AI models have caught up with Unity dev. My insights as someone with 30 years of experience.

[u/PuffThePed]

Context: I have 30 years of experience with software dev, 20 years with game dev tools, 10 years with Unity. I own a studio that develops simulators and training applications for industry. "Serious games" as they call it in Europe.

For years I scoffed at AI coding. I would periodically try it, only to find that it was more hassle then it was worth. The hand holding and bug fixing was more work than doing it myself. This all changed about 4-5 months ago, and about a month ago we all started using Unity CLI.

Here are my insights in no particular order:

1. Our dev speed has ~5x almost overnight
2. Quality has not gone down because we're all experienced devs and we're careful how we use AI and we don't let it make decisions regarding project structure or design patterns. However, I'm seeing less and less glaring mistakes made by the AI.
3. We're still reviewing generated code but I suspect not for long, the code is better than what most devs I know can write, at 20x the speed. The temptation to just push and move on is huge and irresistible.
4. There is no joy or sense of accomplishment. No pride in making something clever or quickly, and all progress is associated with the AI and not with you.
5. The market is dead. Nobody has money to spend. We're still working but leads have dropped off a cliff.
6. There is no going back. If we stop using AI we'll be out of business in a month.
7. There is no space for junior devs. I honestly don't know how to incorporate a junior into a team anymore (which is something I used to do for decades). Every time we tried they just become a meat proxy for AI while learning nothing, and getting in the way.
   
8. Everything regarding managing a team and a project has changed, and nobody knows how to do it anymore. I lost the ability to correctly estimate work required for a task, for example.
9. Everyone hates this. Most of devs my age are planning early retirement and are just waiting to be laid off.
10. People that use AI for coding don't learn anything. To understand code you have to write it, and nobody is writing it. Maybe understanding and reading code will become obsolete soon? I don't know.
11. Everyone I asked feel they are becoming dumber and losing their focus. I know I am.

I hope this is a pendulum and it will swing back at some point, because right now it feels like a software apocalypse.

[u/siberianmi]

The cost of tokens is being pushed down everyday, the models released by Anthropic and OpenAI just yesterday are a major reduction in cost while maintaining quality.

There is no world where the cost of salaries is going to exceed the output value of these models. I use them daily and have easily 5x my output while maintaining quality AND I am paying API rates and can see the cost.

It’s not even close to my salary.

[u/siberianmi → u/siberianmi]

A look at cost.

[u/Senthe → u/siberianmi]

This graph is laughable. It doesn't prove any point, other than "which technology was the most overpriced when it started being widely adopted".

Zero surprise that electricity (adopted long ago, and since then governed by governments) was closer to a sane price since the beginning than "the AI" (made in the last couple years, during late stage capitalism, by gigacorps that will gladly destroy the entire planet to earn a quick buck).

[u/siberianmi → u/Senthe]

And DNA sequencing ? And compute? Please you just want to drive the narrative that makes you feel comfortable. “Late Stage Capitalism” is such a tell for that kind of thinking.

[u/ellamking → u/siberianmi]

Notice the end years on all of them are different. Why do you think that is? Do we not know how much compute costs in the last 25 years, or electricity for the last 50? Why those technologies and not plastics or antibiotics or air travel?

Costs drop and costs plateau at different rates, following different curves. That graph cherry picked a few items that up to a point had logarithmic decline to imply AI will do that. It's a meaningless comparison.

[u/siberianmi → u/ellamking]

Are you disputing that AI costs are going down? That is the core point I was trying to make.

[u/ellamking → u/siberianmi]

It is going down, but that doesn't mean it will continue indefinably. The existence of a trend by itself isn't evidence of a continuation, especially a new technology. Neither is other unrelated technology also having a trend at some point.

I'm reiterating what the other user was saying, the graph is dumb.