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Comment by apetresc | Hacker News Reader

I don’t see the analogy? AI is not preventing the craftsman programmer from coding. Your compiler hasn’t stopped “yielding fruit”, so to speak.

The correct analogy would be, your mom can also just go to the supermarket and get much cheaper mass-produced tomatoes; which is… exactly the current situation?

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I agree. If grandma grows her own tomatoes she can only try four tomato-related recipes. If she goes to the grocery store she can try thirty.

The AI is enabling a lot more experimentation with software. The AI supplies the tomatoes (infrastructure / grunt work), grandma tries her recipes (the software / business idea).

26 extra recipes are irrelevant if the person finds far more joy in the process of growing the tomatoes than in what they cook with them.

Then do that? At the very least, the presence of more code(/recipes) does not hinder an individual trying to do it themselves.

Modify the analogy: nobody cares about the mother’s tomatoes and everyone around her says they’re indistinguishable from the cheap supermarket variety. Even if it’s not true

I haven't seen people say it's indistinguishable quality, but that it doesn't matter. Quite similar to mass-produced foods in the supermarket, actually. We all know they're not as good as a small batch made by hand by someone, but they still get the job done.

Uh, no? It obviously matters.

The market for small batch locally made produce is huge. Entire grocery stores dedicated to local organic offerings is the standard in every upper middle class neighborhood on the entire west coast. The reason is obvious: a salad made with crappy tomatoes is a crappy salad.

We aren’t at this point in software yet because most consumers of software have no taste

That’s a fair analogy as well, though it makes a totally different point.

I think you’re right about the analogy itself, though it’s far from clear that society owes it to your grandma to hinder everyone’s access to cheap tomatoes just so she can feel more useful for her tomato-growing abilities.

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