• gerikson@awful.systems
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    4 days ago

    here’s some nerd who calculates that GenAI gives a senior dev a 15% productivity increase, and a junior 25%

    https://bjorg.bjornroche.com/management/ai-productivity-gap/

    HN correctly calls his numbers bullshit, especially because the time spend reviewing code is unchanged between pre- and post-AI:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152222

    Even if his numbers are correct, it essentially means that software companies are around 10% faster in delivering something, however that something might be even more bug-ridden and slow than before.

    • diz@awful.systems
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      4 days ago

      I think even if development at an instant is some % faster to start with, it writes the same functionality in more lines of code which will rapidly lead to a cumulative slowdown.

      Imagine you are traveling the oregon trail in a wagon and a devil offers you an extra horse but all of its manure has to go into the wagon. Initial speed up followed by a cumulative slowdown. If you keep accepting devil’s deals as your wagon keeps slowing down to a crawl, the progression is governed by a horseshit version of Tsiolkovsky’s equation.

    • fullsquare@awful.systems
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      4 days ago

      Even then that’s extremely charitably assuming that this hypothetical productivity gain is put to good use, with ai-pilled management that’s just adding bloat 10% faster with a side of mindless tech debt