10x Lies on Productivity
I had a friend come into town recently, and over a little bit of whisky, we started discussing AI's capabilities. My friend definitely falls within the technical realm - he's a professor of engineering and regularly needs to create small programs to use in his research projects, but he's not enmeshed in the bizarre world of software engineering. Still, I was taken aback when he asked me about my use of coding agents. "So, do you feel like you're 9 or 10 times more productive than you were before?" The question almost made me spit my whisky out. After a little bit of contemplation, I gave him what seems to be my standard estimate most days - depending on the task, I feel like I'm 50% to 200% more effective. If you're mathing, that means I feel like I can increase my productivity by 3x if my robot colleague and I are in a groove. As I pondered the question more, I began to realize what a crazy moment we're experiencing now. Sure, different secto...