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Software engineering still needs a human in the loop, just like art still needs to be prompted and tweaked by a human that can do composition, or writing that n

Software engineering still needs a human in the loop, just like art still needs to be prompted and tweaked by a human that can do composition, or writing that needs to be edited and refined, and so on. AI can't do 100% of the jobs, but it seems like we're somewhere past the 100x capabilities point. AI should be able to make a good employee able to do 100x the output at the same level of quality, and AI only gets more efficient and capable from here on out. Lawyers doing highly specialized work like doc review can use million token context lengths to achieve days or weeks of work in minutes or hours. Doctors can review huge quantities of literature in search of information relevant to their patients, maximizing the value of their time. Any knowledge work, anything that has repeatable processes, anything not requiring physical work in the real world, will be subject to increasing, accelerating, and unstoppable automation. Market forces will reward efficiency, and eliminating human overhead with relative cost reductions approaching 99.99% is a victory for companies nimble enough to pull it off. We're living in the apocryphal interesting times.

tfpdotdev 3y ago
The next wave of AI will just take one high-level goal, and prompt you to reduce ambiguity. You’re already seeing it with this Devin thing, but it’ll get way more effective.
LunaSea 3y ago
Lawyers famously don't care about productivity because they are paid by the hour.
- observationist 3y ago
  Lawyers will usually bill at a 1 hour minimum, occasionally 30 minutes. Lawyer A cares about productivity, and is paid by the hour, and so charges 1 hour of doc review at $4000, using the latest greatest technology, and is able to bill 1 hour of doc review to 100 clients. He begins to charge $3500/hr to undercut competition, and intersperses each week of work with training his paralegals and associates to amplify their capabilities. Law Firm B doesn't care about productivity, and bills 1 hour of doc review at $4000 to 100 clients, but have to pay 100 lawyers in turn. Several weeks later, their clients have left for the cheaper, higher quality competition. Being paid hourly doesn't mean you benefit from inefficiency. Small hungry shops who can rapidly embrace and integrate new technology are going to eat giant firms alive. When you can set up agents to replace employees, consultants, contractors, and so on, even if the AI is only 90% as good as the average human, that's a staggering advantage for fast movers.
  - LunaSea 3y ago
    > Being paid hourly doesn't mean you benefit from inefficiency. That is exactly what it means and what happened. Lawyers are one of the last professions to move to the digital world. For ages work was still done on paper and even right now most law firms don't use any non-LLM content search, autocompletes, content organisation, that could be considered "modern".

tfpdotdev 3y ago

The next wave of AI will just take one high-level goal, and prompt you to reduce ambiguity. You’re already seeing it with this Devin thing, but it’ll get way more effective.

LunaSea 3y ago

Lawyers famously don't care about productivity because they are paid by the hour.

observationist 3y ago
Lawyers will usually bill at a 1 hour minimum, occasionally 30 minutes. Lawyer A cares about productivity, and is paid by the hour, and so charges 1 hour of doc review at $4000, using the latest greatest technology, and is able to bill 1 hour of doc review to 100 clients. He begins to charge $3500/hr to undercut competition, and intersperses each week of work with training his paralegals and associates to amplify their capabilities. Law Firm B doesn't care about productivity, and bills 1 hour of doc review at $4000 to 100 clients, but have to pay 100 lawyers in turn. Several weeks later, their clients have left for the cheaper, higher quality competition. Being paid hourly doesn't mean you benefit from inefficiency. Small hungry shops who can rapidly embrace and integrate new technology are going to eat giant firms alive. When you can set up agents to replace employees, consultants, contractors, and so on, even if the AI is only 90% as good as the average human, that's a staggering advantage for fast movers.
- LunaSea 3y ago
  > Being paid hourly doesn't mean you benefit from inefficiency. That is exactly what it means and what happened. Lawyers are one of the last professions to move to the digital world. For ages work was still done on paper and even right now most law firms don't use any non-LLM content search, autocompletes, content organisation, that could be considered "modern".