With everyone writing about AI and arguing about whether it will take over our jobs or not, I can personally attest that it definitely will take over some of those, or, at least, some of the activities. We probably can’t answer some questions right now, since it’s not too clear how is software development going to change, what will happen to the offshore digital service, etc.
However, AI can already do a lot of things, and it’s not just theoretical knowledge anymore.
Take this web site, for example: https://trophyengine.com
It took me a bit less that two months of “spare time” work to build it from scratch. If I were saying this 5 years ago, the phrase would mean something totally different. This time around, it means I did not have that when I started, but, with the help of AI, I built something.
I am not a hardcore developer, especially when it comes to the NextJS, Flask, Python, or anything else that’s not related to the Power Platform. I do know a thing or two… Turned out Cursor AI was able to make up for that lack of knowledge and get me through the development at the speed I couldn’t have imagined.
Were there hiccups along the way? Absolutely. It was a painful lesson when I lost a few hours of “work” due to a less restrictive prompt that Cursor AI interpreted as if it were free to make any changes it considered useful. Aha… As a result, things stopped working at all.
That taught me a few things right away: git commit often, do not allow your AI tool to go off leash, make an effort to understand the code, and provide clear guidance to the AI. You are basically dealing with a mad genius who can make it or break it equally easily.
Coding was just one side of it. I am not an illustrator either. Yet a major portion of the trophy designs I created so far were originally designed by Chat GPT. No, it can’t make those designs totally suitable for the laser engraver, but it can do what I can’t – offer the initial design. And I can do the rest.
So what about the cloud etc? Actually, it’s not involved. At least not in the “cloud everywhere” manner. The server is sitting under my desk, everything is running on docker, CloudFlare provides DNS (and SSL).
Here is an interesting question… how many things do you need to be aware of/know about to make this work? The answer might be surprising, but, in the end, it’s simply “a lot”. So much for AI taking jobs… but it’s changing jobs for sure – I don’t need to pay for at least some of the services I’d otherwise have to pay for, though I do need to be able to not only ask AI to do things, but to actually work with what AI has produced where it can’t do other things (at least yet).
To wrap it up, for now… Steve has been posting some AI-related nonsense (which, surprisingly, almost always makes sense once you read it), so I figured folks like him deserve a dedicated medal. But, of course, I don’t know if he’d do 200 posts in May, so may need to lower the bar 😊
