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0 pointspixel_popping1d ago0 comments

Because I have myself 10-50x my productivity and I have close to 20 years of experience in dev, and I'm able to manage 50 repos at once (with heavy adversarial in loops and many other automated procedures e2e, regressions and everything you can think of), spent about $50K in tokens lately (+ many subscriptions). I also have a grid of 8 monitors where windows are automatically switched to ask me questions non-stop, I'm a "bot" yes :p, but I've never been able to even dream of managing projects this big while maintaining consistency and quality.

I say it's counterintuitive in the sense that for a business, the "sheer" output now possible, not just in code... but in marketing automation, documentation, testing, prototyping which brings you competitive advantage that just can't be compared, I understand that you can still make money without AI, but if you can, you can also make so much more money with AI, it's not only about the money, it's also that you can solo handle complex projects (assuming you have the mental bandwidth to manage 30 threads in parallel).

I completely respect the OP's position for personal projects and hobbyist work but I don't see how you can make more money without using AI, quality of code (but even this, I'd argue that 20 rounds of adversarial with 10 models is not really beatable) is rarely a success factor in business.

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Eliah_Lakhin1d ago

Well, I can ask you the same question. I don't see how you can make money using AI in the foreseeable future too. Even if it is possible today, once the critical mass of people will master this technology, the opportunity gone.

In the past there was a "human computer" profession[^1] where people earn money for calculating by hand. Soon they were replaced by just normal computers. But computers were rare and expensive. Not everyone could afford of having one. So, there was a period of time where the big business had an opportunity. This opportunity also gone, once the home computers widespread.

The businesses may be in advantage of selling products made with AI. But I foresee that the value of these products will degrade eventually, because everyone will manage to do more or less the same at home. Ordinary software will no longer be a thing you can sell or advertise easily.

You would have to try harder to produce something unordinary. And even if you do, it will be very easy to replicate for competitors using AI.

I think that maybe not today but in a few years the Internet will be full of generated content most users wouldn't trust, and wouldn't be interested in mostly. And there will be no novel ideas available for public, because any know-how will be carefully hidden.

To conclude, it's not just about "code quality". If you are making something unusual you can make by hand, that the AI cannot imaging, you have very serious reasons not to disclose it in a new reality.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)

pixel_poppingOP21h ago

I actually agree with you, the future is uncertain and even worrisome and many ways (and bleak :/ goodbye Internet the way it was), but the 1-2-3 years window now is real where practically anyone with motivation & skills can succeed.

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