Dr. Cat Hicks:
…you all have sent me some questions that are kind of like, “Why are we seeing such mixed different findings about AI?”
And I tend to think the answer to that sort of thing is, “Well, we haven’t gotten specific enough about our questions, or we’re using the wrong language or format for how we ask about it.”
🎙️ O11ycast Ep. 85: AI/LLM in Software Teams: What’s Working and What’s Next with Dr. Cat Hicks
A cogent conversation about how AI fits into our larger practice of software development.
This part reminded me of my own attempts to categorize how people approach AI tech…
Austin Parker:
You know, one thing I’ve noticed that’s really interesting…is I’ve been trying to kind of create an ethnography of AI haters and AI lovers as it were, mostly for my own personal sanity.
But in the sphere of technologists, I’ve definitely noticed, it’s kind of hard to say where people come down on this because there are people that I know…who have come out as very anti-AI, right, as a cultural phenomenon.
And then there are people who have come out as very strongly pro-AI as a cultural phenomenon and specifically in the narrow lane of…AI as a coding assistant, as part of the software development lifecycle, as part of software teams.
The real discriminant I found is that the people on one side of this tend to view coding and programming as highly creative as an expression of some sort…It is a craft, it is an art, it is, you know, sculpture, and there is an inherent beauty in creating these technical systems all bound up in social systems.
And then, on the flip side, there are people that see it from a much more utilitarian point of view where the code is not, you know, code was never the most interesting thing anyway…the code is boring. The code is the annoying thing you have to do in order to translate your desires to the computer, and what you actually care about is the end result. You care about the product. You care about dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
Strongly recommend following Dr. Cat Hicks (@grimalkina@mastodon.social) on Mastodon.