you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[+] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)
  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago

    In my experience the time spent getting AI to do what I want can just be used to write good code in the first place.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    I was just planning to do some sort of write up on this topic, although it will be internal only.

    Of the three projects I’m currently on

    • existing code base where AI sometimes has good ideas but almost never able to implement them successfully. This is legacy code, all human generated, and is probably too tightly coupled. Test framework is tightly coupled to the environment so ai cannot run it
    • new tool implementation to give cheaper and faster context across all repos (Spotify Backstage)
    • new code base almost entirely ai generated. Much more loosely coupled. There is no test /mock framework available, so it’s all scripts, which the ai is able to run at will to refine its guesses

    There’s definitely distinct conditions where ai can be the right tool and can succeed vs when it can’t. In managements blind rush to vibe code everything, they need to better understand where it works and where it doesn’t

    In particular, functionality I’m working on this week

    • existing code base ”modify function x to cover scenario y” at best gives a useful strategy
    • new code base “implement function x similar to existing code base, but that also covers scenario y” seems to work
  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (-1 replies)
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    This is the first comment section i've seen on lemmy with a reasonable discussion about AI use that wasnt instantly downvoted into oblivion for being pro-AI

    Usually this place is full of the "EVERYTHING IS SLOP" crowd without any nuance as to how it is being actually used to do small tasks well under the supervision of a qualified person.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    This comment thread reads 100% like AI astroturfing. AI is not an amplifier, there’s literally no evidence from any study that’s been done that backs that. That’s just AI company marketing.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    "AI IS AMAZING AND INEVITABLE!!!" = astroturfing

    "AI sucks at X, but sometimes useful at Y... use with caution." = astroturfing

    "AI SUCKS AT LITERALLY EVERY TASK!!! ITS ALL SLOP!!! SLOP SLOP SLOPPITTY SLOP!!!" = only organic discussion and reasonable take....

    Look, there are 100s of valid reasons why AI sucks and is unethical... in fact, it's pretty much 100% built on unethical methods, no doubt...

    But "AI sucks at everything and literally has zero good use cases" is not a real argument, but it seems to be the most popular opinion around here.

    I disagree with 90% of the pro-AI stuff out there, i'm just pointing out that its rare to hear a reasonable discussin on the topic here that isnt just 100% hate

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    If AI actually adds value, it should be trivial to demonstrate that value-add in a way that passes scientific rigor.

    The underlying problem is that we don't have a good way to measure code value. Software quality is most closely coporable to a weird combination of scientific paper, mechanical diagnostic, and toy instructuon. And we don't have good ways to measure those, either.

    There was apparently one study from Stanford:

    https://medium.com/@manusf08/does-ai-really-boost-developer-productivity-a-stanford-study-of-100-000-devs-has-answers-4f64c64ebe97

    Note that the headline is misleading -- stanford apparently trainded an AI model to "rate code" in a way that agreed with some of their staff and then ran that on a bunch of projects. The "good at simple and new, bad at complex and old" matches my intuition, but isn't really a stronger test than counting minutes spent in a project or dollars spent on programming with or without AI.


    And all AI output is slop. It's just that for some things slop is good enough.

    Which really should be an argument more for discarding those things than boiling oceans to generate more of them, but capitalism loves doing wasteful things

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (-1 replies)