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> I wish people could be a bit more open about what they build. I would say for the last 6 months, 95% of the code for my chat app (https://github.com/gitsense

by sdesol 1y ago

> I wish people could be a bit more open about what they build. I would say for the last 6 months, 95% of the code for my chat app (https://github.com/gitsense/chat https://github.com/gitsense/chat) was AI generated (98% human architected). I believe what I created in the last 6 months was far from trivial. One of the features that AI helped a lot with, was the AI Search Assistant feature. You can learn more about it here https://github.com/gitsense/chat/blob/main/packages/chat/widgets/app/components/chat-builder/trees/help/documentation/understanding-your-personalized-ai-search-assistant/1.md https://github.com/gitsense/chat/blob/main/packages/chat/wid... As a debugging partner, LLMs are invaluable. I could easily load all the backend search code into context and have it trace a query and create a context bundle with just the affected files. Once I had that, I would use my tool to filter the context to just those files and then chat with the LLM to figure out what went wrong or why the search was slow. I very much agree with the author of the blog post about why LLMs can't really build software. AI is an industry game changer as it can truly 3x to 4x senior developers in my opinion. I should also note that I spend about $2 a day on LLM API calls (99% to Gemini 2.5 Flash) and I probably have to read 200+ LLM generated messages a day and reply back in great detail about 5 times a day (think of an email instead of chat message). Note: The demo on that I have in the README hasn't been setup, as I am still in the process of finalizing things for release but the NPM install instructions should work.

QuadmasterXLII 1y ago
What happens when you tell the AI to set up the demo in the README?
- sdesol 1y ago
  It summarized the instructions required to install and setup. It (Gemini and Sonnet) did fail to mention that I need to setup a server and create a DNS entry for the sub domain.
leptons 1y ago
> probably have to read 200+ LLM generated messages a day and reply back in great detail about 5 times a day (think of an email instead of chat message). I can think of nothing more tiresome than having to read 200 emails a day, or LLM chat messages. And then respond in detail 5 of those times. It wouldn't lead to "3x to 4x" performance gain after tallying up all the time reading messages and replying. I'm not sure people that use LLMs this way are really tracking their time enough to say with any confidence that "3x to 4x" is anywhere close to reality.
- sdesol 1y ago
  A lot of the messages are revisions so it is not as tedious as it may seem. As for the "3x to 4x", this is my own experience. It is possible that I am an outlier, but 80% of the generated AI code that I have are one-shot. I spend an hour or two (usually spread over days thinking about the problem) to accomplish something that would have taken a week or more for me to do. I'm going to start producing metrics regarding how much code is AI generated along with some complexity metrics. I am obviously bias, but this definitely feels like a paradigm shift and if people do not fully learn to adapt to it, it might be too late. I am not sure if you have ever watched Gattaca, but this sort of feels like it...the astronaut part, that is. The profession that I have known for decades is starting to feel very different, in the same way that while watching Gattaca, my perception of astronauts changed. It was strange, but plausible and that is what I see for the software industry. Those that can articulate the problem I believe will become more valuable than the silent genius.
  - leptons 1y ago
    The same noise was made about pair programming and it hasn't really caught on. Using LLMs to write code is one way of getting code written, but it isn't necessarily the best, and it seems kind of fad-ish honestly. Yes, I use "AI" in my coding workflow, but it's overall more annoying than it is helpful. If you're naturally 3x-4x times slower than I am, then congratulations, you're now getting up to speed. It's all pretty subjective I think.
    - sdesol 1y ago
      > It's all pretty subjective I think. This is very measurable, as you are not measuring against others, but yourself. The baseline is you, so it is very easy to determine if you become more productive or not. What you are saying is, you do not believe "you" can leverage AI to be more efficient than you currently are, which may well be true due to your domain and expertise.
      - leptons 1y ago
Rexxar 1y ago
> I would say for the last 6 months, 95% of the code for my chat app was AI generated Why did you squash 6 months of work in two commits ?
- sdesol 1y ago
  It's actually more than 6 months. 6 months was when I developed enough to start chatting with AI to be really productive. Moving forward once the licence is in place and the files become unminifed you can track exactly what ai generated.

by sdesol 1y ago

QuadmasterXLII 1y ago

What happens when you tell the AI to set up the demo in the README?

sdesol 1y ago
It summarized the instructions required to install and setup. It (Gemini and Sonnet) did fail to mention that I need to setup a server and create a DNS entry for the sub domain.

leptons 1y ago

> probably have to read 200+ LLM generated messages a day and reply back in great detail about 5 times a day (think of an email instead of chat message). I can think of nothing more tiresome than having to read 200 emails a day, or LLM chat messages. And then respond in detail 5 of those times. It wouldn't lead to "3x to 4x" performance gain after tallying up all the time reading messages and replying. I'm not sure people that use LLMs this way are really tracking their time enough to say with any confidence that "3x to 4x" is anywhere close to reality.

sdesol 1y ago
A lot of the messages are revisions so it is not as tedious as it may seem. As for the "3x to 4x", this is my own experience. It is possible that I am an outlier, but 80% of the generated AI code that I have are one-shot. I spend an hour or two (usually spread over days thinking about the problem) to accomplish something that would have taken a week or more for me to do. I'm going to start producing metrics regarding how much code is AI generated along with some complexity metrics. I am obviously bias, but this definitely feels like a paradigm shift and if people do not fully learn to adapt to it, it might be too late. I am not sure if you have ever watched Gattaca, but this sort of feels like it...the astronaut part, that is. The profession that I have known for decades is starting to feel very different, in the same way that while watching Gattaca, my perception of astronauts changed. It was strange, but plausible and that is what I see for the software industry. Those that can articulate the problem I believe will become more valuable than the silent genius.
- leptons 1y ago
  The same noise was made about pair programming and it hasn't really caught on. Using LLMs to write code is one way of getting code written, but it isn't necessarily the best, and it seems kind of fad-ish honestly. Yes, I use "AI" in my coding workflow, but it's overall more annoying than it is helpful. If you're naturally 3x-4x times slower than I am, then congratulations, you're now getting up to speed. It's all pretty subjective I think.
  - sdesol 1y ago
    > It's all pretty subjective I think. This is very measurable, as you are not measuring against others, but yourself. The baseline is you, so it is very easy to determine if you become more productive or not. What you are saying is, you do not believe "you" can leverage AI to be more efficient than you currently are, which may well be true due to your domain and expertise.
    - leptons 1y ago

Rexxar 1y ago

> I would say for the last 6 months, 95% of the code for my chat app was AI generated Why did you squash 6 months of work in two commits ?

sdesol 1y ago
It's actually more than 6 months. 6 months was when I developed enough to start chatting with AI to be really productive. Moving forward once the licence is in place and the files become unminifed you can track exactly what ai generated.