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The closest parallel in history I can think of is the proliferation of spreadsheets in the 1980s.

Yeah, this feels like the right comparison. AI, like Excel makes it much easier for people to build useful tools.

And like Excel, software people are gonna end up complaining about the quality and having to maintain these applications.

Yes. Though with Excel for most business users the choice was between

- lobby the IT department for at least a quarter, then wait at least one quarter, and at the end you get a buggy implementation of your idea that doesn't quite work

- or: spend a weekend hacking together a quick and ugly, buggy spreadsheet prototype of your idea that doesn't quite work.

> - or: spend a weekend hacking together a quick and ugly, buggy spreadsheet prototype of your idea that doesn't quite work.

I mean, based on my own experience with AI tools, this feels like the standard output.

Yes, exactly. And spreadsheets took the world by storm. Deservedly though.

Nowadays people (allegedly) buy a Mac Mini to run 'claw'. Back in the day, they bought a mac to run a spreadsheet.

I assume the new wave of apps are going to be maintained by LLMs. Maybe one day the LLMs are going to complain about the quality of the code written by previous inferior LLMs?

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