alt Hacker NewsI almost agree with you.
Yes, we should be building systems.
No, it’s not equivalent to managing a team, because the AI has no skin in the game.
A decision an AI makes is not equivalent to a decision a human makes because the consequences are not equivalent. An AI cannot be fired; cannot be sexually rejected; cannot disappoint its loved ones; cannot spend a cold night on the streets. A human who makes decisions with complete disregard to material consequences is a human you need to get off your team ASAP because they’re a ticking time bomb: a liability.
So, in building your systems, you need to be sensitive and aware to the fact that AI has no skin in the game.
Replies
AI may have no skin in the game.
But it will work all night and on weekends. It never gets sick. It never forgets to do something. And as far as I can tell, it does it best work all the time.
That's enough skin for me.
I think of my AI use as me contracting an offshore team (no skin in the game) but I can be as micromanaging as I want to.
Of course AI can be fired: by canceling the subscription OR stop using its API.
This is an odd take. By this logic, you should never hire someone that is financially independent and can walk away from a job.
I agree there are differences in the teams, but it sure feels like there is a lot of overlap in the skill I need to deliver software, regardless of who is creating the code.
You raise another point though: agents are not human. The things that drive agentic loops are not at all the things that motivate humans to do good work.
That's probably where the human-management skill ends in this new world. The techniques that get high quality from humans do not apply to agents.