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Eh but statistical models are obviously useful, because statistically 99% of your codebase wont involve new idea invention. Tools that write all the boilerplate

Eh but statistical models are obviously useful, because statistically 99% of your codebase wont involve new idea invention. Tools that write all the boilerplate code used to have names and job titles. I hate how both the for and against case for LLMs are just so bloody terrible at addressing these things.

dathanb82 5mo ago
This is a good take. The most effective combination of AI and skilled practitioner is using AI to amplify the abilities of the skilled practitioner. And in particular, max benefit comes from exploiting comparative advantage. AIs are really good at boilerplate -- in many cases better than humans because humans will optimize the process by doing copy/paste and often inject errors in the process -- whereas humans are better at abstract and critical reasoning. There's a very real and valuable use case for AI, but it's not replacing humans, it's taking the things that humans don't like doing (and that a computer can do well already) off the human's plate, so humans can focus more exclusively on the things that they do better than the AI. And at least with the current architecture of AI models, there will _always_ be higher-level reasoning that humans do better than the machine.
- theojulienne 5mo ago
  This. A ~staff software engineer designing big changes at one level above the raw implementation details using Opus 4.7 + superpowers today can genuinely ship multiple times more at the same quality level than pre-AI. The level of what a whole team could ship before. You have to use something like superpowers, the key is that the humans need to make the important decisions. You have to review the code - just like you had to review the code humans wrote. There will be iterations. You have to give the LLM skills and patterns to follow, access to architectural documents, etc, just like humans needed to be onboarded at a company and do the same. If you get all of these right with today's LLMs, you will never write code at all because it is so obviously not the best use of your time. If you feel that you are still better at writing the code manually, you have not done the above right, fix your workflow and try again.

dathanb82 5mo ago

This is a good take. The most effective combination of AI and skilled practitioner is using AI to amplify the abilities of the skilled practitioner. And in particular, max benefit comes from exploiting comparative advantage. AIs are really good at boilerplate -- in many cases better than humans because humans will optimize the process by doing copy/paste and often inject errors in the process -- whereas humans are better at abstract and critical reasoning. There's a very real and valuable use case for AI, but it's not replacing humans, it's taking the things that humans don't like doing (and that a computer can do well already) off the human's plate, so humans can focus more exclusively on the things that they do better than the AI. And at least with the current architecture of AI models, there will _always_ be higher-level reasoning that humans do better than the machine.

theojulienne 5mo ago
This. A ~staff software engineer designing big changes at one level above the raw implementation details using Opus 4.7 + superpowers today can genuinely ship multiple times more at the same quality level than pre-AI. The level of what a whole team could ship before. You have to use something like superpowers, the key is that the humans need to make the important decisions. You have to review the code - just like you had to review the code humans wrote. There will be iterations. You have to give the LLM skills and patterns to follow, access to architectural documents, etc, just like humans needed to be onboarded at a company and do the same. If you get all of these right with today's LLMs, you will never write code at all because it is so obviously not the best use of your time. If you feel that you are still better at writing the code manually, you have not done the above right, fix your workflow and try again.