Comment by mjr00 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjr00 | Hacker News Reader

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> That's all very true, but what you're missing is that the proportion of codebases that need this is shrinking relative to the total number of codebases. There's an incredible proliferation of very small, bespoke, simple, AI-coded apps, that are nonetheless quite useful. Most are being created by people who have never written a line of code in their life, who will do no maintenance, and who will not give two craps how the code looks, any more than the average YouTuber cares about the aperture of their lens or the average forum commenter care about the style of their prose.

I agree that there will be more small, single-use utilities, but you seem to believe that this will decrease the number or importance of traditional long-lived codebases, which doesn't make sense. The fact that Jane Q. Notadeveloper can vibe code an app for tracking household chores is great, but it does not change the fact that she needs to use her operating system (a massive codebase) to open Google Chrome (a massive codebase) and go to her bank's website (a massive codebase) to transfer money to her landlord for rent (a process which involves many massive software systems interacting with each other, hopefully none of which are vibe coded).

The average YouTuber not caring about the aperture of their lens is an apt comparison: the median YouTube video has 35 views[0]. These people likely do not care about their camera or audio setup, it's true. The question is, how is that relevant to the actual professional YouTubers, MrBeast et al, who actually do care about their AV setup?

[0] https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/en/research-youtube-stats/

This is where I get into much more speculative land, but I think people are underestimating the degree to which AI assistant apps are going to eat much of the traditional software industry. The same way smart phones ate so many individual tools, calculators, stop watches, iPods, etc.

It takes a long time for humanity to adjust to a new technology. First, the technology needs to improve for years. Then it needs to be adopted and reach near ubiquity. And then the slower-moving parts of society need to converge and rearrange around it. For example, the web was quite ready for apps like Airbnb in the mid 90s, but the adoption+culture+infra was not.

In 5, maybe 10, certainly 15 years, I don't think as many people are going to want to learn, browse, and click through a gazillion complex websites and apps and flows when they can easily just tell their assistant to do most of it. Google already correctly realizes this as an existential threat, as do many SaaS companies.

AI assistants are already good enough to create ephemeral applications on the fly in response to certain questions. And we're in the very, very early days of people building businesses and infra meant to be consumed by LLMs.

> In 5, maybe 10, certainly 15 years, I don't think as many people are going to want to learn, browse, and click through a gazillion complex websites and apps and flows when they can easily just tell their assistant to do most of it.

And how do you think their assistant will interact with external systems? If I tell my AI assistant "pay my rent" or "book my flight" do you think it's going to ephemerally vibe code something on the banks' and airlines' servers to make this happen?

You're only thinking of the tip of the iceberg which is the last mile of client-facing software. 90%+ of software development is the rest of the iceberg, unseen beneath the surface.

I agree there will be more of this but again, that does not preclude the existence of more of the big backend systems existing.

I don't think we disagree. We still have big mainframe systems from the 70s and beyond that a powering parts of society. I don't think all current software systems are just going to die or disappear, especially not the big ones. But I do think significant double digit percentages of software engineers are working on other types of software that are at risk of becoming first- or second- or third-order casualties in a world where ephemeral AI assistant-generated software and vibe coded bespoke software becomes increasingly popular.

You are vastly overstating the capabilities of LLMs and the capacity and desire of non-technical individuals to use them to create applications.

What's even the point of vague replies like this that disagree with no real evidence, arguments, or examples?

The thing, everything you describe may be easy for an average person in the future. But just having your single AI agent do all of that will be even easier and that seems like where things will go.

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