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“I’m calling it now, the adoption of AI agents into software development will be one of the most costly mistakes in the field’s history. Agents cannot program…” (geohot.github.io)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/webdev@programming.dev
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I’m calling it now, the adoption of AI agents into software development will be one of the most costly mistakes in the field’s history. Agents cannot program, and it’s taking longer and longer to realize that they can’t. They are a highly sophisticated statistical model designed to mimic the distribution of programming. The output is broken, but in a way that’s getting harder and harder to detect. Which is exactly what you’d expect from an increasingly accurate statistical model.

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[–] 23 points 4 months ago (5 children)

This is very obvious unless you are in tech leadership, in which case your job is now to push this at all costs and suppress dissenting voices.

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  • [–] -5 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    In tech leadership. I don't have to push it. My talented engineers took to it immediately.

    They learned quickly that it is a tool. Instead of using a shovel and a wheelbarrow, they have a backhoe now. If you don't know how to dig a hole, the backhoe is just a way to make a mess faster. It doesn't replace intelligence.

    They can use it to do the scutwork while they focus on the important stuff.

    The duds are still typing shit into spreadsheets and emailing them as attachments while their coworkers are getting stuff done.

    It is a tool. You can learn to use it or you can just be mad that it exists. In either case it isn't going away. Like the telephone, the car, the computer, the internet, it is here to stay.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    If you’re letting your engineers find uses for it instead of constantly demanding that they generate lengthy “user stories” and decision documents and deferring thinking to agents instead of quickly planning stuff out using their experience then you’re probably quite an outlier by now.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    I am a very lazy man, micromanagement takes so much fucking energy. Hire talented people, give clear and unambiguous guidance and trust them to do the work. It is amazing how easy management can be when you don't get in the way.

    Being in leadership is way easier than being an engineer and the pay is better too. Some people really overcomplicate shit.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago

    What's fascinating about this conversation is ... how do people think software used to be made ? With talented and knowledgeable developers who would never "hallucinate" an API or a library function ? With cybersec experts who would never put their user's data in jeopardy ? With performance investigators checking the computational complexity of each function ? Bitch please...

    Software engineering is not the kind of mystical cathedral building these people have in mind, it's more like a musty workshop in Pakistan where they make tractor tires with no safety equipment and a cigarette in their mouth. We've been throwing imperfect humans in various states of lucidity at every problem known to man for 30 years but suddenly people start believing that their bog standard CRUD software should be written by monks having attained cosmic godhood.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Typing shit into spreadsheets isn't something software engineers typically do... And usually shit that's typed into spreadsheets has to be accurate. There are major consequences if not, and AI is not reliable enough for that kind of work.

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