3 ms·
That's not the issue. Their complaint is that proponents keep revising what ought to be fixed goalposts... Well, fixed unless you believe unassisted human devel
by Terr_ 1y ago
That's not the issue. Their complaint is that proponents keep revising what ought to be fixed goalposts... Well, fixed unless you believe unassisted human developers are also getting dramatically better at their jobs every year.
Like the boy who cried wolf, it'll eventually be true with enough time... But we should stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.
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Jan 2025: "Ignore last month's models, they aren't good enough to show a marked increase in human productivity, test with this month's models and the benefits are obvious."
Feb 2025: "Ignore last month's models, they aren't good enough to show a marked increase in human productivity, test with this month's models and the benefits are obvious."
Mar 2025: "Ignore last month's models, they aren't good enough to show a marked increase in human productivity, test with this month's models and the benefits are obvious."
Apr 2025: [Ad nauseam, you get the idea]
- pdabbadabba 1y agoFair enough. For what it's worth, I've always thought that the more reasonable claim is that AI tools make poor-average developers more productive, not necessarily expert developers.
- bluefirebrand 1y agoPersonally I don't want poor-average developers to be more productive, I want them to be more expert
- Terr_ 1y ago"Compared to last quarter, we've shipped 40% more spaghetti-code!"
- pdabbadabba 1y agoSure. But what would you suppose the ratio is between expert, average, and mediocre coders in the average organization? I think a small minority would be in the first category, and I don’t see a technology on the horizon that will change that except for LLMs, which seem like they could make mediocre coders both more productive and produce higher quality output.
- bluefirebrand 1y agoThey definitely aren't producing higher quality output imo, but definitely producing low quality output faster That's not a tradeoff that I like
- pdabbadabba 1y agoThat's the study I'm really interested in: does AI use improve the output of lower-skill developers (not experts). My intuitions point me in the opposite direction. I think AI would improve their work. But I'm not aware of any hard data that would help answer this question.