downshift

Building in an AI world

Witnessing how good codegen has gotten in Claude 3.5 Sonnet, it's clear that defensible builder value lies in your creativity for what to build and your taste to evaluate the results.

Imagine a Michelin-starred chef being granted a Star Trek-style replicator ("Tea, Earl Grey, Hot") where they can type in recipes and have it materialize the molecules and produces the dish specified.

Codegen AI is like the replicator.  It removes the execution cost leaving only the ideation and evaluation.

This is very bad news for the line cooks as the replicator can follow the chef's creative direction exactly every time.  The chef can spend an indefinite amount of time tweaking the prompt, tasting the build artifact, not stopping until they deem it perfect.

https://x.com/j_eth_id/status/1827234608565395469

AI remains bad at system design and operations (this is where the real money is made)

LLMs are more “factory farm” than “Michelin star chef”

techno-optimist. dance music lover + founder of /campfire 🎧

ig: https://instagram.com/beatsbydownshift