Or educate the people around you that “AI” is not the magical fairy dust machine that can do anything imaginable. Might be better than giving them any money at all.
The people actively using AI are not an issue of lacking education on how bad it is. Just a quick example is of an upper management asshole who absolutely “loves” AI. Reality is they shit out slop but their direct reports undo the damage to protect their jobs. I know of more than a few developers in a tough spot where they are credit card slaves so work invisible overtime to compensate. They did this to themselves and are trapped in AI hell.
Interesting perspective. Software development works different where I come from, the dev part is still very much in control of the developers themselves. However the management lives in delusionville and the expectations are pretty much insane compared to the reality of the actual turnout.
My comment above was more about educating the general public… AI results can look pretty compelling unless you decide to have a closer look, and a lot of non-dev people are falling for it. Either because they are dumb and gullible, lack analytic thinking or because they have no real contact with AI and are just exposed to the hype through the media.
Adjacent comment: Using the electrician analogy, AI is like one of those really cool gadgets you see on Temu that don’t actually do half of what they claim and will probably burn the building down. Another analogy is AI are like Roomba’s: they kinda work, take forever to finish, clog up easily, and are guaranteed to miss a lot of stuff.
I was a software consultant with “architect”* experience for the last 10 years of my career or whatever you want to call it. 50~80% of my job was basically saying the same thing their in house developers were saying. Maybe the other half was pushing tech stack upgrades (CVS -> SVN -> Git/Perforce ), (CGI to basically anything else), etc etc. My least favorite role was being a hatchet man, eg one of the Bobs from office space.
Professionally I used a shit ton of analogies and metaphors. Absolute most effective was comparing new feature development to an electrician adding a new light or receptacle. You may find you need to upgrade the service panel (database or other services), it can take time to pull new lines and doing so can interfere with existing equipment. Finally you can only pull so many new cables through an existing building before you need to do necessary cleanups and rearrangements (eg refactoring). Failing to do so may lead to brown outs (crashes) or the entire building catching on fire (eg Microsoft Dumpster Fire 11). Last bit is you can help explain the complexity of a feature as top floor, mid level, or basement (eg “soonish”).
* Architect title/role was something I would try my best to bury. The companies that needed an Architect only figure that out when they discover MS Access DB isn’t going to work /s but only a little bit. Also what the fuck is an “Architect”, its not like any of our titles have any national standards.
This video is kind of triggering my deep seated hatred of MBA’s but if you ever want to explain to the normies what your job is like, “The Expert” https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg is perfect.
Yeah, I can relate. I’ve been doing consultant work and I always tried to avoid being pushed into the “architect” role. My background for over 25 years was software development and we had a lot of success with agile methods (doing it right is hard but viable and it produces quality software) My experience is that a good dev team does not need an “architect” to tells them what’s best.
But all of this is now gone anyway, or at least taking an extended break. At the moment no one is investing in development teams, and the prospect of being able to fire all the developers because AI can do their job now is making CEOs giddy everywhere. Not going to happen (and this should be obvious for anyone who can judge the quality of code or the effectiveness of processes in terms of reliability, quality, cost, performance etc.) but that doesn’t stop them from trying.
I framed the “AI” craze as parallel to shelf checkout kiosks. They were sold as the future and a way of getting rid of those pesky human workers. Reality is they’re an open wound on the company. Unfortunately it will cost more money to get rid of them so they’re still there.
That’s the difference with AI currently. Cancel your subscription, toggle it to off in your IDE, and its gone. I believe this is why they’re trying to push “AI” everywhere, hoping it will stick somewhere.
Otherwise I liked a well manged agile development process. Heck of a lot less stressful than water fall.
Or educate the people around you that “AI” is not the magical fairy dust machine that can do anything imaginable. Might be better than giving them any money at all.
educating people doesnt work very often. people do not give a shit about what’s going on inside or behind of their glowing rectangle machine.
The people actively using AI are not an issue of lacking education on how bad it is. Just a quick example is of an upper management asshole who absolutely “loves” AI. Reality is they shit out slop but their direct reports undo the damage to protect their jobs. I know of more than a few developers in a tough spot where they are credit card slaves so work invisible overtime to compensate. They did this to themselves and are trapped in AI hell.
Interesting perspective. Software development works different where I come from, the dev part is still very much in control of the developers themselves. However the management lives in delusionville and the expectations are pretty much insane compared to the reality of the actual turnout. My comment above was more about educating the general public… AI results can look pretty compelling unless you decide to have a closer look, and a lot of non-dev people are falling for it. Either because they are dumb and gullible, lack analytic thinking or because they have no real contact with AI and are just exposed to the hype through the media.
it’s one of those things that people need to ask about things they are an expert at so they can understand how valuable the results really are.
Adjacent comment: Using the electrician analogy, AI is like one of those really cool gadgets you see on Temu that don’t actually do half of what they claim and will probably burn the building down. Another analogy is AI are like Roomba’s: they kinda work, take forever to finish, clog up easily, and are guaranteed to miss a lot of stuff.
An air conditioning device that needs no pipe to the outside you say? It defeats the laws of thermodynamics for only 99€? Shut up and take my money!
/s
Oh I like that but you might scare the MBA’s using techno babble like “thermodynamics” :)
I was a software consultant with “architect”* experience for the last 10 years of my career or whatever you want to call it. 50~80% of my job was basically saying the same thing their in house developers were saying. Maybe the other half was pushing tech stack upgrades (CVS -> SVN -> Git/Perforce ), (CGI to basically anything else), etc etc. My least favorite role was being a hatchet man, eg one of the Bobs from office space.
Professionally I used a shit ton of analogies and metaphors. Absolute most effective was comparing new feature development to an electrician adding a new light or receptacle. You may find you need to upgrade the service panel (database or other services), it can take time to pull new lines and doing so can interfere with existing equipment. Finally you can only pull so many new cables through an existing building before you need to do necessary cleanups and rearrangements (eg refactoring). Failing to do so may lead to brown outs (crashes) or the entire building catching on fire (eg Microsoft Dumpster Fire 11). Last bit is you can help explain the complexity of a feature as top floor, mid level, or basement (eg “soonish”).
* Architect title/role was something I would try my best to bury. The companies that needed an Architect only figure that out when they discover MS Access DB isn’t going to work /s but only a little bit. Also what the fuck is an “Architect”, its not like any of our titles have any national standards.
This video is kind of triggering my deep seated hatred of MBA’s but if you ever want to explain to the normies what your job is like, “The Expert” https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg is perfect.
Yeah, I can relate. I’ve been doing consultant work and I always tried to avoid being pushed into the “architect” role. My background for over 25 years was software development and we had a lot of success with agile methods (doing it right is hard but viable and it produces quality software) My experience is that a good dev team does not need an “architect” to tells them what’s best. But all of this is now gone anyway, or at least taking an extended break. At the moment no one is investing in development teams, and the prospect of being able to fire all the developers because AI can do their job now is making CEOs giddy everywhere. Not going to happen (and this should be obvious for anyone who can judge the quality of code or the effectiveness of processes in terms of reliability, quality, cost, performance etc.) but that doesn’t stop them from trying.
I framed the “AI” craze as parallel to shelf checkout kiosks. They were sold as the future and a way of getting rid of those pesky human workers. Reality is they’re an open wound on the company. Unfortunately it will cost more money to get rid of them so they’re still there.
That’s the difference with AI currently. Cancel your subscription, toggle it to off in your IDE, and its gone. I believe this is why they’re trying to push “AI” everywhere, hoping it will stick somewhere.
Otherwise I liked a well manged agile development process. Heck of a lot less stressful than water fall.