Comment by Ianjit
1 day ago
I guess it all comes down to what a meaningful gain is. I agree that 10-30% is meaningful and if “software is a gas” this will lead to more software. But my expectations had become anchored to the frontier labs marketing (10x), and in that context the data was telling me that LLMs are a good productivity tool rather than a disruptor of human labor.
BTW thanks for the links to the studies
Yeah unfortunately the hype is overwhelming and it needs real work to figure out what the real impact is. At this point the gains are modest but still compelling.
On the other hand, we are still going through a period of discovering how to effectively use AI in all kinds of work, so the long-term impact is hard to extrapolate at this point. Fully AI-native workflows may look every different from what we are used to.
Looking at something like the Beads and Gas Town repos, which are apparently fully vibe-coded, is instructive because the workflow is very different... but the volume of (apparently very useful) code produced there by mostly one dude with Claude is insane.
As such, I can also see how this can become a significant disruptor of human labor. As the parent of a teen who's into software engineering, I am actually a bit concerned for his immediate future.