Character.ai is hardly representative of the AI market. It is at best a tiny sliver. There's coding tools, business process applications and more. Now the AI market likely has some challenges around financing build outs given recent inflation driven interest rates etc. But that's very different from what afflicted character.ai

I've been using codex to design and build a product that is a fairly conventional looking app - think of a gmail like experience - with some delicate synchronization across devices.

I find that I need to invest a whole lot in high level design myself to get Codex to create a suitable architecture and make the right tradeoffs. It's more like I am designing and Codex is reviewing and occasionally we brainstorm. When I tried having it design based on requirements, it went wild with an unsustainable design / architecture.

And I use things like plan mode etc. My experience is unlike what I read in most vibe coding exploits.

I wonder if I am doing something wrong. Is there a good canonical example of a project built with Codex or even Claude Code that shows how the human and AI interact that I could use as a reference

> occasionally we brainstorm.

Seriously, how do you brainstorm with an entity that would 180 if pushed a bit..How can you take anything it say at face value?

I've been on a similar path, and I used to put time in high level design, as it was basically required in some cases. But not a lot of time, because smaller agents research, perform small tests, whatever to inform the high level design. Working incrementally seems to help, maybe prompting a bit more often, but the same can be accomplished with well defined checkpoints.

Then generalize + standardize that process, get an agent to replace you as high level designer so you can manage a team of high level designers, etc etc

what plan level are you on

Why would they do it. Is it for marketing ?

Bc if they cement their status in people's minds as a last mile solution (there are other cheaper ones: bay wheels, lime scooters, etc.) that's an extra fare they didn't get before at a cheap customer acquisition cost ($3/ride)

this is my favorite bit

>So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

>So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated

I've noticed ChatGPT Work does a much better job of editing google docs than the pure Chat. It also does a better job of handling long threads and doing the necessary compaction to get better results

OpenAI has been slowly strangling context limits, task timeframes, tools, etc, for chat. They're trying to encourage people to use "Work" because chat is free and Work is metered. Expect chat capabilities to degrade further over time.