[viraptor]

> This means big companies have to do something otherwise they will compete with ml enhanced developers.

It's not that bad. In reality if we're looking at large tech companies, they've got senior people who know pretty much anything you want available within minutes/hours - which is something small companies just can't afford.

Ml enhanced devs may be a little bit faster and get some usually-correct help, but they won't get any wisdom.

[ryanmcgarvey]

I think the AI driven development story is more about leverage than it is about wisdom. Leverage from AI is derived from being able to do more with fewer people.

In my experience the great slowdown of growing companies comes from hitting the communication barrier on their products - the point at which the majority of effort is spent coordinating work rather than doing work. I find that the path from majority focus on product to majority focus on coordination isn't linear, but rather more of a watershed. One day you are 80/20, the seemingly overnight after some growth you are 20/80 the other way and never look back.

The advantage of being on the right side of that watershed is that you can maintain velocity and agility. Not only can you iterate quickly, but you're in a better position to change course and rebuild as needed. The left hand and the right hand require little effort to coordinate and get it done.

Larger companies live and die on their ability to either find a moat large enough to protect them, or build organizational structures that let them keep scaling. It takes decades to get the culture and processes right and baked in across the board for a large company to be able to maintain any velocity and reinvent itself.

This is where the gap is. Being small is easy, you simply don't have the coordination problems. But the moment you hit success and need to grow, you immediately are at a disadvantage compared to the big incumbents who have had decades to refine their coordination systems.

The extent to which AI can provide more leverage to smaller companies allowing them to "grow" without actually crossing that coordination watershed, they will be in a much better position take on the incumbents.

[jerf]

"I think the AI driven development story is more about leverage than it is about wisdom."

One of the things I'm going to be looking for over the next few years is whether extensive use of AI assistance will enhance the development of "wisdom" or inhibit it.

I suspect the latter, based on our existing experiences with leaning too much on help, but only time will tell. If it accelerates the development of this wisdom, it will be an invaluable too; if it inhibits it, it will be a career equivalent of taking hard drugs; fun now, deadly over the long term. I'd advise those who are dabbling with it now to 1. keep an eye out on whether or not your own skills are developing and 2. consider whether there's a way to use the tool in a way that your own skills do continue to develop.

[ryanmcgarvey]

In my experience so far it is much more along the lines of the horse and rider than it is a useful decision maker.

I'm still in charge of telling it where it go, but it takes me there. Knowing where to go and why is the important bit tied to wisdom.