7 ms·

Well that’s kind of the point. They can just summon bespoke software out of the ether that only handles the use cases of themselves and a few of their collabor

Well that’s kind of the point. They can just summon bespoke software out of the ether that only handles the use cases of themselves and a few of their collaborators. Making “side projects” was mot possible for non-developers before powerful LLMs. Now it is.

shimman 5mo ago
Making side projects isn't a trillion dollar industry tho, adding to the fact that we are facing another global supply chain crisis due to the Iran War; the US is about to commit the biggest self-own ever in the history of empire.
- zelphirkalt 5mo ago
  The US has been on a course of self-owns ever since Trump got into office. That they still are a dominant power on the globe shows how much they were one before Trump, but it seems to be changing. At every self-own they commit, China laughs and inches up a little closer. I think we will see the day, when they are evenly matched in our lifetimes. But which self-own exactly do you mean, of the many there are?
- Schmerika 5mo ago
  There are actually quite a few trillion dollar industries that exist thanks to "side projects". Apple was Woz's side project, once upon a time. Adsense came from Google's 20% time. Social media started as a side project. Forests grow from trees. Trees grow from seeds. More potential seeds = more potential forests.
  - queenkjuul 5mo ago
    All the undiscovered Woz's of the world add up to a trillion dollars? There's $1T of money out there waiting to be spent on side projects? The question was "are side projects a trillion dollar industry" not "has a side project ever started an industry" How much of a new $1T software product will anthropic capture in token costs, anyway?
an0malous 5mo ago
I don’t think that’s true, I think these authors are making a much stronger claim that AI is proficient or even an expert at software engineering. This author describes how complex and sophisticated their software is, and the only value he’ll concede to “coders” is that there might be a few bugs they’d need to fix. Imagine not being an architect and using Claude to put together a building plan, then concluding it’s basically done but we might need a real architect to double check the measurements. It may even be true but I’d be skeptical if it’s always non-architects saying this.
- bathtub365 5mo ago
  Why do they even need coders to fix these bugs? It would be an order of magnitude (at least) to ask Claude to find and fix them, and it will likely be successful. Building in the physical world has physical and time constraints that cannot be overcome, which is one of the reasons architecture (and engineering) are so important in this domain. In software development these constraints were only inherent when people were writing the majority of the software. I feel like I’m seeing what I thought were fundamental constraints being eroded by the increasing speed and correctness of these tools and it’s making me reconsider the importance of some of the values that are held by software engineering. It’s obviously dependent on the domain and solution, but if your software can be extremely rapidly rearranged, bugs found and fixed with little effort, and features added with only a minimum prompt, I think the entire definition of technical debt has changed. I’ve been sceptical of these tools and still approach their output with caution. I also worry that, as a software developer, if more can be accomplished in less time there will be less room on this planet for software developers.
  - phil21 5mo ago
    > I think the entire definition of technical debt has changed. I’ve been sceptical of these tools and still approach their output with caution. This very well summarizes my current thinking on the subject as well. And most of my career has been playing the role of technical debt nazi. Much to the detriment of my earning potential. Does AI make incredibly inefficient code most of the time? Yup. But it does it at lightspeed with minimal effort. I think many software engineers forget they exist to get real things done (in many cases at least) and they are a cost center for most businesses. If your end product is not selling software, very few people actually Doing the Thing(tm) will give a single solitary care about code quality or maintainability when they can just spend 30 minutes and $15 worth of tokens to fix it. It won't take over everything, but I've already seen otherwise very intelligent go-getter type folks who are not technical or know how to code made extremely useful things for themselves and their small little enterprises. And this will seemingly only get better and more efficient. For someone who really does love the idea of well architected and future-proof code this is just icky to even say or consider. But I'm coming around to this is the future for the majority of software for most places. And it may have the ability to seriously even the playing field for small enterprises in some industries. I'm currently using it to implement a zillion side projects at home I've been "meaning to get to" for years. It makes incredibly silly unmaintainable code most of the time - but I learned to not care, and just tell the AI bot to fix it/add to it as I go along. Worst-case I spend a single night deleting it all and starting from zero to "refactor" an entire thing.
SpicyLemonZest 5mo ago
It is, and it's cool that it is, but the calibration is important. Statements like this: > With Fable the spell has gotten powerful enough that I am no longer sure I am the wizard. I am closer to a patron. I describe what I want, I pay for it, and I judge the result. The conjuring happens somewhere I cannot watch, in hundreds of small choices I never get a vote on. The work has shifted from process to outcome. I no longer steer; I commission. have a very different meaning coming from a non-technical researcher than they would from someone who builds software for a living.
bandrami 5mo ago
Well, right, but if the real use case for LLMs is "making software that wasn't economical to make before" that's bearish for the labs because it means they're only going to be chasing the low end of the market.

shimman 5mo ago

Making side projects isn't a trillion dollar industry tho, adding to the fact that we are facing another global supply chain crisis due to the Iran War; the US is about to commit the biggest self-own ever in the history of empire.

zelphirkalt 5mo ago
The US has been on a course of self-owns ever since Trump got into office. That they still are a dominant power on the globe shows how much they were one before Trump, but it seems to be changing. At every self-own they commit, China laughs and inches up a little closer. I think we will see the day, when they are evenly matched in our lifetimes. But which self-own exactly do you mean, of the many there are?
Schmerika 5mo ago
There are actually quite a few trillion dollar industries that exist thanks to "side projects". Apple was Woz's side project, once upon a time. Adsense came from Google's 20% time. Social media started as a side project. Forests grow from trees. Trees grow from seeds. More potential seeds = more potential forests.
- queenkjuul 5mo ago
  All the undiscovered Woz's of the world add up to a trillion dollars? There's $1T of money out there waiting to be spent on side projects? The question was "are side projects a trillion dollar industry" not "has a side project ever started an industry" How much of a new $1T software product will anthropic capture in token costs, anyway?

an0malous 5mo ago

I don’t think that’s true, I think these authors are making a much stronger claim that AI is proficient or even an expert at software engineering. This author describes how complex and sophisticated their software is, and the only value he’ll concede to “coders” is that there might be a few bugs they’d need to fix. Imagine not being an architect and using Claude to put together a building plan, then concluding it’s basically done but we might need a real architect to double check the measurements. It may even be true but I’d be skeptical if it’s always non-architects saying this.

bathtub365 5mo ago
Why do they even need coders to fix these bugs? It would be an order of magnitude (at least) to ask Claude to find and fix them, and it will likely be successful. Building in the physical world has physical and time constraints that cannot be overcome, which is one of the reasons architecture (and engineering) are so important in this domain. In software development these constraints were only inherent when people were writing the majority of the software. I feel like I’m seeing what I thought were fundamental constraints being eroded by the increasing speed and correctness of these tools and it’s making me reconsider the importance of some of the values that are held by software engineering. It’s obviously dependent on the domain and solution, but if your software can be extremely rapidly rearranged, bugs found and fixed with little effort, and features added with only a minimum prompt, I think the entire definition of technical debt has changed. I’ve been sceptical of these tools and still approach their output with caution. I also worry that, as a software developer, if more can be accomplished in less time there will be less room on this planet for software developers.
- phil21 5mo ago
  > I think the entire definition of technical debt has changed. I’ve been sceptical of these tools and still approach their output with caution. This very well summarizes my current thinking on the subject as well. And most of my career has been playing the role of technical debt nazi. Much to the detriment of my earning potential. Does AI make incredibly inefficient code most of the time? Yup. But it does it at lightspeed with minimal effort. I think many software engineers forget they exist to get real things done (in many cases at least) and they are a cost center for most businesses. If your end product is not selling software, very few people actually Doing the Thing(tm) will give a single solitary care about code quality or maintainability when they can just spend 30 minutes and $15 worth of tokens to fix it. It won't take over everything, but I've already seen otherwise very intelligent go-getter type folks who are not technical or know how to code made extremely useful things for themselves and their small little enterprises. And this will seemingly only get better and more efficient. For someone who really does love the idea of well architected and future-proof code this is just icky to even say or consider. But I'm coming around to this is the future for the majority of software for most places. And it may have the ability to seriously even the playing field for small enterprises in some industries. I'm currently using it to implement a zillion side projects at home I've been "meaning to get to" for years. It makes incredibly silly unmaintainable code most of the time - but I learned to not care, and just tell the AI bot to fix it/add to it as I go along. Worst-case I spend a single night deleting it all and starting from zero to "refactor" an entire thing.

SpicyLemonZest 5mo ago

It is, and it's cool that it is, but the calibration is important. Statements like this: > With Fable the spell has gotten powerful enough that I am no longer sure I am the wizard. I am closer to a patron. I describe what I want, I pay for it, and I judge the result. The conjuring happens somewhere I cannot watch, in hundreds of small choices I never get a vote on. The work has shifted from process to outcome. I no longer steer; I commission. have a very different meaning coming from a non-technical researcher than they would from someone who builds software for a living.

bandrami 5mo ago

Well, right, but if the real use case for LLMs is "making software that wasn't economical to make before" that's bearish for the labs because it means they're only going to be chasing the low end of the market.