I agree with this. My bosses boss thinks that AI is going to end up doing 95% of our work for us. From my experience (so far) AI coding follows the 80/20 rule, it can get you 80% of what you want for 20% of the time/effort. And the ratio might be more like, it'll get you 80% of what you want IMMEDIATELY, but it can't get you the last 20%, it needs a human to get it over the finish line.
It's super impressive in my opinion, but if you think it's going to straight up replace humans right now, I think you probably aren't a software developer in the trenches cranking out features.
I'm sort of a Neanderthal when it comes to understanding AI, but I don't think AI in it's current form works like a human. Right now, it kind of just cranks out all the code in one fell swoop. A human on the other hand works more iteratively. You write a little bit of code then you run it and look at an iPhone simulator, look at Figma designs, and see if you're getting closer to what you want. AI doesn't appear to know how to iterate, run code, look at designs, and debug things. I imagine in 100 years it will know how to do all that stuff though. And who knows, maybe in 1 year it will be able to do that. But as of right now, September 28th, 2025 it can't do that yet.
It depends on which application you're using. Applications like "RooCode", which is a free extension for VSCode, have several "modes" which allow the user to create an outline of the project using an "architect" LLM, followed by coding the project with a "Coding" LLM, followed by debugging the project with a "Debugging" LLM if there are bugs. There's also an LLM that answers questions about the project. Only the coding and the debugging LLMs do actual coding but you can set it so you have to approve each change it makes.
I agree about the 80/20 part. On the workflow front, there’s been enormous progress from Copilot to Cursor to Claude Code just in the last 2 years. A lot of this is down to the plumbing and I/O bits rather than the mysterious linear algebra bits, so it’s relatively tractable to regular software engineering.
This tracks with my AI usage as well. I often use AI to get the first 80% of the work done (kinda like a first draft), and then I finish things off from there.
As a consumer (even a corporate or government consumer), you have to watch out for this in a capitalist system. My ex's family asked me to take my son to this specific water park this weekend. When I went to buy the tickets this morning, it was going to be $250 to go to the swimming pool! I live in Austin, TX and we have the coolest pool in the world and it's $5 ($8 or something like that if I take my son).
Businesses will try and trick people into thinking $250 is an acceptable price to charge to visit a swimming pool. They'll do the same shit with firetrucks if nobody is paying attention.
Excellent article, and great to see someone pointing this out. Prices will climb out of control if people are suckers and believe the lie of "you get what you pay for." It's more like businesses will keep ratcheting up prices indefinitely as long as there are suckers around who are easily parted with their money.
Extended rant... my ex once wanted to pay $500 for a f*cking vacuum cleaner. People are stupid. Had we listened to Henry Ford they'd still be making some version of the Model T and you could buy a new car for $6,008.85 (inflation adjusted price of a Model T).
> It's more like businesses will keep ratcheting up prices indefinitely as long as there are suckers around who are easily parted with their money.
Who wouldn’t? Aren’t people usually proud of minimizing their work to pay ratio, whether it’s earning more and more to sit at a desk and browse HN or selling a firetruck for a new high price.
When it's companies preying on impulse buying, brands, trends, temporary demand spikes like a popular water park on a popular weekend then it's understandable to see people paying more than they "should" have (according to one's own high and mighty objective standards), and perhaps blame "capitalism" or believe there should be some regulation to protect consumers. Sure.
But when it is government bureaucrats spending public money procuring multi million dollar equipment, the problem is more likely to be government corruption or at best incompetence.
My $350 Soniclean is way more than 3x better a shitty $100 vacuum from Target. (Also seems better than everything they sell, including for a lot more...)
General Motors was in the lead then they just quit. It was stunning to see all of their incredible self driving Cruise cars vanish and then overnight see them all replaced by Waymos. It was like watching the downfall of Xerox PARC.
I saw a Waymo stop at a crosswalk last night in the dark where there was a person standing there waiting to cross that I don't think I would have seen. The person was not standing out in the road, they were standing there patiently waiting to make sure the car actually stopped since it was dark. I was really impressed! I don't think I'm a reckless or impatient driver, but I think the Waymo's are probably better at driving than I am. I know I prefer the Waymos to the human drivers I typically see on the road.
Thank God. People on the roads are extremely reckless and we don't do anything about it. Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up. If you kill someone sober though, it's totally fine under our current system.
In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles, and only allowed to operate light 2 wheel vehicles like scooters where you will only kill yourself and no one else.
> In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles,
This sounds good if you imagine perfect enforcement, but reckless driving can be a very subjective charge depending on the location.
Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. Making everyone’s livelihood hinge upon one officer on a power trip giving them a reckless driving ticket is not a good idea.
>Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather.
People do this all over the world. Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Or better yet, build out infrastructure so people have better options.
Don't make the mistake of presuming that levying a legal penalty equates to perfect compliance. When faced with a choice between compliance and survival, people will choose the latter.
Did you miss the part where this can be highly dependent on the officer's judgement?
If you take away someone's ability to get to their job because a racist/corrupt/grumpy/power-tripping police officer decided to perjure themselves to declare that they drove recklessly, you have given police a tool to destroy the lives of anyone they dislike.
Tickets can be disputed and many people make a livelihood without a vehicle.
I think current penalties for reckless driving are far too lenient. Driving is not a right, but a privilege. If someone chooses to use that privilege irresponsibly, they should lose that privilege.
Personally, I would advocate for a license revocal process that happens much quicker than what we do now and provides a mechanism for regaining access to that privilege through a rigorous process of eduction and community service.
As a parent, these comments are always so weird to read. Kids play outside, including unsupervised still. Kids getting hit by drivers is statistically very rare (though no less tragic)
Suggesting that “many” of the kids who “try” to play outside get killed by cars is the kind of conclusion you can only arrive at by living life through hyperbolic headlines or the dramatic evening news.
I think I have seen in the news at least 3 separate instances where parent drove over and killed their own child in their front yard while just trying to drive out. It is like over my entire lifetime so I may made up and it was 2 or once - but I cannot forget it as I imagine such tragedy even writing about while never been nowhere close to such an event it makes me feel uneasy in my chest and stomach.
I think you're just out of touch with reality. Maybe the fact you're a parent has tainted your view - some type of bias against admitting things might suck.
When I was a kid, the amount of kids outside was easily orders of magnitude more. Things I did as a kid are pretty much unthinkable now. I mean, as young as 7 I was riding my bike miles away.
It's not that things are worse now, it's that enough kids died that newer parents are much more cautious.
Note how visible all of those primary school children would be to anyone using one of those cars in the car park. Now imagine the same scene today with the car park full of modern cars (and 'trucks') where the bottom of any of the vehicle's windows would be well above many of those children's heads.
I think it is implied that they are not allowed to by their parents and thus not killed?
There is no way 1.5 to 4yo can play unsupervised, as in grabbing distance from adults, in areas close to traffic? Maybe 4yo can do with yelling distance from adults.
Like, if people wouldn't care so much as they do, I would guess there would be a lot of fatalities.
Once upon a time crossing the street meant walking across a 20 foot road with the occasional small car going 20-25 mph. Now it's a 4-8 lane stroad full of 6,000 pound trucks that can't see anyone shorter than 5 feet past the hood going 50 mph.
How far will you let your kid walk from home alone?
Anyway my point is just that pedestrian deaths have gone up even as the number of miles walked and biked (_especially_ by kids - the modeshare for biking to school has absolutely plummetted) goes down.
Texas checking in here - yes, it's Texas, and no, it's not hyperbole.
Don't know what rinky dink town you're from, but here most roads are 6-8 lanes across. Yes, that includes in our small cities. They're essentially highways but with signal lights. Go to Arlington, Grand Prairie, Richardson, Fort Worth, Roanoke, Southlake, you name it, and it's just roads after roads like this. Trying to cross them is extremely dangerous.
I'm from rural Texas and it is indeed rinky dink town, not to far from the places you mention. But I moved to New England years ago and don't miss Texas at all. Keller, Southlake, even, sadly, Denton were overdeveloped hell holes then, but I never lived anywhere where kids were playing right beside an eight lane road. At worse maybe they had to cross a 4 lane road with a median if they were going somewhere outside their neighborhood, and you had lights and crosswalks for this, but mostly people lived in neighborhoods where there were... normal... roads.
They're over-developed and simultaneously run down. If you've ever driven down southlake boulevard you know it gets PACKED during rush hour.
> I never lived anywhere where kids were playing right beside an eight lane road
You leave my neighborhood and immediately it's a 50 MPH 6 lane stroad. Granted, I'm counting 3 one way, 3 the other, occasional turning lanes makes it 7 or 8.
It's true your neighborhood is fine. But there's literally nothing in your neighborhood but homes. If you need anything, no matter how trivial, you have to cross stroads. This is very much in contrast to urban mixed-use pedestrian friendly areas.
Another Texas resident, confirming yes this is largely the experience for a lot of Texas. But its not just Texas; I've seen the same in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, and other places. Practically every neighborhood development since the 1980s is probably like this.
You'll have smaller streets inside of neighborhoods which are islands of nothing but houses, then massive busy streets in between. Sidewalks directly abutting these very busy streets, if even there. Usually no bike lanes.
Every single residential street in America is full of cars parked or moving at 25+ mph. It's a miserable experience for anyone outside of a car and dangerous for smaller children who don't pay attention and can run into traffic.
Even the largely carless (read: not many cars parked on the street) ones like my neighborhood that had a whole bunch of kids happily playing outside and in the street this weekend without issue? Every single one?
The street directly in front of my house is largely like that. I don't even feel very safe doing the edging standing in the street, people turn down the street off the 40MPH (probably going 45-50MPH) main road next to it and blindly start heading down the residential street at 25-30mph.
The cul-de-sac behind my house through the alley is a good bit calmer. That's where my kids go to play.
If you want your kids to grow old and you live somewhere where cars are priority you don't have much choice but your backyard, a park or wilderness. And a backyard might not be super fun/big and parks and wilderness aren't accessible without an adult.
I remember vividly when I was a kid and we were biking on the street and someone drove too fast, dad went out in the road and yelled him down, which was reasonable.
As I said elsewhere, my neighborhood had a whole copse of kiddos, including my own, playing out and about throughout the streets this weekend.
/shrug
Edit: I don't care about upvote tallies or karma count, but it does seem pretty silly to downvote a comment for pointing out that areas like this, and play in those areas, still exist.
>Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up.
You don't know what you are saying. Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws.
> Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws.
Absolutely. Grew up in VA a few generations ago and it was just as strict then. Compared to everywhere else I've lived - Virginia is Police Everywhere, All The Time.
This sounds like high anxiety nonsense to mommy the rest of us.
Our highways are not lawless. They are among the most regulated areas of daily human life in the US after accounting for both criminal and civil penalties. Whether people abide by those regulations is a different matter, but to say its lawless is a wild fantasy of people who probably shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.
We speak of the Wild West as “lawless”. I assure you there were very much laws against murder and theft then. They just had sporadic enforcement. Much as roads and highways are in many parts of the country. In California I see racing, 100mph driving, weaving like mad. In the ride home from the airport I watched teenagers race and crash. Drunk driving all over wine country. Never once saw anyone like this pulled over.
The wild west is as equally misunderstood. There were far far fewer guns carried by people then compared to now and laws were well enforced even in sporadically populated areas. The exceptions were boom towns, like gold rushes, where the populations grew faster than norms could be established.
I guess if you don't see it then it must never happen to anybody ever. That isn't valid data.
Traffic law enforcement is a highly localized issue in the US. While there are places that will pull people over for going 5mph over and traffic is calm and orderly, there are also places where traffic laws are rarely enforced. In major cities it is not hard to find roads where severe traffic violations are routine (speeding 20mph+ over, driving on the shoulder, running red lights, etc).
I think allowing 2 wheel is not a good idea in those cases. In fact you should be even better to be allowed for 2 by I digress. You can still kill pedestrians and passers by.
The other issue is that in a lot of countries speed limits are arbitrary: either too low or too high for the area. Speed limits are not dynamic and usually are actually set so that a percentage of traffic violates them. Or are set once and never adjusted.
States in the US are culprits of all above issues. Plus the lack of alternative transportation. So this whole topic is a Pandora's box that doesn't take easy solutions.
Thats really only true for people with money. The problem isn't that current laws are insufficient, it is that the US justice system is largely based on profit motives, and people with money can make prosecutions against them unprofitable to push. You can bet your butt that if you went in to those same cases without the money to draw everything out for years that they would hammer you with fines and fees and programs and jail time.
