alt Hacker NewsI never took tokenmaxxing to be about improving productivity directly; mundane feature work that comes out of it is just a side effect. I always saw it as a race between these big tech companies to get a generational advantage by being the one to discover the way of the future, with respect to harnessing AI to actually and truly automate software development.
EDIT: whoa, I used "way of the future" as a reference to Howard Hughes in "The Aviator", not this Way of the Future religious organization thing I just stumbled on; no intended reference there.
Replies
Yeah this is right. Its about taking the throttle off of experimentation hoping some team suddenly starts shipping a years worth of features in a week and responding to strategic customer demands in near real time. Then copying what works out across the org. (and probably downsizing)
My impression of companies pushing AI so heavily is that they are basically being forced to do it by it merely existing. Imagine if AI really is as powerful as it is suggested to be and you didn't jump on the bandwagon. Then you would be behind. So by it existing and other companies using it, you have to as well because even if it turns out to be a failure at least everyone else will have failed too and you are on an even playing field.
To the extent that figuring out the true automation will lead to layoffs, that knowledge will quickly spread as the laid-off knowledge workers are available for hiring.
Agree and I have wondered behind close doors if this is not the mental model. You need to spend money to see what is working this was simply a way to see that.
This is insightful. It does sort of feel like the search for the Northwest passage.
My hot take: The way of the future is local LLMs.
The AI equivalent of the PC revolution isn’t quite here yet, but it’s the only way forward.
Eh, I also saw it as a rather blatant attempt to undermine the bargaining power of the Software Engineer (which had grown to insane proportions over the years) - both in working conditions and raw cash money.
In many cases it really didn’t/doesn’t matter if the AI automation actually works, just that people think it could - and hence leave money on the table.
> by being the one to discover the way of the future
This is my understanding too. The underlying assumption is that action leads to information, iterations lead to enlightenment. So from an org's point of view, tokenmaxxing means encouraging everyone to explore as much as they can. Of course, token volume should not be the only metric - tokenmaxxing is just a catchy phrase.