[hyperpape]

I love how these articles drop, and all of a sudden HN is filled with people who think engineering productivity is simple to measure.

Yes, productivity implies revenue (or cost reduction), and revenue is measurable.

However:

1. You spend money today to build features that drive revenue in the future, so when expenses go up rapidly today, you don’t yet have the revenue to measure.

2. It’s inherently a counterfactual consideration: you have these features completed today, using AI. You’re profitable/unprofitable. So AI is productive/unproductive, right? No. You have to estimate what you would’ve gotten done without AI, and how much revenue you would’ve had then.

3. Business is often a Red Queen’s race. If you don’t make improvements, it’s often the case that you’ll lose revenue, as competitors take advantage.

4. Most likely, AI use is a mixture of working on things that matter and people throwing shit against the wall “because it’s easy now.” Actually measuring the potential productivity improvements means figuring out how to keep the first category and avoid the second.

This isn’t me arguing for or against AI. It’s just me telling you not to be lazy and say “if it were productive you’d be able to measure it.”

[dijit]

> HN is filled with people who think engineering productivity is simple to measure.

I think the prevailing (correct) consensus is that developer productivity is actually very hard to measure, and every time it is attempted the measure is immediately made a target making the whole thing pointless even if it had been a solid measurement- which it wasn't.

IDK where you're getting the idea here that measuring productivity of anyone who isn't a factory worker is easy.

[hyperpape]

I do not think it is easy, like I said. I am saying other people are acting like it’s easy.

See the second comment on this article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47976781

See @emp17344 responding to me.

[dijit]

That second comment isn't making that statement though.

It's saying that: cost vs revenue is something we can see.

If I buy a plow for $2,500 and it enables growth of $5000, then arguing "the plow was expensive" is a moot point.

It doesn't make any argument about measured productivity, only investment vs return.

[mulmen]

The difficulty in measuring productivity is the attribution. How do you know the new plow enabled growth?

[dijit]

because trend and changing fewer variables.

[mulmen]

If you could actually prove that you wouldn’t be posting it on HN, you’d be shopping for a mega yacht.

[tomjakubowski]

Is it easy to measure a factory worker's productivity? It would seem surprising and interesting if every job's productivity is hard to measure except for one particular kind.

[dijit]

Any job where there's a definable output can be measured. Factory workers are one type.

Others might be farmers; if they're able to yield x tonnes of valid crops out of y acres.

[emp17344]

Minor shifts in productivity are hard to measure. Major jumps in productivity would be obvious. I think it’s clear that, if AI is affecting productivity, it’s to a minor degree at best.

[4ffg]

i think it will make things go backwards.

the big leaps in productivity come from really great ideas that are formalised into concepts that then take form.

this comes from being in a meditative state. not blasting output at a higher rate.

[mulmen]

Maybe. It also lets people build things that never would have existed before. My hobby is competitive pinball. There are multiple new stat and tournament tracking apps that have been vibe coded by people who never would have written code by hand.

[eiee]

So..?

If it was genuinely worth building before, you would have. Having some kind of cost involved is a force of nature that invokes one to decide whether it is worth doing it or not.

Moreover these activities only serve to enhance the wealth and interests of the few. Congrats. Don’t forget to look in the mirror.

[mulmen]

It’s not operated for profit. People can just solve (some of) their problems by talking to computers.

[ygrr]

What are you talking about? Llm producers are not a charity.

[jcgrillo]

If it were 10x productive you'd be able to measure it indirectly, you'd be unable to avoid measuring it. So the initial claims were clearly lies. The research question is:

  Is it >1.0x productive?

I agree that's very hard to measure. But given what this shit costs, it had better be answerable, and the multiple had better justify the cost.

[pier25]

> You spend money today to build features that drive revenue in the future

Totally but new features in their app or better software are not going to increase Uber's revenue/profit significantly.

[jcgrillo]

This is the message that somehow the tech industry is constitutionally incapable of absorbing. The "innovation impulse" is cancer. I have no idea why tech managers keep harping on about "innovating", it's so bizarre.

[causal]

I mean, the option is not zero productivity or some productivity: it could be negative.

We doubt the productivity because we have enough experience with Claude Code to know that flooding your organization with that many tokens isn't just unproductive, it's actively harmful.