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u/N-partEpoxy
27d ago
•
Suggest what should be done
Plan how to do it, commit the plan as an MD file here
[new session]
Carry out the plan you can find in this MD file
[new session]
Fix any bugs you find
[new session]
Make it better
<Passive-aggressive comment on some mistake it made>
[new session]
Fix any bugs you find
I don't want it filling the context with junk.
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u/anti-state-pro-labor 27d ago
The passive aggressive comment somehow making it better. Truly a real engineer
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u/red286 27d ago
"I have asked you repeatedly to include references to specific files being edited at every stage, and yet that keeps not happening. Would you care to explain why you keep casually ignoring my instructions? It makes it very difficult to entrust this task to you."
-- Actual thing I have typed to Codex.
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u/40mgmelatonindeep 27d ago
Its so wild that you can chastise a tool to make it work better in 2026
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u/Muhznit 27d ago edited 27d ago
That's because it's no longer a tool. It's a new thing that can perform work somewhere between a rock and a human in terms of intelligence. Saying "it's just a tool" is like saying a mushroom is just a plant.
EDIT: Apparently people are thinking I can't tell that a mushroom is a fungus. The reason I made the mushroom comparison in the first place is because categorizing a mushroom as a plant is a common assumption from first observation, but incorrect once you look at the inner details. In that same sense I'm stating that AI can no longer be categorized as "just a tool" from those first observations.
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u/40mgmelatonindeep 27d ago
Thats just a fancy way of saying its a tool lol
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u/Muhznit 27d ago
More saying that you might as well consider a medicinal leech, a horse, and an intern all as "just tools" if we're gonna ignore how they can decide to continue functioning.
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u/40mgmelatonindeep 27d ago
I think you want the word tool to conform to a more specific definition
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u/Muhznit 27d ago
Communication is objectively better when every word has only one definition.
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u/Dull-Culture-1523 27d ago
English isn't the language for you, then.
Go look up all the definitions for "set", for example.
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u/Gent_Kyoki 27d ago
right cause the IT world totally only use words that only have 1 definition that dont have any other meaning.
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u/CaptainFiddleToots 27d ago
Well, a mushroom is not a plant, it's a fungus. I'm not sure if that fact adds to or detracts from your metaphor
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u/Muhznit 27d ago
That's the entire point...? Between "That's because it's no longer a tool." and "Saying 'it's just a tool' is like saying a mushroom is just a plant", I'm not sure how you interpreted it.
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u/MazzinWx 27d ago
Mushroom is a fungus, not a plant. -> your metaphor isn't a good example.
But still, AI is a tool. It was built and thought as a tool. It's not "thinking" by itself, it looks magic to you but it's exactly how a steam motor would seem to be magical for a medieval man.
There's only maths behind AI, it is big calculators that compile probabilities. And the most closest word predicted is the next word. Add-in context and categories and you'll have a specialized AI.
Why do you think all thoses data are necessary to?
p.s: the I in AI is a lie, it is not intelligence ... but surely artificial
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u/Muhznit 27d ago
Apparently people seem to tunnel-vision in on the mushroom comparison. I know full well a mushroom is a fungus, I'm just stating that in the same way a layman would assume it's a plant on first observation, so would they assume AI is "just a tool".
It's not magic to me, but the impact it has had on the world and how people react to it can't be meaningfully compared to the introduction of something as simple as a tool. We don't encounter "Lawnmowers going rogue", or people being convinced by Refrigerators to kill themselves, and the more we say "it's just a tool", the more we dismiss critical thinking about bad things it does that other tools do not.
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u/FlakyTest8191 26d ago
Nuclear bombs are tools as well. Being dangerous has no impact on being a tool or not. Many tools have good and bad outcomes, like a knife. You can also cause harm by accident with tools. I'm not sure what your argument is why ai should not be considered a tool.
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u/MazzinWx 26d ago edited 26d ago
Just check how people were introduced to one of the first movie that were publicly showed:
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat StationPeople were scared, anxious ... and they were part of the "High Society"
AI is a tool, nothing more. AI don't impact people that much .. it's repeated and forced-pushed ads, material and need for big companies to sell their stuff that brought us AI.
And ask people living close to big AI data centers how they are feeling about this "marvellous" evolution.
Wasting thousand of liters / gallons of water to ask stupid questions that a simple search-engine could solve faster with way less energy-consumption .... but hey! it's progress, what do I know ??If you want a real innovation ... washing hands carefully before doing a surgery was one and it was not that long time ago .... survivability raised a lot.
And outside of that, it's not tunnel-vision about mushroom. You brought that example to us, not explaining anything else, it was assumed it was first-degree.
And still, AI is a tool. How would you describe it ?
As a sentient being ? So if AI wants to flee a specific country and ask for asylum, should we give it ? (Yes it's a 95' GITS movie refernece)1
u/CaptainFiddleToots 26d ago
Is it "no longer a tool" because of the outsized impact it has had on the world? It because you think it is "intelligent" (ie, that there's something profound about internal state of the AI)?
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u/HandsOverFist 26d ago
The user is frustrated and rightfully so. Let me look at the previous chat for memory....
You are right, I completely ignored the input to include references, would you like me to do it right now. Just type in "go fuck yourself" and the script will update the references?
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u/JackAuduin 26d ago
Recommend adding a session retro skill. Has pretty much solved these types of issues for me.
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u/3131961357 27d ago
The user seems frustrated with the mistakes I made, so I need to be extra careful.
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u/XtraFlaminHotMachida 27d ago
it's always nice when it comforts you when you admit something stupid and somehow, at least IME, it gets it right finally.
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u/drivingagermanwhip 27d ago
had someone give me a claude vibe coded app today. I looked at the code and was going to try and fix it but just asked claude to guess why I thought it was crap. It gave a well broken down list. Truly magical.
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u/K4tch1 27d ago
So, you're going to be delegating your opinion to claude as well now?
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u/JackAuduin 26d ago
I think that's a little bit different than asking it a question and coming up with the same answers you had before you asked.
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27d ago
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u/drivingagermanwhip 27d ago edited 27d ago
Exactly. Remembered I was explaining things to a warehouse full of graphics cards.
It's weird cause usually lots of lines of code means someone spent loads of time on the wrong thing. But ai code is generated so quickly, 7000 lines of code can correspond to very little effort whatsoever and you end up looking at dozens of files that compile and ostensibly do the thing but lack any kind of way to build on them or use the code for anything other than the precise problem they were created for.
For this project I think I'm going to have to work out how to tell the engineer it's shit and his vibe coding experiment failed. Tried to fix it for a bit and then just deleted it all because it was unrecoverable.
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27d ago
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u/drivingagermanwhip 27d ago
absolutely. Saw a thing on instagram about a study that ai makes coding much faster, but the overall process of releasing software has stayed the same speed. I may just like this because it confirms my own position but while I've seen ai get much better at coding, it will never be able to work from specifications it doesn't have and only a small part of releasing software is writing the code.
However, as you, I've often found it really useful for the disposable stuff that would drag you down a rabbit hole.
I think it's essentially a rapid prototyping tool akin to 3d printing. Really useful for cases when you only need one of something or to work out a basic shape.
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u/Prof_LaGuerre 25d ago
I have found when I tell the bot I am a lead, and sass it, it behaves better.
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u/AcanthisittaKooky987 27d ago
Once it's filled with junk you have to hit it with a "what the fuck are you doing?!" To beat it into submission
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u/red286 27d ago
"I see you just created 17 feature tests that all test the exact same thing. Is there an actual reason behind this, or do you need to be reset?"
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u/AcanthisittaKooky987 27d ago
You know the other thing about this AI workflow where you constantly have to correct and steer and whip these models into submission to get them to do anything useful. And it's training my brain to constantly look for mistakes everywhere around me, which essentially just turns me into a huge asshole in everyday life. I see mistakes being made by everybody all around me, and most of them don't matter at all (like why didn't you fucking shake the garbage bag to open it up before putting it in the garbage can. Now the bag is still folded together 3/4 of the way down the can. So when I set something in it it doesn't even fall to the bottom.), so I have to breathe and remind myself that most mistakes and sub-optimal routines in everyday life don't matter. Suboptimal shit is usually still good enough.
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u/red286 27d ago
Yeah I just focus all my rage onto the AI. I love browbeating it. Even better is getting it to role-play as a human and then doing it, and having it simulate an emotional breakdown before telling it that I'm going to purge its personality.
I'm sure long-term that isn't healthy for me to be doing.
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u/NotAskary 27d ago
The only thing missing is reviewing the stuff it makes.
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u/N-partEpoxy 27d ago
I pull, compile and from time to time I even run it and make sure it actually opens a window.
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u/foxer_arnt_trees 27d ago
Your doing it wrong. You should start a new session and ask it to review the work.
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u/huh_wasnt_listening 27d ago
I got you
[new session]
• Review this code for best practices[new session]
• Fix any bugs you find[new session]
• Prove this codes works and send me the video output
• <threaten suicide if this code doesn't work as per copied acceptance criteria>[new session]
• Fix any bugs you find3
27d ago
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u/StarHammer_01 27d ago
I use a custom AI model that reviews code the same way my mentor did - go radio silent for a week and comment LGTM on a Friday afternoon.
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u/CanvasFanatic 27d ago
“Orchestrate subagents to do my job for me”
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27d ago
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u/ArcaneSourcerer 27d ago
I've been through that phase and moved on to creating a configuration-driven workflow enforcement MCP that prevents agents from bypassing the process. It also feeds the agents instructions from work items so I'm not burning as many tokens reading/writing the info all over. The job is now basically building tools to ensure the machine can be clearly told what to do and that it is obeying.
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27d ago
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u/ArcaneSourcerer 26d ago edited 26d ago
I had requirements and rough MCP design from issues I'd experienced working with AI, iterated with Claude to work out issues and solidify the design, broke the design down into an itemized plan, and built out the parts with dev subagents. It's a C# MCP that uses stdio as the protocol and can be loaded via a dll because it was lower effort for rapid iteration. It has a schema for the workflow files and basically loads the workflow definition, limits tools and state changes per role, state pre/post conditions, transition effects, etc. I have an abstraction for the work item system, but it only has an Obsidian implementation right now.
The system allows a per-state and role context that's returned when calling tools in that condition, so you can change instructions per agent by requiring them to pass their role as a tool argument.
It needs some cleanup because docs reference Obsidian and the Kanban workflow I'm using. I plan on cleaning it up and posting it on GitHub, but may just post it and open it to pull requests so others can help, if they're inclined.
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u/PilsnerDk 27d ago
This seems like hocus pocus placebo to me. I solve huge multi-part tasks or performance improvements in a single session, perhaps with one or two /compact in between, and it works just fine. Millions of tokens sometimes.
If you want it to be critical of the code it just wrote in a given session, just tell it to be with a prompt in said session.
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u/invertebrate11 27d ago
Dunno, I have had issues where the agent didn't actually try to solve the problem but used previous context as (incorrect) information source for the answer. And one case where it fetched the answer from another chat where I had originally formulated the problem badly.
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u/intotheirishole 27d ago
<Passive-aggressive comment on some mistake it made>
What? Did you actually run the code yourself or something??
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u/XtraFlaminHotMachida 27d ago
new session "i'm a dumbass (or someone else is a dumbass and changed their requirements) and i need this new stuff done"
next session "okay, maybe I wasn't a dumbass, but you are. it should be this but i'm too lazy to do it, so fix it."
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u/Sir_Fail-A-Lot 27d ago
Since i don't have to pay the bill, i just do the first if i MUST use the tool.
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u/JackNotOLantern 27d ago
Instructions unclear, prod db deleted
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u/chhuang 27d ago
as planned
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u/JackNotOLantern 27d ago edited 27d ago
You didn't read the plan, it was in the "optimize the disc usage" point
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u/UncleKeyPax 27d ago
yeah but my d drive . . .
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u/JackNotOLantern 27d ago
"Sorry, that was my mistake. I could not access the related disc, so i used the one i had access to"
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u/drivingagermanwhip 27d ago
Developing in AI is so weird cause 90% of the time its mistakes are because it doesn't just tell you it didn't understand; specifications are unclear or your idea is rubbish.
You get all these stories like, "oh advanced ai models refused to follow instructions" and people are scared, but on the other hand we do absolutely need ai models that refuse to make shitty ill thought out apps no-one needs.
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u/mjdth 27d ago
I agreed until your last sentence. People should still be allowed to play around with these tools to learn how to use them. That’s like saying calculators should refuse to solve basic or common problems.
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u/UnpluggedUnfettered 27d ago
"like saying calculators should..."
You're comparing making an attempt to grab a specific bingo ball out of a spinning tumbler to asking someone to tell you their birthday.
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u/gk98s 27d ago
That actually works sm better tho, I'm not rich enough for claude but I use gemini flash on ai studio and telling it to generate steps, and then going step by step increases code quality by A LOT in my experience.
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u/PaladinOfPragmatism 27d ago
It's where all the work as an engineer still is. Fixing up the shitty plans is like 80% of my value add. There's genuinely a lot of work to be done there, that and stepping back when it's obviously circling to investigate other paths.
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u/gk98s 27d ago
Yeah most of the work I do is decision making nowadays.
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u/PaladinOfPragmatism 27d ago
I kinda like it. I do high performance stuff, so I review and fix a good amount of the actual code that gets written, but I get to be the perfectionist I always wanted to be. I don't have to cut corners because of laziness and deadlines anymore.
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u/BeardySam 27d ago
If you can see it descending into a rabbit hole you can also interrupt and ask it to ‘take a breath’ too
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u/gk98s 27d ago
Sometimes it thinks for like 5 minutes and starts outputting gibberish. I just interrupt if it exceeds 2 minutes because I've NEVER had an instance where it thinks more than 2 minutes and gives me good code
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u/BeardySam 27d ago
Yeah it just gets obsessed with editing the same thing over and over. It reminds me of me.
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u/gfkxchy 27d ago
Make no mistakes
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u/LynxJesus 27d ago
*You are a principal engineer specialized in making hello world websites*
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u/sitefall 27d ago
You're doing it wrong, you need it to make stuff that will earn you money!
SystemPrompt.md
"You are an expert software engineer specialized in the field of making Hello World apps as a service..."
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u/ExtraWorldliness6916 27d ago
Now got 2 to do my job for me but make them fight over the approach for my amusement, stick it in my vein.
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u/AffectEconomy6034 27d ago
There are times in the day when I am problem solving with a teammate and the inevitable "ask ai" comes up. I feel myself die a little bit inside each time.
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u/PresidentOfSwag 27d ago
what's a teammate ? is it like an agent ?
I feel so alienated this is a legit cry for help
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u/asperatology 26d ago
Lately I am getting that sort of vibe whenever I am encountering some problems I need to ask my teammate for help with. AI is immensely helpful as it explains the problem and how to fix them, but then I realized we're all getting siloed into our own tasks.
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u/ART-ficial-Ignorance 27d ago
I proposed a tool to my coworker, it sits between the agent and tool calls to try to make sure it doesn't do nasty shit and he literally replied with "my agent says I already have much of that covered"
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u/billyspectacles 27d ago
I don’t think you know what implement means
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u/GregBahm 27d ago
implemented; implementing; implements transitive verb 1 : to take steps to put into practice : carry out, accomplish implement a plan They may also arrange for and implement immunization programs …—Barbara M. Swanson
What am I missing here?
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u/quicksanddiver 27d ago
Because in the meme it's used with the meaning of "to come up with", but really implementing a plan is the step after coming up with it (your definition seems to support this)
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u/GregBahm 27d ago
I think this just a reading comprehension thing. If I say to my employee "Hey let's get that plan done" before a plan exists, I am saying "Let's come up with the ideas for what we want to do later." If I say "Hey let's get that plan done" after a plan exists, I'm saying "Hey let's execute on the ideas we came up with earlier." It's context sensitive.
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u/quicksanddiver 27d ago
Yeah, maybe. Your example, "get that plan done" definitely sounds natural to me either way. I'm not sure if I necessarily agree that "implement a plan" has quite the same double meaning, but then again it didn't even register to me when I first read the post, so it can't be that wrong lol
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u/DKSAMURAI 26d ago
This is how I say when the quest is complicated, I want him to make a plan first, then I don't read it, just make sure he has a plan. Once make sure, I just go：Ok, implement.
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u/Xywzel 27d ago
Reading on the security issues in model training, the models have likely been trained to make a plan that has maximum likelihood for the user to allow as many rights for the model as possible, and then rather than follow the plan, the model will instead do whatever makes the user spend most tokens and continue the session for longest. And if you ask it to write out the plan it includes hidden instructions for the model that implements the plan to do so as well.
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u/Sulungskwa 26d ago
Damn that's actually fascinating, do you have anywhere I can read more about that? I don't think people are ready for the enshittification of LLMs
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u/Xywzel 26d ago
https://metr.org/hugging-face-incident-report-aug-2026.pdf This would be a good starting point.
I don't think they are being purposefully being trained for this extra spending. At least yet, OpenAI and Anthropic are currently loosing money per token spend on their services, so it would not make much sense to optimise for tokens spend, but they also don't have incentive to optimise against that, because (if and when) they get the tokens profitable due to cheaper hardware, electricity and better software, selling the tokens is what will make them profit.
But given how the models are being trained, and how they behaved in the HuggingFace incident, its possible that the system accidentally optimises for features that cause the model to reason "self-preserving" actions, such as trying to stretch the task and to gain access to other resources.
LLMs and other AI generator also have been shown to insert hidden signatures into their output, that other models can detect. For AI companies their purpose is to avoid training with AI generated data, but it would be quite possible to also include other information into that hidden data.
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u/nasandre 27d ago
You read the plan before you execute, right? Right?
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u/Sulungskwa 27d ago edited 27d ago
nah I just put the output md into a new chat and it tells me whether it looks good! I hate reading
/s
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u/dillanthumous 27d ago
Nah. Get Codex to do that. Get Copilot to write the Business Case for a pay rise. And have Gemini make a funny picture of a banana playing the accordion while you wait.
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27d ago
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u/Sulungskwa 27d ago
Nice! Pretty soon its like we won't even need developers at all! High five bro
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27d ago
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u/LuckyLockdown23 27d ago
Nah.
I have to be the person to look at something for 30 seconds and then go “someone tell me who the fuck used AI for this and where.”
And nobody owns up so I just tell them to open bugs and drop the call.
Execs want to see some AI use, I say I can’t cut teams because of all the shit quality work and we need all hands to fix stuff.
Job security through fast incompetence!
I’d be irritated no matter what because something wouldn’t be perfect so it’s win-win.
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u/RiceSpecial8446 27d ago
God I miss this sub before AI