One the most reliable BS detectors I've found is when you have to try to convince other people of your edge.
If you have found a model that accurately predicts the stock market, you don't write a blog post about how brilliant you are, you keep it quiet and hope no one finds out while you rake in profits.
I still can't figure out quite what motivates these "AI evangelist" types (unlike crypto evangelists who clearly create value for themselves when they create credibility), but if you really have a dramatically better way to solve problems, you don't need to waste your breath trying to convince people. The validity of your method will be obvious over time.
I was just interviewing with a company building a foundation model for supposedly world changing coding assistants... but they still can't ship their product and find enough devs willing to relocate to SF. You would think if you actually had a game changing coding assistant, your number one advantage would be that you don't need to spend anything on devs and can ship 10x as fast as your competition.
> First, you have the "power users", who are all in on adopting new AI technology - Claude Code, MCPs, skills, etc. Surprisingly, these people are often not very technical.
It's not surprising to me at all that these people aren't very technical. For technical people code has never been the bottleneck. AI does reduce my time writing code but as a senior dev, writing code is a very small part of the problems I'm solving.
I've never had to argue with anyone that using a calculator is a superior method of solving simple computational math problems than doing it by hand, or that using a stand mixer is more efficient than using a wooden spoon. If there was a competing bakery arguing that the wooden spoon was better, I wouldn't waste my time arguing about the stand mixer, I would just sell more pastry then them and worry about counting my money.
> I still can't figure out quite what motivates these "AI evangelist" types
I'd hazard a guess and say "money"
I guess I am kind of "AI evangelist" in my circles (team, ecosystem and etc). I personally see benefits in "AI" both for side-projects and main work. However according to my last measurements improvements is not dramatic, it is huge (about 30%), but not dramatic. I share my insights purely to have less on my shoulders (if my team members can do more it is less for me to do).
Agreed. I think even though the term is stupid calling them cognitive improvement tools makes sense. The models will get better but most people will never learn how to effectively prompt or plan with a agentic model.
> devs willing to relocate to SF
It baffled me 10 years ago why a company would be willing to pay SF salaries for people who can work from anywhere and it still holds true to this day.
Unless your engineer needs to literally be next to the hardware AND "the hardware" isn't something that can be shipped to/run at their home, why TF would you want to pay Silicon Valley salaries for engineers?
I know a guy that does electrical engineering work that works from home. He makes medical devices! When he orders PCBs they get shipped to his house. He works on a team that has other people doing the same thing (the PCB testing person also gets the boards at home; but that guy's a consultant). For like $1000 (one time) you can setup a "home lab" for doing (plenty sufficient) electronics work. Why would you want to pay ~$100,000/year premium to hire someone local for the same thing?