniors and fake seniors are a lot more productive because they were never really able to measure their productivity so spamming LoC and trusting AI output makes sense to them.