Privacy is non existent, every word said and message sent at the office is recorded but the benefits we saw were amazing.
He was correct though. For example, I’ve been waiting over a month for another team to set me up so I can test something they wanted me to develop. I’ve followed up multiple times. AI coding tools aren’t going to solve my blocker.
But I like your and OP's analogy. Also, the productivity claims are coming from the guys in main memory or even disk, far removed from where the crunching is taking place. At those latency magnitudes, even riding a turtle would appear like a huge productivity gain.
Meetings are work, as much as IPC and network calls are work. Just because they're not fun, or what you like to do, it doesn't mean they're any less of a work.
I think you're analyzing things from a tactical perspective, without considering strategic considerations. For example, have you considered that it might not be desirable for CPUs to be just fast, or fast at all? is CISC faster than RISC? different architectural considerations based on different strategic goals right?
If you're an order picker at an amazon warehouse, raw speed is important. being able to execute a simpler and more fixed set of instructions (RISC), and at greater speed is more desirable. if you're an IT worker, less so. IT is generally a cost-center, except for companies that sell IT services or software. if you're in a cost center, then you exist for non-profit-related strategic reasons, such as to help the rest of the company work efficiently, be resilient, compete, be secure. Some people exist in case they're needed some day, others are needed critically but not frequently, yet others are needed frequently but not critically. being able to execute complex and critical tasks reliably and in short order is more desirable for some workers. Being fast in a human context also means being easily bored, or it could mean lots of bullshit work needs to be invented to keep the person busy and happy.
I'd suggest taking that compsci approach but considering not just the varying tasks and workloads, but also the diversity of goals and user cases of users (decision makers/managers in companies). There are deeper topics with regards or strategy and decision making surrounding the state machines of incentives and punishments, and decision maker organization (hierarchical, flat, hub-and-spoke,full-mesh,etc..).
That said, often, meetings are much more efficient means of syncing information than slack/chat or emails. call it "real-time active communication with rich context" if it sounds more technical. you can communicate in voice tones, body language, timing,etc.. what you can't using other means. and communicate doesn't mean just talk or listen for the sake of it, it can me brainstorm, understand requirements and expectations better, prevent misunderstandings and other wasted effort.
In my experience, things that exist as patterns like this in systems are always important, but it's also important to use them as intended, and not abuse them excessively.
Simply extracting the most value out of individual contributors isn't typically the goal of white collar management. as in my earlier example, you won't see order pickers at amazon warehouses attend meetings all day. their time at work is valued differently than a white collar workers'.
https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/claude-code-is-the-inf...
Asking for "amazing" open source projects in this case is not asking out of genuine curiosity or want for debate, it is a rhetorical question asked out of frustration at the general trajectory of AI and who profits off of it -- namely the boot-wearers.
- https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-history-json
- https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-ast
- https://github.com/simonw/showboat - 292 stars
- https://github.com/simonw/datasette-showboat
- https://github.com/simonw/rodney - 290 stars and 4 contributors who aren't me or Claude
- https://github.com/simonw/chartroom
Noting the star counts here because they are a very loose indication that someone other than me has found them useful.
It does use transactions in the form of savepoints which means they can be nested: https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-history-json/blob/53e66b279...
Transactions are tested here: https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-history-json/blob/53e66b279...
I lead with sqlite-history-json because I think it's the most impressive of the bunch - it solves a difficult problem in an elegant way with code I would have been proud to write by hand.
I wouldn't call these toys either. If you want toys take a look at most of https://tools.simonwillison.net/ - these six are all real projects on GitHub with tests and documentation and release notes.
You rebutted by claiming 4% of open source contributions are AI generated.
GP countered (somewhat indirectly) by arguing that contributions don’t indicate quality, and thus wasn’t sufficient to qualify as “amazing AI-generated open source projects.”
Personally, I agree. The presence of AI contributions is not sufficient to demonstrate “amazing AI-generated open-source projects.” To demonstrate that, you’d need to point to specific projects that were largely generated by AI.
The only big AI-generated projects I’ve heard of are Steve Yegge’s GasTown and Beads, and by all accounts those are complete slop, to the point that Beads has a community dedicated to teaching people how to uninstall it. (Just hearsay. I haven’t looked into them myself.)
So at this point, I’d say the burden of proof is on you, as the original goalposts have not been met.
Edit: Or, at least, I don’t think 4% is enough to demonstrate the level of productivity GP was asking for.
4% for a single tool used in a particular way (many are out there using AI tools in a way that doesn't make it clear the code was AI authored) is an incredible amount. Don't see how you can look at that and see 'not enough'.
The vast majority of people using these tools aren't announcing it to the world. Why would they ? They use it, it works and that's that.
Just because people are shitting out endless slop code that they never bothered to throw a 2nd glance at doesn't mean it'sgood or that it's leading to better projects or tools, it literally just means people are pushing code out haphazardly . If I made a python script that everyone started using and all it did was create a repo, commit a README and push it every 5 seconds we'd be seeing billions of lines of code added! But none of it is useful in any way.
Same with AI, sure we're generating endless piles of code, but how much of it is actually leading to better software?
>If I made a python script that everyone started using and all it did was create a repo, commit a README and push it every 5 seconds we'd be seeing
1. Well you can't do that
2. Something like that won't register as Claude Code (or any other AI tool) usage anyway
3. Something like that won't come anywhere near 4%
But that's what these tools are doing, in a large number of cases? At least the end result is basically the same, like that Clawdbot or whatever name they've decided to try ride the coattails of guy who has 70k commits in the last few months that I saw being touted as an impressive feat on HN the other day. How much broken, unusable code exists within those 70k commits that ultimately would've had the same effect as if he had just pushed a `--allow-empty` commit thousands of times?
Now whatever, if it's people pushing slop into their own codebase that they own, more power to them, my issue stems from OSS projects being inundated with endless spam MR/PRs from AI hypesters. It's just making maintainer's lives more difficult, and the most annoying part of it all is that they have to put up with people who don't see the effort disparity between them prompting their chatbot to write up some broken bullshit vs the effort required for maintainers to keep up with the spam. It hurts the maintainers, it hurts genuine beginners who would like to learn and contribute to projects, it hurts the projects themselves since they have to waste what precious little time and resources they already have digging through crap, it hurts quite literally everyone who has to deal with it other than the selfish AI-using morons who just take a huge dump over everyone and spouts shit like "Well 4% of all code on Github is now AI-generated!" as if more of that is somehow a good thing.
I mean No not really. I'm not sure why you think that.
>How much broken, unusable code exists within those 70k commits that ultimately would've had the same effect as if he had just pushed a `--allow-empty` commit thousands of times?
How much stable usable code exists within those 70k commits ?
This is pretty much exactly why I said the original question was not a great ask. You have your biases. Show an example and the default response for some almost like a stochastic parrot is, 'Must be slop!". How do you know ? Did you examine it? No, you didn't. That's just what you want to believe so it must be true. It makes for a very frustrating conversation.
> amazing
Nobody moved the goal posts.
> If you want to help, more funding so we can pay more maintainers to deal with the slop (on top of everything we do already) is the only viable solution I can think of
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/open-source-game-...
This is exactly the wrong approach! Funnel even more money away from productive tasks and into AI? Madness![1]
The only viable solution is being quick with a banhammer - maybe someone should start up a spamhaus type list of every github user who submitted AI slop.
Force them to burn these accounts on the very first spam.
------------
[1] Imagine if we chose this approach to deal with spam - we ask people for more money to hire a warm body to individually verify each email. Do you think spam would be the solved problem it is today?
Also small businesses aren't going to publish blog posts saying "we saved $500 on graphic design this week!"
And make your own brushes.
Before the printing presses came along, putting up flyers was not even imaginable.
Signs for businesses used to hand carved.
Then printed. A store sign was still produced by a team of professionals, but small businesses coils reasonably afford to print a sign. Not often updated, but it existed.
Then desktop publishing took off. Now lone graphic designers could design and send work off to a print shop. Small businesses could now afford regularly updated menus, signage, and even adverts and flyers.
Now small businesses can make their own creatives. AI can change stylesheets, write ad copy, and generate promotional photos.
Does any of this have the artistry of hand carved signs from 600 years ago? Of course not.
But the point is technology gives individuals control.
People have been painting with red and yellow ochre and soot for at least 50K years for sure, and probably several hundred thousand years in truth. You don't need a brush, you have fingers or a twig.
The walls on the streets of Pompeii are full of advertising -- they had an election going on and people just scribbled slogans and such on walls. You don't need flyers lol.
The idea that signs or advertising was "artistry" is deeply ahistorical. The reason old stuff looks real fancy is because labor was extremely cheap and materials were expensive.
Compare those to the pigments used (mixed up!) by professional painters, and then to what printers could make.
If you wanted to paint fine art in the 1400s you were possibly making your own canvases, your own paint brushes, and your own paints.
And on top of that you had to be a skilled painter!
> The walls on the streets of Pompeii are full of advertising -- they had an election going on and people just scribbled slogans and such on walls. You don't need flyers lol.
The American revolution included a lot of propaganda courtesy of printing presses and some very rich financers who had a vested interest in a revolution occuring.
Pamphlets everywhere. It is one thing to scribble on a wall, it is another to produce messages at a mass scale.
That sense of scale has been multiplied yet again by AI.
..a month
..multiplied by how many small businesses globally?
Once you do have a billion dollar product protecting it requires spending time, money and people to keep running. Because building a new one is a lot more effort than protecting existing one from melting.
Once you have revenue you have downside to protect. Pre-revenue the worst that can happen is that you have to start again knowing more than you did.