Post #3771571
2026-07-04 12:05 UTC
the efficiency gains from AI are real
Citation needed.
I’m an experienced solo developer who tried embracing the state of the art in agentic programming on a several month long non-trivial project. My income depends on this project succeeding so I’m not fucking around here looking for an excuse for ai to fail. I’m trying to keep up…
My idea is that if this works, I want it working for me.
The results were unimpressive at best. It feels very fast at first but the entropy is insidious and comes even faster.
When you hit the wall where the agent stops being able to understand it’s own work and contextualise tasks in a meaningful way, you’re left with a pile of incomprehensible shit that kind of looks like code.
You will have nothing. Nothing but a giant token bill, wasted time and a sense of shame.
Replies (1)
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@schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-04 12:24
The last study I saw might have been from 18 months ago, but they found that AI costs programmers more time than they saved AND that programmers completely miscalculated the efficiency of AI, unaware that it was slower. Whether or not AI is more efficient now, it’s demonstrated that individual programmers are pretty bad at evaluating AI efficiency subjectively. That leaves the reports of CEO’s, desperate to justify layoffs from lack of work with AI, desperate to goose their stock prices by being AI-first, and the slavish business press who exclusively repeats whatever they say. Citation definitely needed.