[ben_w]

> where id still push back is that "inference becomes cheap" and "ai replaces good engineers" are two different claims. inference getting cheap means the floor tier of ai-assisted work becomes very accessible. but the gap between what claude can do as a fresh graduate (generous but i see what you mean) and what a senior with deep system context can do isnt a cost problem its a capability problem. 100x cheaper inference doesnt close that gap, it just means more cheap output faster

Absolutely agreed on all of this. There's problems which you can solve by organising a bunch of juniors, and there's problems they can't do. Even if my experience is typical, which I accept it may not be, Claude is still not a senior developer. That said, I wouldn't phrase it as "with deep system context", the AI are superhuman at context, they're just kinda… weirdly off, even with that context.

For now it sees things in a mirror, dimly lit (if you will excuse the Biblical reference I got via Star Trek).

> the bloat was arguably already dead weight. but the cut doesnt discriminate, it takes both

It can do, sometimes, but I think it doesn't matter much. The competent developers keep developing just in a new place, while the old products which they no longer work on were often good enough long ago.