My all-in AI experiment cost me my confidence

Just want to clarify, this is not my Substack, I’m just sharing this because I found it insightful.

The author describes himself as a “fractional CTO”(no clue what that means, don’t ask me) and advisor. His clients asked him how they could leverage AI. He decided to experience it for himself. From the author(emphasis mine):

I forced myself to use Claude Code exclusively to build a product. Three months. Not a single line of code written by me. I wanted to experience what my clients were considering—100% AI adoption. I needed to know firsthand why that 95% failure rate exists.

I got the product launched. It worked. I was proud of what I’d created. Then came the moment that validated every concern in that MIT study: I needed to make a small change and realized I wasn’t confident I could do it. My own product, built under my direction, and I’d lost confidence in my ability to modify it.

Now when clients ask me about AI adoption, I can tell them exactly what 100% looks like: it looks like failure. Not immediate failure—that’s the trap. Initial metrics look great. You ship faster. You feel productive. Then three months later, you realize nobody actually understands what you’ve built.

  • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    13 hours ago

    Look, bless your heart if you have a successful app, but success / sales is not exclusive to products of quality. Just look around at all the slop that people buy nowadays.

    As long as AI helps you achieve your goals and your goals are grounded, including maintainability, I see no issues.

    Two issues with that

    1. what you are using has nothing whatsoever to do with AI, it’s a glorified pattern repeater - an actual parrot has more intelligence
    2. if the destruction of entire ecosystems for slop is not an issue that you see, you should not be allowed anywhere near technology (as by now probably billions of people)
    • ImmersiveMatthew@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      7 hours ago

      I do not understand your point you are making about my particular situation as I am not making slop. Plus one persons slop is another’s treasure. What exactly are you suggesting as the 2 issues you outlined see like they are being directed to someone else perhaps?

      1. I am calling it AI as that is what it is called, but you are correct, it is a pattern predictor
      2. I am not creating slop but something deeply immersive and enjoyed by people. In terms of the energy used, I am on solar and run local LLMs.
      • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        I didn’t say your particular application that I know nothing about is slop, I said success does not mean quality. And if you use statistical pattern generation to save time, chances are high that your software is not of good quality.

        Even solar energy is not harvested waste-free (chemical energy and production of cells). Nevertheless, even if it were, you are still contributing to the spread of slop and harming other people. Both through spreading acceptance of a technology used to harm billions of people for the benefit of a few, and through energy and resource waste.