Got to admit: Microsoft absolutely nailed its developer agent positioning. Other startups: "we built an AI Engineer" - suggesting to leadership that it will replace developers (and thus worth paying $$$ for) Microsoft: "a peer programmer" - suggesting it needs devs (it does!) - ThreadSky

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com • 12 days ago

Got to admit: Microsoft absolutely nailed its developer agent positioning.

Other startups: "we built an AI Engineer" - suggesting to leadership that it will replace developers (and thus worth paying $$$ for)

Microsoft: "a peer programmer" - suggesting it needs devs (it does!)

Comments

sdust.dev•11 days ago

More realistic haha

larstorben.bsky.social•12 days ago

Bold to put "other startups" and "Microsoft" into the same statement.

beltran.work•12 days ago

Having Copilot help review PRs is probably my favorite use of AI

mimrock.bsky.social•11 days ago

I think "SWE-replacing AI Engineer" is a message aimed at investors and hypers and not actual clients with actual problems to solve.

alex.barcelona•12 days ago

Meanwhile, the reality of what Copilot is actually able to do: https://old.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1krttqo/my_new_hobby_watching_ai_slowly_drive_microsoft/

beltran.work•12 days ago

what an absolute chaos lmao

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•12 days ago

They are doing it all in public for everyone to see! Why is this bad?

1) Helps you decide if you should use it (or not!)

2) Remind me of any AI startup that shows their agents in public doing the work?

If anything, more tools should do it. Transparency is wonderful, no?

alex.barcelona•12 days ago

Transparency is wonderful, but it is surprising that a corporation this big allows this to happen. It is known that the models still struggle with a lot of things. Why let it loose in public if the results are not good enough? Was it tested internally enough? I'm not sure.

alex.barcelona•12 days ago

It also matches my experience that one thing is library code, and another thing is application code. I work a lot with the Qt framework. There is only one Qt codebase (OK, many modules, but still), but there are thousands of Qt apps to train on. Not enough data leads to poorer models.

alex.barcelona•12 days ago

All this bad pull requests are not in app code, but in library code. In my uses of LLMs, they always struggle at creating the foundations of an app. They do the minimal work, not something that could be a good base to work on. Hence, not good enough library code, but decent app work.

bhuynh.dev•12 days ago

Peer programmer is nice subtle wording, suggest that the bot only helps you program, and an actual developer/engineer still need to do other parts like requirements gathering, discussing trade-offs and pitfalls, clarifying questions, design business-specific high-level logic etc.

fry69.dev•12 days ago

Aider coined the term "AI pair programming" two years ago, but everyone got high on coding agents.

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•12 days ago

Which type of product do you think devs will

a) recommend trying out

b) be excited to try out

The first one: definitely not!

kevinriggle.bsky.social•12 days ago

Unfortunately the reality is that it’s that obnoxious open source contributor who wastes way more time than they save

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/114546174330023840

kevinriggle.bsky.social•12 days ago

“Fix this.” “Sure boss.” “That didn’t fix it.” “This did.” “That… also doesn’t work, but in a differently broken way.” Etc etc

teethofwisdom.bsky.social•12 days ago

I dunno. Implying you’re peer to an LLM isn’t necessarily super flattering.

gergely.pragmaticengineer.com•12 days ago

I have said it before and will say it again: any startup that has a mission to "replace devs" or create "AI Engineers" I don't want to have anything to do with

(and good luck - you'll need it!)

auris.bsky.social•11 days ago

Cognition seem to market their product Devin similarly. Yes, it says „AI engineer“, but their tagline is: „We’re the makers of Devin, a collaborative AI teammate that helps ambitious engineering teams achieve more.“
I.e. enabling human engineers, not replacing them.

katafrakt.bsky.social•12 days ago

I have personally witnessed a conversation of devs hoping for "AI engineers" to come. They were somehow convinced that AI will do their work and they will just sit all day, sipping margaritas, and getting paid for that.

I mean, with that level of naivety...

alovchin91.bsky.social•12 days ago

I can’t say it’s a very fun future where you as a dev have to review tons of AI generated nonsense, but it is still more plausible than no human devs at all. Good luck to any company that replaces human devs with an AI. AI is supposed to let companies pivot more, not do same stuff but without humans

holmes.bsky.social•12 days ago

Does the peer censor emails with the word GAZA for you?

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