alt Hacker NewsI like AI for software development.
Sometimes I am uncertain whether it's an absolute win. Analogy: I used to use Huel to save time on lunches to have more time to study. Turns out, lunches were not just refueling sessions but ways to relax. So I lost on that relaxation time and it ended up being +-0 long-term.
AI for sure is net positive in terms of getting more done, but it's way too easy to gloss over some details and you'll end up backtracking more.
"Reality has a surprising amount of detail" or something along those lines.
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For the life of me, I don't get the productivity argument. At least from a worker perspective.
I mean, it's at best a very momentary thing. Expectations will adapt and the time gained will soon be filled with more work. The free time net gain will ultimately be zero, optimistically, but I strongly suspect general life satisfaction will be much lower, since you inherently lose confidence in creation, agency, and the experience in self-efficacy is therefore lessened, too. Even if external pressure isn't increased, the brain will adapt to what's considered a new normal for lazy. Everybody hates clearing the dish washer, aversion threshold is the same as washing dishes by hand.
And yeah, in the process you atrophy your problem solving skills and endurance of frustration. I think we will collectively learn how important some of these "inefficiencies" are for gaining knowledge and wisdom. It's reminiscent of Goodhart's Law, again, and again. "Output" is an insufficient metric to measure performance and value creation.
Costs for using AI services does not at all reflect actual costs to sustainably run them. So, these questionable "productivity gains" should be contrasted with actual costs, in any case. Compare AI to (cheap, plastic) 3D printing, which is factually transformative, revolutionary tech in almost every (real) industry, I don't see how trillions of investments, the absurd energy and resource wasting could ever justify what's offered, or even imaginable for AI (considering inherent limitations).
That's a brilliant analogy, I had the same experience with Huel and AI Assistants
Why do I feel like I've just read a covert advertisement?
I find the hardest thing is explaining what you want to the LLM. Even when you think you've done it well, you probably haven't. It's like a genie, take care with what you wish for.
I put great effort into maintaining a markdown file with my world model (usecases x principles x requirements x ...) pertaining to the project, with every guardrail tightened as much as possible, and every ambiguity and interaction with the user or wider world explained. This situates the project in all applicable contexts. That 15k token file goes into every prompt.