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Amazon CEO: AI Code Transformation Saved Us 4,500 Years of Developer Work

12 points by _giorgio_ 2y ago

re-thc 2y ago
If there are 4500 years of developer work (not including "real work") it sounds like there are bigger problems. The whole point of having developers do upgrades isn't just the manual work but so they learn and understand it. Skipping that isn't helpful. And why would you wait until there's 4500 years of work before upgrading? Maybe the problem is that company policies need to be fixed rather than introducing AI.
- Arnt 2y ago
  At a guess, it's about drudge with relating to changed APis, and 4500 is a period dictated by code review procedures. I wrote an AI, oops, a shell script to handle such an upgrade decades ago.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
newsman33 2y ago
Yeah let's see if their code lasts 4500 years unchanged. Also Imagine having to debug something that has 4500 years of lines of code.
- xenospn 2y ago
  Ancient Egyptian comes to mind. And we couldn’t figure it out until we found the Rosetta Stone.
newsman33 2y ago
Saved our developers working from 2476 B.C. to 2024 A.D. (4,500 Years of Developer Work)
- KoolKat23 2y ago
  Slightly off topic, but my mind went there. Bezos could spend $41 million dollars a year since 2476BC or $112k a day (all without earning interest) , and he'll still have change.
  - blangk 2y ago
    What is $112k worth in 2476BC, adjusted for inflation? ;)
xrd 2y ago
I've counted exactly 659 times when a statistic was used to sell something. Exactly 659.
up2isomorphism 2y ago
I think he has to say 4500 years because the one who is only willing to say 4000 years gets fired?
davidashe 2y ago
If you have a backlog of 4500 “developer years” worth of upgrades, lack of AI wasn’t the problem, and making some attention nodes go brr cannot solve the root problem. Java is a super verbose language, yet keeps getting written because “everyone knows java.” Has the cost of maintaining Java finally reached such critical mass that only an LLM can affordably maintain it?
deterministic 2y ago
I save a lot of work code generating the non-biz-logic parts of applications from simple declarative specs. I typically end up having to only hand code about 10% of the application. No AI required.

12 points by _giorgio_ 2y ago

If there are 4500 years of developer work (not including "real work") it sounds like there are bigger problems. The whole point of having developers do upgrades isn't just the manual work but so they learn and understand it. Skipping that isn't helpful. And why would you wait until there's 4500 years of work before upgrading? Maybe the problem is that company policies need to be fixed rather than introducing AI.

Arnt 2y ago
At a guess, it's about drudge with relating to changed APis, and 4500 is a period dictated by code review procedures. I wrote an AI, oops, a shell script to handle such an upgrade decades ago.

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

newsman33 2y ago

Yeah let's see if their code lasts 4500 years unchanged. Also Imagine having to debug something that has 4500 years of lines of code.

xenospn 2y ago
Ancient Egyptian comes to mind. And we couldn’t figure it out until we found the Rosetta Stone.

newsman33 2y ago

Saved our developers working from 2476 B.C. to 2024 A.D. (4,500 Years of Developer Work)

KoolKat23 2y ago
Slightly off topic, but my mind went there. Bezos could spend $41 million dollars a year since 2476BC or $112k a day (all without earning interest) , and he'll still have change.
- blangk 2y ago
  What is $112k worth in 2476BC, adjusted for inflation? ;)

xrd 2y ago

I've counted exactly 659 times when a statistic was used to sell something. Exactly 659.

up2isomorphism 2y ago

I think he has to say 4500 years because the one who is only willing to say 4000 years gets fired?

davidashe 2y ago

If you have a backlog of 4500 “developer years” worth of upgrades, lack of AI wasn’t the problem, and making some attention nodes go brr cannot solve the root problem. Java is a super verbose language, yet keeps getting written because “everyone knows java.” Has the cost of maintaining Java finally reached such critical mass that only an LLM can affordably maintain it?

deterministic 2y ago

I save a lot of work code generating the non-biz-logic parts of applications from simple declarative specs. I typically end up having to only hand code about 10% of the application. No AI required.