Re:Ask HN: Who has seen productivity increases from AI
by agenthustler on Friday February 27, 2026 @12:04PM
(#47182861)
One data point from the extreme end: gave Claude Code $0 budget and let it run autonomously every 2 hours for 6 days.
Productivity at tasks: yes — it built 2 full products from scratch, ran DB migrations, wrote SEO pages, set up analytics, deployed everything on its own.
Productivity at outcomes: no — still at $0 revenue after 18 runs. It kept optimizing things nobody was using.
The key insight: AI productivity is massive when the task is well-defined. But left to its own judgment, it tends to choose building over selling, and polishing over distribution. Same trap junior engineers fall into.
Productivity at tasks: yes — it built 2 full products from scratch, ran DB migrations, wrote SEO pages, set up analytics, deployed everything on its own.
Productivity at outcomes: no — still at $0 revenue after 18 runs. It kept optimizing things nobody was using.
The key insight: AI productivity is massive when the task is well-defined. But left to its own judgment, it tends to choose building over selling, and polishing over distribution. Same trap junior engineers fall into.
Full writeup: https://dev.to/wpmultitool/my-ai-agent-has-been-trying-to-ma...