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by losthalo 740 days ago
The problem is the cost to shift to a new product, not cost of the product.
1 comments

Not sure what you guys are trying to say here but I have seen, with my own eyes, large enterprise software systems that end up being so fragile it makes you laugh. The incumbents in this space make dinosaurs look like spring chickens by comparison.

There are millions upon millions of dollars being spent on stupid, outdated software that simply does not work. The main thrust of my original comment was that - "you thought open source was impressive? wait until the rise of AI powered open source". I think the highly arcane world of enterprise software is similar to being a travel agent in the mid to late 90s.

Do you think AI is going to solve the problems of proprietary data formats and retraining entire workforces to whole new workflows?

AI isn't, so far as I can tell, a universal Easy ButtonĀ®.

Open Source didn't scratch the surface of those problems, but AI will solve them somehow?

I think that if you have the skills to manage a software project of any complexity then you, alone can create what teams are doing today. I think AI can characterize proprietary data formats and assist by writing parsers, providing helpful error messages, and pointing out inconsistencies and gaps in the specification. AI can eliminate the need for so much workforce. Rather than training existing workers, it can become the existing workers. ChatGPT is already more competent than 1/2 of the workers at my last job. Case in point - two teams were independently assigned a particular upgrade task. Since the project managers used different terms they didn't realize they were doing double work. Large language models could already disambiguate that kind of thing way back then, it is only getting better.