I'm always a little bit skeptical whenever people say that AI has resulted in anything more than a personal 50% increase in productivity.

Like, just stop and think about it for a second. You're saying that AI has doubled your productivity. So, you're actually getting twice as much done as you were before? Can you back this up with metrics?

I can believe AI can make you waaaaaaay more productive in selective tasks, like writing test conditions, making quick disposable prototypes, etc, but as a whole saying you get twice as much done as you did before is a huge claim.

It seems more likely that people feel more productive than they did before, which is why you have this discrepancy between people saying they're 2x-10x more productive vs workplace studies where the productivity gain is around 25% on the high end.

Would you be comfortable sharing a bit about the kind of work you do? I’m asking because I mostly write iOS code in Swift, and I feel like AI hasn’t been all that helpful in that area. It tends to confidently spit out incorrect code that, even when it compiles, usually produces bad results and doesn’t really solve the problem I’m trying to fix.

That said, when I had to write a Terraform project for a backend earlier this year, that’s when generative AI really shined for me.

> When it comes to programming, I would say AI has about doubled my productivity so far

For me it’s been up to 10-100x for some things, especially starting from scratch

Just yesterday, I did a big overhaul of some scrapers, that would have taken me at least a week to get done manually (maybe doing 2-4 hrs/day for 5 days ~ 15hrs). With the help of ChatGPT, I was done in less than 2 hours

So not only it was less work, it was a way shorter delivery time

And a lot less stress

> those prompts are forever

Have you tested them across different models? It seems to me that even if you manage to cajole one particular model into behaving a particular way, a different model would end up in a different state with the same input, so it might need a completely different prompt. So all the prompts would become useless whenever the vendor updates the model.

What is it like to maintain the code? How long have they been in production? How many iterations (enhancements, refactoring, ...) cycles have you seen with this type of code?

GG, you do twice the work, twice the mental strain for same wage. And you spend time on writing prompts instead of mastering your skills, thus becoming less competitive as a professional (as anyone can use ai, thats a given level now) Sounds like a total win.

And...? Does it result in a double salary, perhaps?

Do you use vscode?

No, I don't believe you. AI isn't deterministic. It isn't a tool. What you're describing doesn't sound credible to me.