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358 points andrewstetsenko | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.247s | source
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boshalfoshal ◴[] No.44361280[source]
Imo this is a misunderstanding of what AI companies want AI tools to be and where the industry is heading in the near future. The endgame for many companies is SWE automation, not augmentation.

To expand -

1. Models "reason" and can increasingly generate code given natural language. Its not just fancy autocomplete, its like having an intern - mid level engineer at your beck and call to implement some feature. Natural language is generally sufficient enough when I interact with other engineers, why is it not sufficient for an AI, which (in the limit), approaches an actual human engineer?

2. Business wise, companies will not settle for augmentation. Software companies pay tons of money in headcount, its probably most mid-sized companies top or second line item. The endgame for leadership at these companies is to do more with less. This necessitates automation (in addition to augmenting the remaining roles).

People need to stop thinking of LLMs as "autocomplete on steroids" and actually start thinking of them as a "24/7 junior SWE who doesn't need to eat or sleep and can do small tasks at 90% accuracy with some reasonable spec." Yeah you'll need to edit their code once in a while but they also get better and cost less than an actual person.

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1. monkeyelite ◴[] No.44362926[source]
> Software companies pay tons of money

Software companies make a single copy and sell it a billion times. The revenue per employee is insane. The largest companies are trying to make the best product in the world and seek out slight advantages.

The cost saving mindset you are describing is found in companies where software isn’t a core part of the business.