> For these environments, AI coding will just scale up the shit they have, but also allow the small amount of people who might care to deal with this mess and fix it up much much faster than they could before.
I think in these contexts AI has an overall positive effect, because it's a bit like having a competent developer that can solve technical debt, albeit in a narrow form.
So I think that software will be better in a certain way due to AI, because even a terrible developer can ask AI to identify the bottlenecks and solve them.
The downside of blindly using AI in software development is that the software becomes poorly defined. AI-generated logic can be arbitrary, and as the codebase grows, more rules and assumptions become unclear.
> So I think that software will be better in a certain way due to AI, because even a terrible developer can ask AI to identify the bottlenecks and solve them.
The root cause of the issue is not the bottlenecks or the ability to identify them. It’s about caring about doing a good job. Because once you start caring, you will need to exercise judgment. Better or worse only matters when you have goals.
This is one reason we have so much slop with AI. The cost of the journey has lessened, but you still need to have a destination and be willing to appreciate the journey to get there. Without, it’s just endless drifting.
I think in these contexts AI has an overall positive effect, because it's a bit like having a competent developer that can solve technical debt, albeit in a narrow form.
So I think that software will be better in a certain way due to AI, because even a terrible developer can ask AI to identify the bottlenecks and solve them.
The downside of blindly using AI in software development is that the software becomes poorly defined. AI-generated logic can be arbitrary, and as the codebase grows, more rules and assumptions become unclear.