> For example, major media outlets will gladly write that “AI can build software,” but said sentence suggests that you can just type “build me Slack 2” into Claude and have it fart out a fully-functional, production-ready piece of software, rather than a quasi-functional mound of code-slop that can do enough to trick a business idiot or lazy journalist, but little else.
Here is the latest point he made on development and that seems accurate to me? If a non-technical person hands AI an under-specified prompt you get quasi-functional slop.
Can you link the piece where he says it's only relevant for small hobby projects?
I'm not a huge fan of his or anything but your comment is just.. pulling stuff completely out of no-where.
around 9:30 "this is a thing that has its use for the little things, but the moment you start expanding it"
This is just plain wrong. We deal with codebases in double digit millions LOCs with models - it takes genuine skills and instrumentation to do right, but it does work. And I know devs who take this view - that AI is dumb, useless, a gimmick - and what they have in common is they have not tried to put in the hours to learn how to tame the beast.
Anyway, I am losing interest in debating the topic, the efficient markets will deal with this objectively. I can't see how a company employing the usual high-low mix of developers can compete with a company that has a small number of elite devs equipped with those tools and unencumbered by having to manage large development teams and associated bureaucracies. Time will tell.
Now, remind yourself when was the last time you had to work with a developer who went to CS because it pays well, and has zero enthusiasm for what they are building, and are just phoning it in, with minimum effort and low skills. AI models are coming for those people first. And those people are in the fricking millions. Strip IT teams to people with passion either for product or for tech, give them such tools, and watch. Compare this with a normal IT shop with a bunch of great people, a metric ton of average people, a few toxic imbecilles, and the necessary HR/management bureaucracy to keep that bunch on a leash.