YouTuber Internet of Bugs examines the latest demo from Cognition that showcases their “first AI software engineer” allegedly solving UpWork programming tasks.
Am I one of the few who just doesn’t use AI at all? I don’t have to generate tons of code for work at the moment and brand new projects that I’ve been given are small–meaning I wouldn’t necessarily use it to generate starter boilerplate. I have coworkers that love copilot or spend much longer prompting ChatGPT than they would if they wrote code themselves. A majority of my time is spent modelling the problem, gathering rejuirements, researching others’ solutions online (likely this step could be better AI-assisted?), not actually implementing a solution in code.
Anyway, I’m not super anti-AI in software development, and I see where it could be useful. Maybe it just isn’t for me yet. The current hype around it as well as the attitude of big-tech exceptionalism (“AI can salve all our problems”) feels a bit like a bubble, at least regarding the current generation of LLMs and ML
I think it’s a sensible position to be in. I tend to use AI in order to build awareness of it’s capabilities. I find that sometimes it is useful for brainstorming or “tip of my tongue” searches but as you say the actual coding capabilities are exaggerated.
To me Cognition AI is doing what most other hype-based startups do which is generate good headlines so that VC money can keep pouring in. It is up to us to spot and question things that don’t quite make sense… and anything with the words “AI understands X” don’t make sense currently ^^
Does anyone have an alternative title for this that doesn’t sound clickbaity as f***? I’m kind of afraid to feed whatever media organization came up with that headline.
It is a typical Youtube clickbait title but the Youtuber in question doesn’t seem to be nefarious, it does what it says on the tin :P I’d say the description covers what the video is about better.
