The problem with AI is that it isn't like any previous technology. There may be temporary jobs to fill in the gaps but they won't be careers. The AI will do the process engineering and self optimization. The prompt witchcraft is a good example because today its totally unnecessary and doesn't actually increase performance, and they'll continue to make it easier to direct/steer the models.
We're literally trying to build an intelligence to replace us.
The human species. "We" doesn't include everyone and doesn't necessarily imply the process happens through collaboration and planning (conspiracy). The race to automation is happening as expected; outside any group control and bound by competition. Game theory suggests the end result is us being replaced, if we make it that far. "We" as a species are the ones making it happen.
Assuming we get smarter than human AI but keep control of the guidance and off switches we will be in the position of a king or rich person with servants smarter than themselves of which we have many historical examples. I figure it will go kind of like that but with more equality amongst the humans than historically as we'll be able to vote in some sort of socialist like set up with all humans having fun which has not been possible in the past as you need someone/something to do the work to keep things going.
This is a pretty terrible decision and inconsistent with all sorts of all other standards. If I did legal research in Google docs, it'd be covered. If I went to a legal library and took notes, it'd be covered, etc
Yeah it does seem to be a new 'thing'. I'm betting it's like the heritage foundation who figured out age-restrictions give them a new end-run around the first amendment. Started with porn (because who is going to defend porn) and now they're going to slide down the slippery slope.
From Project 2025[0], published by the Heritage Foundation:
Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it
should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be
classed as registered sex offenders.
My experience is that Agentic Coding can legitimately get you mostly-working software. You do, however, still need to spend a few days groking, validating, and usually nudging/whacking it to conform to the shape you intended vs what the agent inferred.
It is pretty magical to go from brainstorming an idea in the evening, having ChatGPT Pro spit out a long list of beads to implement it, leaving it running over night in a totally empty repo and waking up to a mostly-implemented project.
It's magical until you start going through the code carefully, line by line, and find yourself typing at the agent: YOU DID WHAT NOW? Then, when you read a few more lines and realise that neither AI nor human will be able to debug the codebase once ten more features are added you find yourself typing: REVERT. EVERYTHING.
yes, this is an issue i see too... also fixing it up takes alot of time (sometimes more if i just 'one-shotted' it myself)... idk these tools are useful, but i feel like we are going too far with 'just let the ai do everything'...
My workflow uses a thorough design broken down into very specific tasks, agent mail, and a swarm of agents in a ralph loop to burn down tasks. Agents collaborate with mail pretty well and don't seem to need layers of supervision. If the tasks are well specified and your design is thought through, especially how to ensure the agents can self-validate - it seems to work pretty well.
+1 A huge amount of software - probably most - is not actually generating value and in many cases is actually reducing value.
I've seen teams build and re-build the same infrastructure over and over.
I saw a request that could have been met with a few SQL queries and a dashboard got turned into a huge endeavor that implements parts of an ETL, Configuration Management, CI/CD, and Ticketing system and is now in the critical path of all requests all because people didn't ask the right questions and the incentive in a large organization is to build a mini-empire to reign over.
That said, smart infrastructure investment absolutely can be a competitive advantage. Google's infrastructure is, IMO, a competitive advantage. The amount of vertical integration and scale is unparalleled.
One of the most confusing moments in my early career was when someone spent two whole quarters building a custom tool that did something a mature and well respected open source project did for us. There was no advantage to his tool and he would admit it when cornered by the question.
We all thought he would get reprimanded for wasting so much time, but by the time management figured out was happening they decided they needed to sell it as a very important idea rather than admit they just spent $100,000 of engineering time on something nobody needed. So it turned into something to celebrate and we were supposed to find ways to use it.
That company went down in flames about a year later. That’s how I learned one way to spot broken organizations and get out early rather than going down with the ship.
Incentive of undemocratic groups is to build mini-empires yes, but if the business decisions were led by workers instead of a group of tyrants it'll most likely be a better decision. If we want lived examples of this, look at recorded history.
>if the business decisions were led by workers instead of a group of tyrants it'll most likely be a better decision.
I don't see how. The workers will want to work on things that they enjoy, or that make them look good, regardless of how much they help the company's bottom line. Why would workers not want to build mini-empires of their own? If you're thinking that other workers in the company would vote them down, the problem with this is idea is that other workers in the company won't know about or understand why this time-wasting group is doing what it's doing, because it's not part of their competency. Do you keep track of business decisions and happenings in some other group in your company (assuming you're in a large organization)? Of course not; you don't have time to keep track of everything happening across the organization. So why would workers in your worker-led company do any better?
The entire point of leadership is that individuals don't have the time or expertise to know all this stuff and make smart decisions.
Switched back to codex for the promotion. Opus at the start of the year was GOAT- just relentless at chewing through hard problems. Now it spins on pretty easy work (took three swings just to edit a ts file) and my session is like 1-3 prompts (downgraded to the $20 plan but still)
Had a single prompt the other day where it just tried to examine dependencies that weren't relevant until it hit the rate limit. That was my first prompt of the day. On a task that it was able to do quickly and successfully many times before.
Happy to run it on your repos for a free report: hi@repogauge.org
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