Post by @loke@functional.cafe
This analyst's report from Apollo about AI uses the term "S&P 493" to refer to the "S&P 500 minus the Mag 7" - because if you take out the AI companies, the S&P 500 is tanking. https://www.apollo.com/wealth/insights-news/insights/daily-spark/no-signs-of-ai-payoff-outside-the-tech-sector
@pluralistic At the tech conference I was at last week, which was of course 2/3 AI, it was often taken as self-evident that AI had given us huge gains. I should look up some of those people and send them this ...
@pluralistic One talk, that was quite interesting, was from a company with 180 developers that did a slow and careful rollout of AI, mainly due to high demand. They did a self-assessment, and developers claimed increased productivity. They said it was too early to say if it was actually true though, and promised to come back with results (presumably another year) if they had any.
It's the same where I work. Developers *feel* more productive, but I have yet to see any numbers backing it up.
@veronica @pluralistic I think they are more productive, given a definition of 'productive' that measures output.
You can definitely produce much more... 'stuff'. Some of it might even be useful. A lot of it turns out to waste other people's time. But as long as you have a definition of productivity that only measures output and not bottom line results, it's a useless metric.
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@loke Indeed. If your metric is output, then sure. It's the age old "quality or quantity" conundrum. If it's not useful output, or you need to frequently replace it with new generated code, is it then productive in a meaningful sense? Or, in my opinion, worse: Is it just increased complexity and fragility for no or minimal gain?
@veronica @pluralistic The metric is output. And it is that because everything else is difficult to measure. And if it's difficult to measure it's better to just ignore it or something. I'm sure it won't show up in the next quarter's earnings.