Plenty of businesses need very custom software but couldn't realistically build it before.

A recent example, Mitchell Hashimoto was pointing out that he wasn't "first to market" with his product(s), he was (at least) SEVENTH

If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem, people would lose their minds over the 'waste' But when private companies do it, we call it efficient market competition. The duplication is the same - we just frame it differently.

Edit: fixed some typos caused by fat fingers on a phone keyboard

>If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem

The problem here is "government funded" - the trials are not rationalized by free-market economics. That is, a 5% better product in the end would not be worth seven competing developments initially.

This assumes that the duplicated effort arrives at a solution that is better than if it were done by a single team.

> >If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem

> The problem here is "government funded" - the trials are not rationalized by free-market economics. That is, a 5% better product in the end would not be worth seven competing developments initially.

I think you're saying that 5% is worth it when the free market does it, but 5% gain isn't when the government does it?

I'm hoping you're not because that's impossible - the end result is precisely the same

It is not. Seven teams all working under one leadership is quite different to seven leaderships each working with one team.

When different governments (e.g. USA and USSR), and thus different leaderships, are both trying to solve the same problem (e.g. travel to the moon), that too is considered efficient competition.

If a government did this (e.g., seven independent agencies competing for a moon landing), people would call it "fragmented," "uncoordinated," and "bureaucratic infighting."

When complete organizational separation is introduced, the concerns you speak of go away. In the USA, the ARPA (you might recognize that name from the thing you're using right now) program regularly enables "seven" independent leaders to tackle a problem and this is widely considered a resounding success.

- If they do a good job with leadership, only one team will be necessary. Anything else is truly a waste.

- If they do a poor job with leadership, every team will fail. Any more than one is also truly a waste[1].

The latter is the most likely outcome, of course. Now, when you absolve yourself from the process then those points still apply, but now you have several leaders duking it out to see which one doesn't fail. But, for the same reasons, those leaders each only benefit from having one team.

[1] You could argue that all teams are truly a waste, but one team is necessary to show that leadership failed. That brings abstract value, even if it fails to deliver the intended value. You don't know until you try.

The repeated movement of the goalposts here is only evidence of the no real scotsmen strategy being employed.

Not necessarily. Unless you think a global democratic government formed overnight?

> The repeated movement of the goalposts here

Whatever it is you are reading in other threads has no relevance to this one.

This is a distraction. Whether it's 300 million voters or 300 million iPhone users, both groups act as the ultimate arbiter of value. If a customer stops paying, the "leadership" of a company fails. If a voter stops voting for one party, or the other, the "leadership" of a state fails. The mechanical result on the "seven teams" is identical: the unsuccessful ones are defunded.

Further, this proves the detachment from reality you are bringing to the conversation - everybody in the private sector knows the golden rule - your customers ARE your employers

THEY dictate what they will pay for, and therefore what can be sold (unless you are a fan of monopolies forcing people to buy things they do not want to)

> Whatever it is you are reading in other threads has no relevance to this one.

Your dishonesty only highlights your bad faith, and as such we are done here.

Political parties in democracy are quite literally labor unions. The people in them do not independently lead the state, they are merely employees, hired by the leadership. You know, that's what you host elections for — to choose which employee you want to hire from the set of candidates who want the job. They may act as sub-leaders within the capacity of their job, but they are not the top leaders we are talking about. "Leadership" here was never intended to be about "middle managers".

That seems pretty obvious, but perhaps this confusion is the source of your misunderstandings?

> and as such we are done here.

Done with what? Thinking other threads are related this one? That is a good idea.

Right now, software is really expensive; so 1) economics tends to favor large pieces of software which solve many different kinds of problems, and 2) loads of things that should be automatable simply aren't being automated with software.

With the cost of software dropping, it makes more sense to have software targeted towards specific niches. Companies will do more in-house development, more things will be automated than were being automated before.

Of course nobody knows what will happen; but it's entirely possible that the demand for people capable of driving Claude Code to produce useful software will explode.

Previously, software devs were just way too expensive for small businesses to employ. You can't do much with just 1 dev in the past anyway. No point in hiring one. Better go with an agency or use off the shelf software that probably doesn't fill all your needs.

I'm sure the retort of the AI optimist will be that AI will make the things that person buys cheaper, and there may be truth to that when it comes to things that people buy with disposable income...

But how likely is AI to make actual essentials like housing and food cheaper?

IE. If a top tier dev make $1m today, they'll make $5m in the future. If the average makes $100k today, they'll maybe make $60k.

AI likely enables the best of the best to be much more productive while your average dev will see more productivity but less overall.

How silly of me to rely on reality when it’s so obvious that AI is benefiting us all.

Anyways, this is the start. Companies are adjusting. You hear a lot about layoffs but unemployments. But we're in a high interest environment with disruptions left and right. Companies are trying to figure out what their strategy is going forward.

I don't expect to see a boom in software developer hiring. I think it'll just be flat or small growth.

We are in negative growth, and the current leadership class keeps talking about all the people they can get rid of.

Look at the Atlassian layoff notice yesterday for example where they lied to our faces by saying they were laying off people to invest more in AI but they totally aren’t replacing people with AI.

Long-term, they will need none. I believe that software will be made obsolete by AI.

Why use AI to build software for automating specific tasks, when you can just have the AI automate those tasks directly?

Why have AI build a Microsoft Excel clone, when you can just wave your receipts at the AI and say "manage my expenses"?

Enjoy your "AI-boosted productivity" while it lasts.

I think this is a bit hyperbolic. Someone still needs to review and test the code, and if the code is for embedded systems I find it unlikely.

For SaaS platforms you’ll see a dramatic reduction, maybe like 80% but it’ll still have a handful of devs.

Factories didn’t completely eliminate assembly line workers, you just need a far fewer number to make sure the cogs turn the way it should.

I feel like you didn't understand my comment. I am predicting that there is no code to review. You simply ask the AI to do stuff and it does it.

Today, for example, you can ask ChatGPT to play chess with you, and it will. You don't need a "chess program," all the rules are built in to the LLM.

Same goes for SaaS. You don't need HR software; you just need an LLM that remembers who is working for the company. Like what a "secretary" used to be.

I didn’t, and thanks for clarifying for me.

This doesn’t pass the sniff test for me though - someone needs to train the models, which requires code. If AI can do everything for you, then what’s the differentiator as a business? Everything can be in chatGPT but that’s not the only business in existence. If something goes wrong, who is gonna debug it? Instead of API requests you would debug prompt requests maybe.

We already hate talking to a robot for waiting on calls, automated support agents, etc. I don’t think a paying customer would accept that - they want a direct line to a person.

I can buy the argument that the backend will be entirely AI and you won’t need to be managing instances of servers and databases but the front end will absolutely need to be coded. That will need some software engineering - we might get a role that is a weird blend of product + design + coding but that transformation is already happening.

Honestly the biggest change I see is that the chat interface will be on equal footing with the browser. You might have some app that can connect to a bunch of chat interfaces that is good at something, and specializations are going to matter even more.

It was a bit of a word vomit so thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

What the customer wants only matters insofar as they are willing to pay for it. Sure, I'd rather talk to a person... But I'm not willing to pay 100x as much for a service that's only marginally better. Same reason I don't fly first class, as miserable as coach is.

Someone may want to pay for a boutique human lawyer/banker/coder/professor, maybe as a status symbol, the same way people pay $20k for an ugly handbag. But I think most people will take the cheaper and almost as good option, when the difference in quality is far overshadowed by the difference in price.

> someone needs to train the models, which requires code.

I'm not sure that training llms is a coding problem, but it doesn't much matter: llms can train each other.

> If AI can do everything for you, then what’s the differentiator as a business?

Good question. My gut says there isn't: all money flows to the model providers, everyone else is a serf at best parasiting on someone else's model.

How does TurboTax implement the latest tax changes? My guess is that before the decade is over, the answer is "an LLM does it."

Anyways, formulas are a lot better than one shot.

Same goes for chess, there will always be a chance that it makes an illegal move. Same goes for code, there will always be a chance that it produces the wrong code.

Maybe a new AI technology will be developed that doesn't have the innate non-determinism, but we don't have that now.

https://www.percepta.ai/blog/can-llms-be-computers

Speed, cost, security, job/task management

Next question

All of that will inevitably be solved.

50 years ago, using a personal computer was an extravagant luxury. Until it wasn't.

30 years ago, carrying a powerful computer in your pocket was unthinkable. Until it wasn't.

Right now, it's cheaper to run your accounting math on dedicated adder hardware. But Llms will only get cheaper. When you can run massive LLMs locally on your phone, it's hard to justify not using it for everything.

If I can run 50,000 fixed tasks that cost me $0.834/hr but OpenAI is costing $37/hr and the automation takes 40x as long and can make TERRIBLE errors why the fuck would I not move to the deterministic system?

Also, battery life of mobile devices.

But now, we not only have laptops, we run horribly inefficient GUIs in horribly inefficient VMs on them.

The dollar-per-compute trend goes ever downward.

Yes. That's precisely why my company runs dBase 7 on a fleet of old 286DX machine from Compaq. /s

Running obsolete software will be cheaper, but the value provided by the newer technology will make the difference insignificant.

Why do 50,000 tasks with an LLM when I can do 64,467,235 without an LLM that the LLM created for the same cost on probably far lower cost hardware?

Because you'll be outcompeted by people who make the best of the nondeterministic system.

There are several human activities where allucinations can cost lives. We can't use LLMs for everything.