The operating cost starts after the demo

https://twoheads.net/the-promise-is-unattended-work/

by hellokfk • 27 days ago

57 42 27 days ago

Writing about the operating cost of AI tools while the whole article is a complete AI slop. :)

8-prime4• 23 days ago

Whether written with AI or not, I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment that it's AI slop. We too often only categorize between no AI used and AI slop.

Does them using AI to write the article invalidate the points stated in any way? I personally don't think so. I too am weary of constant bombardment with AI but at the same time being against something just because AI was in the loop isn't much better, if at all.

shibaprasadb2• 23 days ago

I see no issues in articles where AI was in the loop or made the article better than it otherwise would have been. Why not?

But if 100% is generated by AI - and you just prompted it - then I would like to avoid that piece. Personally.

owebmaster• 23 days ago

We too often only categorize between no AI used and AI slop

We do not. You might have not noticed but we don't discuss the use of AI when nobody notices that AI was used.

kombookcha2• 23 days ago

If it wasn't worth writing for the author, it won't be worth reading for you and I. If you have a point to make, putting it into words is part of how you structure and understand it yourself. I would much rather read a point imperfectly made by a person, than a bunch of algo-noise around the fuzzy outline of a point that nobody has thought through.

If you value your finite human time and attention you have to somehow sift through the deluge of slop and the simplest, most effective filter is to immediately ditch anything that fails the slop sniff test. You are not owed readers.

hennell• 23 days ago

People have always judged ideas on their communication. if u rite lk this bro - I'm probably not going to pay much attention. Conversely if you write in a really formal way for a young audience you probably won't get far either. It's a shortcut of importance; if it's not important to you to communicate your message well, then it's probably not that important a message.

And this article is such Ai slop. You see the sentences? All short. All 'punchy'. All with repetition. All for maximum 'impact'. Constant unrelenting impact.

And the lists! The lists, the rolls, the lineup, the rows, the enumeration, the catalogue of examples that goes on too long for comfort, logic, joy, readability or attention.

I'd love to know how many people actually read all of this. I suspect most started skimming as it's just awkward to read, the pacing is just so Ai-y it's exhausting.

I'm never really sure the author reads things like this - I think they wrote something, asked a Ai to punch it up then skimmed it and said 'lgtm'. If you care so little why should anyone else?

baxtr• 23 days ago

Genuinely curious: How do you know?

N_Lens2• 22 days ago

So many easy tells, AI, particularly Claude, has a characteristic writing style (Can be alleviated by using smaller/local models).

N_Lens2• 22 days ago

The promise is AI slop, the reality is HN front page!

pjmlp• 22 days ago

Yes, but I hear devs cannot live without Claude!

The irony.

killiancarroll• 23 days ago

Well put, and I think the problem extends beyond agentic systems to regular software. Someone in an organisation whips up a useful product, publishes it and is now on the hook for bug fixes, feature requests and operations. The maintenance cost is often much larger than the cost of building it now that producing an MVP is so easy.

munchler• 23 days ago

It actually extends to all automation, even before computers. Replacing oxen with tractors? Now you have to keep the tractors running.

Alien1Being• 23 days ago

More AI written slop...

Just skip it.

Not worth reading.

aetherspawn• 23 days ago

Came here to figure out why this Ad has 30 upvotes…

jagged-chisel• 22 days ago

Flag it

DarkNova6• 22 days ago

Why didn't I think of this sooner? You are completely right, there needs to be a a way to punish slop. If anything, it should lower the rating for website in the future as well.

wseqyrku2• 23 days ago

If I were working in marketing and I wanted to increase utilization of the nuclear power plant next door, I would wipe 50 years of computer science and introduce "agent programming" and pretend it's the future. What are the odds people would buy it? Hit send.

falcor844• 22 days ago

There's a lot that could be said against agentic programming, but I don't understand how it wipes away anyway about CS - everything about this is a massive tower built on top of (and effectively utilizing) everything that we've learned about CS fundamentals and engineering over these decades.

wseqyrku2• 22 days ago

but I don't understand how it wipes away anyway about CS

Because transformers is a mathematician's take on programming. Not your CS graduate.

ChrisMarshallNY3• 22 days ago

But a demo is not a system. A demo is controlled. The input is clean, the edge cases are removed, and the happy path is selected in advance. Real work has missing data, unclear requests, old records, broken integrations, private context, bad formatting, vague instructions, and exceptions nobody wrote down.

This has been the case for decades. LLMs are just magnifying it.

That's why I feel that an important part of any engineer's development, should be working on shipping product; where they can have firsthand experience with its use "in the wild."

It can be sobering; sometimes, downright depressing.

But it's a great lesson.

pjm331• 22 days ago

Nothing teaches you like maintaining something for a decade

ngsevers• 22 days ago

This is definitely the case with ERP/accounting systems. AI can make the demo look better, but someone inside the company still has to own each process.

I’ve found that no matter what systems companies implement, behind the scenes they usually still run on spreadsheets. Moving people away from that is where the pushback starts.

hasteg• 22 days ago

Typically when I ship anything that is going to be customer facing I am a nervous wreck. Although I'm only 4 years into my career. Does it get better with time?

ChrisMarshallNY3• 22 days ago

Not in my experience.

But it is really rewarding, to see my work, actually in use.

acedTrex• 22 days ago

You get better at proactively setting up feedback loops and the ability to respond quicker.

Saying "im sorry this is broken it will take us a few weeks to fix it" feels infinitely worse than "im sorry this is broken give us a few hours and we'll get it fixed"

voakbasda• 22 days ago

After three decades slinging code, my stress response to high pressure tends to be inversely proportional to the size and competency of the org/team. Suitably sized and capable team? Not going to sweat too much about it. The smaller or less experienced the team, the more other factors come into play.

Lately, I have been working solo, so my stress tracks more closely with development cadence and deadlines. When seeing (or anticipating) the pinch here, I push back with “you can have features or deadlines, but not both”. If you do not push back, you will find yourself being tasked with writing fixes or features for an impossible deadline, and you are not going to have a good time.

Beyond that, your nerves should diminish over time, as you gain more confidence in your ability to produce production quality code. Use language servers and linters, run static and runtime analysis tools, enable every warning, treat warnings as errors, write tests, and so on. Warn the powers that be of the consequences of skipping such steps; once you have clearly warned of possible outcomes from such action (e.g. shipping bugs, slipped deadlines, dropped features), you should not need to carry the burden on your own shoulders.

Good engineering requires constant trade offs, and you should look for a new job if management does not understand and respect such principles. Good organizations should not be stressful places to work.

pc86• 22 days ago

If you've heard the phrase "it doesn't get easier, you just get stronger" in regards to the gym, I think it's similar for shipping products. I don't feel less nervous about shipping now than I did 15 years ago, but 1) I'm at least marginally better at this than I was then, and most importantly 2) I don't take feedback as personally as I did then.

Feedback is either positive or negative, constructive or not. If it's positive, great. Maybe that gives you some insight into how your work is positively affecting people. If it's negative and constructive, great! Someone is taking time out of their day to tell you how to make your product better, for free. Print the feedback out and hang it on the wall. If it's negative and not constructive, who cares?

The operating cost starts after the demo

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