←back to thread

If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

(www.seangoedecke.com)
192 points imasl42 | 8 comments | 20 Sep 25 04:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
Show context
rsynnott ◴[20 Sep 25 10:06 UTC] No.45311963[source]▶
This idea that you can get good results from a bad process as long as you have good quality control seems… dubious, to say the least. “Sure, it’ll produce endless broken nonsense, but as long as someone is checking, it’s fine.” This, generally, doesn’t really work. You see people _try_ it in industry a bit; have a process which produces a high rate of failures, catch them in QA, rework (the US car industry used to be notorious for this). I don’t know of any case where it has really worked out.

Imagine that your boss came to you, the tech lead of a small team, and said “okay, instead of having five competent people, your team will now have 25 complete idiots. We expect that their random flailing will sometimes produce stuff that kinda works, and it will be your job to review it all.” Now, you would, of course, think that your boss had gone crazy. No-one would expect this to produce good results. But somehow, stick ‘AI’ on this scenario, and a lot of people start to think “hey, maybe that could work.”

replies(21): >>45312004 #>>45312107 #>>45312114 #>>45312162 #>>45312253 #>>45312382 #>>45312761 #>>45312937 #>>45313024 #>>45313048 #>>45313151 #>>45313284 #>>45313721 #>>45316157 #>>45317467 #>>45317732 #>>45319692 #>>45321588 #>>45322932 #>>45326919 #>>45329123 #
ben_w ◴[20 Sep 25 13:37 UTC] No.45313284[source]▶
> I don’t know of any case where it has really worked out.

Supermarket vegetables.

replies(1): >>45315451 #
1. HarHarVeryFunny ◴[20 Sep 25 17:41 UTC] No.45315451[source]▶
Are you saying that supermarket vegetables/produce are good?

Quite a bit of it, like Tomatoes and Strawberries, is just crap. Form over substance. Nice color and zero flavor. Selected for delivery/shelf-life/appearance rather actually being any good.

replies(1): >>45315759 #
2. ben_w ◴[20 Sep 25 18:08 UTC] No.45315759[source]▶
> Form over substance. Nice color and zero flavor. Selected for delivery/shelf-life/appearance rather actually being any good.

From an economics POV, that's the correct test.

I was also considering the way the US food standards allows a lot of insect parts in the products, but wasn't sure how to phrase it.

replies(2): >>45317585 #>>45323209 #
3. bluefirebrand ◴[20 Sep 25 21:11 UTC] No.45317585[source]▶
> From an economics POV, that's the correct test

Maybe we could stop filtering everything through this bullshit economics race to the bottom then

replies(1): >>45317753 #
4. ben_w ◴[20 Sep 25 21:33 UTC] No.45317753{3}[source]▶
You can campaign for your government to set any legal minimum for quality that you want, but it's essentially nonsensical to expect people not to optimise for cheapest given whatever those constraints are.
replies(1): >>45319443 #
5. yeasku ◴[21 Sep 25 02:20 UTC] No.45319443{4}[source]▶
Apple, Oracle or Nvidia did not get there following your way of thinking

A race to the bottom leaves you like Boeing or Intel.

Late stage capitalism is not a must.

replies(1): >>45321172 #
6. ben_w ◴[21 Sep 25 09:01 UTC] No.45321172{5}[source]▶
Counterpoint: Juicero.

Your list of winners are optimising for what the market cares about, exactly like the supermarkets (who are also mostly winners) are optimising for what the market cares about. For most people, for food specifically, that means "cheap". Unavoidably, because most people have less money than they'd like. Fancy food is rare treat for many.

Apple software currently has a reputation for buggy UI; Oracle has a reputation for being litigious; that just leaves Nvidia who are printing money selling shovels in two sucessive gold rushes, which is fine for a business and means my investment is way up, but also means for high end graphics cards consumer prices are WTF and availability is LOL.

replies(1): >>45328648 #
7. HarHarVeryFunny ◴[21 Sep 25 14:45 UTC] No.45323209[source]▶
> I was also considering the way the US food standards allows a lot of insect parts in the products, but wasn't sure how to phrase it.

I don't know how the US compares to other countries in terms of "insects per pound" standards, but having some level of insects is going to be inevitable.

For example, how could you guarantee that your wheat, pre-milling, has zero insects in it, or that your honey has no bee parts in it (best you can do is strain it, then anything that gets through the straining process will be on your toast).

8. yeasku ◴[22 Sep 25 02:49 UTC] No.45328648{6}[source]▶
As you said Oracle wins money hiring more lawyers every day, not because each day they hire cheaper employees.

See, the only way is not a race to the bottom like all late stage capitalist claim.

What is your point?