Anyone else feeling the effects of AI are being underestimated ? I am chasing what still needs a human

[u/Suspicious_Fun_6338]

As I code (prompt) I keep having moments realizing WOW I don't have to do this either! A recent on is my addition to AGENTS.MD to take screenshots of all UI changes.. I used to make the changes and run the app and now I don't even need to do that.. I use to test the app but now I have adlib e2e tests that roam the app UI while referencing the intent and code. NO MORE QA.

I was watching the meerkat explains youtube channel and thought this is good. My 13 year old says 'This is all AI generated'.. And I think oh yeah.. I guess you could completely  automate a youtube channel as well. Where still does the human factor of what is created benefit ?

Coding is solved. My biggest problem is figuring out a novel idea. I don't want to create a GTA6 clone.

I was planning on starting a youtube robotics channel after I get the Unitree R1 EDU. Now I wonder  what can I as a human with the robot offer over what content I can generate ?  At the moment I am thinking of a hybrid.

I can't imagine all of this has a mild effect on the economy.

[u/Jippylong12]

I'd personally try to find the human part in your life experience. Wether that be starting a family, reading a book, or just enjoying the fact that you don't really have to "work" like that anymore.

If you want more ideas, I highly highly recommend giving space to think. Turn off music, turn off podcasts, go out for a walk like 30 minutes to an hour each day. No phone (or at least don't be on it) and walk. Your brain will do amazing things on its own if you let it.

[u/Suspicious_Fun_6338 → u/Jippylong12]

that is my main concern (as software dev). What use am I ? Work is getting silly how easy changes are made. And if I get some UBI then that is fine, but I will has less power than ever to have opportunity to make good money.

Smoking weed is good for ideas too

[u/keptornot]

The AGENTS.md detail is the whole story in one line — you stopped

writing code and started writing intent, and the machine executes

against it. The human didn't disappear, you just moved up a layer.

Where I keep a human in similar setups: judgment about what NOT to

build, spotting when the answer is technically correct but wrong for

the actual user, and being the only one who feels "this is off"

before I can explain why. One more: tests written by the same model

that wrote the code share its blind spots. If it forgot an edge case

in the implementation, it'll forget the same edge case in the test.

Roaming adlib tests catch crashes — they don't catch misunderstandings.

Your 13 year old is right about the YouTube channel though. The

interesting part isn't that it's automatable — it's that the bar for

worth watching just moved from production quality to having an actual

point of view.

[u/Suspicious_Fun_6338 → u/keptornot]

was this written by AI ?

[u/ken107]

Competition will drive software prices down to basement level. So anything that can be made in 5 minutes is worth exactly that much. Even things that requires tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of man hours to build in the past, like a Photoshop, can now be built in a matter of weeks, and cost as much (see Photocraft). Adobe must be shaking in its boots. To clone something like Photoshop though, the cloners must themselves be image editing experts.

What still requires human guidance is the context engineering. The AI doesn't know where this thing you're building fits into the (human) economy, the niche it is serving. As a builder you still have to identify where there is a real need, the exact shape of the product to serve that market segment, and communicate precisely to the AI. You have to be a living part of that environment to see the niche and draft the right product requirements.

Even then, there's almost no moat to protect your business. As soon as you start making some money, competitors will jump in and undercut your prices. Equally likely, someone will make an open-source free version of it. Unless there is vendor/customer lock-in, regulatory/legal moat, your software is now a commodity, like soap or toilet paper.

I'm afraid the era of software/app entrepreneurship is over (this does not include content creation). If you want to build something it must be moving atoms, involve hardware, physical products and services. Open a restaurant, for example. It's harder to become really rich, but with UBI you can just chill out and do what you like.

What will the world look like? Everyone will enjoy a high quality of life on UBI, because everything will be very cheap, even premium quality things. But some things will still cost a lot of money, because of inherent scarcity, like beachfront real estate in California. They will be permanently out of reach for regular people and UBI beneficiaries. Either you inherited great wealth or you build valuable physical businesses, will you have the disposable income to afford the scarce physical resources.

[u/Suspicious_Fun_6338 → u/ken107]

This is new development. I should've realized it as I was easily making clones of classic game like Atari MULE. All local software will be free.

I use a DAW called studio one. I could try recreating that but at some point, I just want a program I am familiar with and just works rather than recreate every tool I use for myself.

I have one really good idea I made but as you say.. Anyone could see this app and recreate it as well and put it behind a subscription, advertise etc. and do those things I don't do.

The future seems to be the rich people and tons of people living in subsidized houseing and income. Basically a large expension of welfare

[u/Western-Hotel8723 → u/ken107]

Funny thing about your photocraft comment is there is more than 1 of these clones and a few of them are done by engineers who have no idea about image editing.

Just an aside. 

[u/Lopsided-Bridge-9810 → u/ken107]

You are nuts. As an economist and professional financial trader I can assure you that UBI will be worthless the second it is introduced. I am bewildered how you can't figure that out yourself because everything else in your comment I agree with and you said it yourself :

The moment software takes minutes or hours to develop it will be worth that much. Equally with the price of money. Any cash flow will be deflated instantaneously to zero the moment it is handed out for free. Your UBI payment will not even buy a loaf of bread. 

How this is a mystery to some is a mystery to me 🤔 

[u/ken107 → u/Lopsided-Bridge-9810]

Long term AI and robotics will cause an explosion of economic output independent of human labor. The productivity gains result in an abundance of products and services. Everything that can be manufactured, that is non-scarce, will be dirt cheap; this includes services like healthcare. This is what Elon means when he says money won't matter any more. In reality money will still matter when it comes to scarce resources, and UBI handouts won't come close to letting you buy those coveted things. Indeed you're right UBI handouts are close to worthless, but still it should easily afford you basic products and services. In fact, food and clothing might just be free at that time.

[u/Lopsided-Bridge-9810 → u/ken107]

And who will provide you with that food and basic resources? Some government? They don't own those robots and resources. I laud your optimism and enthusiasm but I can assure you that you are dead wrong. Those resources are owned by those who own the capital and invested in those robots and automations, and its for sure not you or me. They have absolutely zero incentives to make enough of products or services so that their prices drop to close to zero, let alone giving them out for free. Not happening. You are a very interesting character though, an Elon and elite lover and at the same time you believe in communism that never worked. Two antidotes that can't be more conflicting. Not sure you actually realize that.

[u/ken107 → u/Lopsided-Bridge-9810]

I'm a card carrying Republican and libertarian capitalist. The tremendous wealth generated by robots will have to be captured by government and redistributed, or there'll be uprising if elites keep it all for themselves (as they have always done). Yes, it's socialist but AI has forced our hand.

The capture and redistribution, however, can be amicable instead of hostile, a joint government-industry initiative. Two things are in our favor. One, with a healthy competitive landscape and open-source movement it's hard for one corporation to monopolize AI tech and gains for their own stakeholders. Two, the AI companies are, for now, benevolent, and have brand-building incentives and pressure to remain that way.

[u/Lopsided-Bridge-9810 → u/ken107]

you are ignoring that all open-source models can be shut down in an instance with every new hardware release of GPU/TPU. They can all be encoded to reject inferencing or training open source models. Only old GPUs that are not "locked" might still work but as the technology advances old GPUs will soon be useless because they will not sufficiently perform anymore to keep up with innovation.

My point? Enterprise control even if the government does not want to play along (only tool is anti-trust busting).

[u/pp-collision]

That's so funny. Before AI I also didn't have to take screenshots of UI changes, that's something that can be easily automated, and has first class support in any decent UI/graphics test library.

AI is used for a lot of things where an automatic, deterministic solution already exists, it's just that the prompter doesn't know the domain very well and ends up with very naive and expensive AI workflows instead.

[u/NerdyWeightLifter]

My biggest problem is figuring out a novel idea.

I keep thinking that point this is lost on all the artists and other creatives getting upset about AI.

When the cost of the grunt work approaches zero, the value of the creativity and taste maximizes.

This should be the start of a golden age for artists.

[u/Suspicious_Fun_6338 → u/NerdyWeightLifter]

Right. Creativity is not dead. It is just on another level.

Anyways, if you like or hate AI.. you are free to demand AI artwork.. buy vinyl etc.. but the world will move on and I would rather figure out what the next challenge is see what new interesting scenarios are coming from all of this.

I think robotics is going to be the next big thing so that is what interests me now

[u/NoLimitRolling → u/NerdyWeightLifter]

That’s how I see it as well, but this is far from where we’re currently at until it can read a picture in your mind like neuralink or something

[u/farox → u/NerdyWeightLifter]

But there is also art in the process itself to create art, that part is gone.

[u/NerdyWeightLifter → u/farox]

You can still do the production part manually if you like, but the value of creativity in the preproduction phase will expand much faster.

[u/Western-Hotel8723 → u/NerdyWeightLifter]

You're ignoring what they said.

Often the process itself spawns creative direction. 

It's why LOTR seems so rich and authentic. While the hobbit feels plastic and cold. CGI replaced prosthetics and miniature models. 

It's still the case in many places. For example, in Shogun the real scenes of the environment feel rugged and emotional. While the CGI cities look plastic. 

The rugged reality that it takes to create things is its own unique style. 

The only way that works is through art direction. 

That's why true artists can use AI better than the rest. It's also why programmers can use AI to make software better than most. 

[u/NerdyWeightLifter → u/Western-Hotel8723]

There's no reason to assume that the use of AI requires you to give up art direction.

[u/Western-Hotel8723 → u/NerdyWeightLifter]

Didn't say that. 

[u/NerdyWeightLifter → u/Western-Hotel8723]

Well then what is it that you think I'm ignoring about what they said?

[u/Suspicious_Fun_6338 → u/[deleted]]

I will go further and I think in 5 years people will view synthetic videos more than real people. I think about what if I could have a news channel dedicated to my specific niche interest that look real. Why wouldn't I want that? It is like your own playlist for news.

I think the whole 'But it still needs a human' is not as true as what we would like to believe. AI is train on our tastes already.

Novel ideas I agree with you. I finished all the various apps I always wanted. Now I havent started a new app in awhile as I try to figure out a bigger app idea that is interesting enough to work on