I’m probably an outlier: I use chatgpt/gemini for specific purposes, but ai summaries on eg google search or youtube gives me negative value (I never read them and they take up space).

I agree about the summaries! I think AI is applied in a lot of bad ways ATM although TBH I've heard some people like the summaries

I can't say I find them 100% useless - though I'd rather they not pop up by default - and I understand why people like them so much. They let people type in a question and get a confident and definitive answer all in natural language, which is what it seems like the average person has tried to do all along with search engines. The issue is that they think whatever it spits out is 100% true and factual, which is scary.

> Clearly lots of people derive enormous value from AI.

I don’t really see this. Lots of people like freebies, but the value aspect is less clear. AFAIK, none of these chatbots are profitable. You would not see nearly as many users if they had to actually pay for the thing.

There are hundreds of thousands of developers here including me who would vouch that AI does make them vastly more productive.

And AI skeptics are waiting to see the proof in the pudding. If we have a new tool that makes hundreds of thousands of devs vastly more productive, I expect to see the results of that in new, improved software. So far, I'm just seeing more churn and more bugs. It may well be the case that in a couple years we'll see the fruits of AI productivity gains, but talk is cheap.

The proof is in feature velocity of devs/teams that use it and in the layoffs due to efficiency gains.

I think it's very hard to convince AI skeptics since for some reason they feel more threatened by it than rest. It's counterproductive and would hinder them professionally but then it's their choice.

Without rigorous, controlled study I'm not ready to accept claims of velocity, efficiency, etc. I'm a professional software engineer, I have tried various AI tools in the workplace both for code review and development. I found personally that they were more harmful than effective. But I don't think my personal experience is really important data here. Just like I don't think yours is. What matters is whether these tools actually do something or whether instead they just make some users feel something.

The studies I've seen--and there are very few--seem to indicate the effect is more placebo than pharmacological.

Regardless, breathless claims that I'm somehow damaging my career by wondering whether these tools actually work are going to do nothing to persuade me. I'm quite secure in my career prospects, thank you kindly.

I do admit I don't much like being labeled an "AI skeptic" either. I've been following developments in machine learning for like 2 decades and I'm familiar with results in the field going back to the 1950s. You have the opportunity here to convince me, I want to believe there is some merit to this latest AI summer. But I am not seeing the evidence for it.

You say you've used AI tools for code review and deploys, but do you ever just use chat GPT as a faster version of Google for things like understanding a language you aren't familiar with, finding bugs in existing code, or generating boilerplate?

Really I only use chat GPT and sometimes Claude code, I haven't used these special-cased AI tools

> If you want rigorous controlled studies you'll get it in due time.

I hope so, because the alternative is grim. But to be quite honest I don't expect it'll happen, based on what I've seen so far. Obviously your experience is different, and you probably don't agree--which is fine. That's the great thing about science. When done properly it transcends personal experience, "common sense", faith, and other imprecise ways of thinking. It obviates the need to agree--you have a result and if the methodology is sound in the famous words of Dr. Malcolm "well, there it is." The reason I think we won't get results showing AI tooling meaningfully impacts worker productivity are twofold:

(1) Early results indicate it doesn't. Experiences differ of course but overall it doesn't seem like the tools are measurably moving the needle one way or the other. That could change over time.

(2) It would be extremely favorably in the interests of companies selling AI dev tools to show clearly and inarguably that the things they're selling actually do something. Quantifying this value would help them set prices. They must be analyzing this problem, but they're not publishing or otherwise communicating their findings. Why? I can only conclude it's because they're not favorable.

So given these two indications at this point in time, a placebo like effect seems most likely. That would not inspire me to sign a purchase agreement. This makes me afraid for the economy.

months worth of credits? What does that mean?

Productive how? If you’re not measuring the thing, how can you tell that the thing improved?

Feature velocity has increase manifold. And this is despite decreased team size.

A small startup now has the chance to compete with incumbents without raising from VCs.

Not talking about you, but I think cynics just look at it with too much pessimism and therefore can't see it.

It's not really about optimism or pessimism, it's effect vs no effect. Self reported anecdotes like yours abound, but as far as I'm aware the effect isn't real. That is, it's not in fact true that if a business buys AI tools for its developers their output will increase in some way that impacts the business meaningfully. So while you may feel more productive using AI tooling, in fact you probably aren't, actually.

No. If you're trying to make a causal link between some layoffs and AI tooling you need to bring the receipts. Show that the layoffs were caused by AI tooling, don't just assume it. I don't think you can, or that anyone has.

Most public companies aren't attributing it to AI yet due to fear of backlash, but it's obvious to most of us.

And Startups and SMB's are more open to attributing it to efficiency gains due to AI.

If you aren't seeing it then probably it's because you are in a niche vertical. Which is great for you, but not representative on the whole.

I am very much not an AI skeptic, I use AI every day for work, and it's quite clear to me that most of the layoffs of the past few years are correcting for the absurd over hiring from the Covid era. Every software company really convinced themselves that they needed like 2-3x the workforce they actually did because "the world changed". Then it became clear that the world in fact did not fundamentally change in the ways they thought.

Chat GPT just happened to come out around the same time so we get all this misattribution

I agree, the first thing I asked copilot to write me was a feature estimator:

def mult2(points): return 2xpoints

Its going to be really interesting what happens to this labor pool once you've finally sunk all the ships youre let aboard.

> Feature velocity has increase manifold.

And yet, every time somebody not paid by the AI companies tries to measure it, they don't find it.

From what I hear, many doctors pass X-ray and MRI scans to Chatgpt for a ...second opinion :-)