I agree with most of the article, right up to the point where the assumption is that AI will make things worse.
We have reached a point of complexity and short-termism where it's standard practice to shove a huge, barely tested mass of Python, JavaScript, shell scripts, and who knows what else inside a docker container and call it done. Complete with hundreds or thousands of intractable dependencies, many of which we know ~nothing about and thousands of lines of esoteric configurations for servers we have barely any hope of even getting to run optimally, let alone securely.
Most software has been awful for a while.
Already, with AI:
- We can build everything in a statically typed, analysable, and memory safe language like Rust[0], even bits that really have to interact with the shell or wider OS and would previously have been shell scripts
- We can insist on positively deranged amounts of testing, at every level
- We can easily cut the number of dependencies in our code by >50%, in many cases more like 90%
- We can do the refactor as soon as it becomes obvious that it would be a good idea
- We can implement quality of life admin and monitoring features that would otherwise sit on the backlog for eternity
- We can educate ourselves about what we've built[1] by asking questions about our codebase, build tools to understand the behaviour of our systems, etc.
So yes, I agree that "The Future Belongs to Whoever Understands What They Shipped", but unlike the author I am somewhat optimistic[2]. There is more opportunity than ever to build and understand extremely high quality software that does not accept technical debt, corner cutting to meet deadlines, or poor quality (in design or implementation), for those that engineers who are knowledgeable enough and willing to embrace the new tools.
And AI, and the tooling around it, is only getting better.
[0] or Go or even TypeScript, but there's precious little reason not to pick Rust for most use cases now
[1] of course we need to choose to, and many won't…
[2] of course, there'll also be near-infinite valueless slop and some people will get sucked into that, but this seems little different to regurgitated SEO spam, short form video, and all the non-AI enshittification we already put up with, and perhaps AI will help more of us do a better job of avoiding it
In the UK at least, banking apps are how you give people cash when you owe them for dinner, drinks, whatever. It's also needed to authorise online payments. And for travel, location services is often used by the better banks as an alternative to immediately blocking your card every time you go anywhere. Then there are account perks[0] like airport lounges, co-working spaces, exercise classes, etc. that all use the app for access.
It'd be more than just a bit inconvenient to lose all of these things…
Luckily, all of my personal and business banking apps work fine on Graphene. Even the apps for the crusty old "bricks and mortar" banks that I still have backup accounts with.
[0] As an aside, Revolut Ultra in the UK costs less than the FT Digital subscription it includes so if you're an FT subscriber, all the other stuff that comes with the account is cheaper than free.
> And for travel, location services is often used by the better banks as an alternative to immediately blocking your card every time you go anywhere.
I routinely use my (U.S.) credit card abroad and never had issues. I don't have any banking app on my phone, which runs Graphene, because I do not need access to banking on the go. Things such as airport lounges, co-working spaces, exercise classes, may be valuable, but none of these things is more important than my freedom. I do not tolerate the thought that some company may track which services I use and where I go without my consent. I therefore do not use proprietary apps on my phone. If something does not work in the browser (Vanadium), I will do without it.
Better for it to grow layers that are new and exciting, accessible only to the cultures that create them (and whatever comes after) and those who make the effort to continue learning
> You wouldn’t give them access to your personal email or bank account.
Citation needed…
Seriously, the number of very senior people I’ve come across who will happily share their login details (which are clearly the same everywhere) with almost anyone to avoid having to read a three paragraph email should put to rest any privacy or security related argument that starts with “you wouldn’t…”
From the outside, it looks like the US's society and culture fosters an unusually large criminal class compared to other western countries? If people had access to education, healthcare, jobs that aren't shipped overseas, minimum wage that wasn't laughable, etc, there wouldn't be so much problems? Arguing over severity of punishment while ignoring systemic issues is silly.
Non-developed countries do not have functional law enforcement and they are highly corrupt, so any statistics outside of developed countries should be ignored.
For developed countries, none but America have such high levels of immigration nor the racial diversity America has. It is much easier to convince society to promote high-trust empathetic solutions when society is racially homogenous and shares cultural background. It’s impossible to compare America to any European country, although soon it may be possible if immigration continues
How are you measuring that? There are plenty of developed countries with a higher immigrant share like Switzerland and Australia. If you're taking about visible minorities then Canada has a higher proportion of the population.
I don't think you can make a facile pronouncement that European countries and ethnically and culturally homogenous any longer. We can't have a High-trust society in the USA when politicians scapegoat immigrants, in spite of their being more law-abiding on the whole. We can't avoid having a demoralized populace when corporate funded politicians of both parties drag their feet instead of giving citizens of the most productive and wealthy country in the history of the world parity with less wealthy countries, in terms of healthcare, education, housing, retirement and lack of life precariousness, like going into bankruptcy over medical debt...
S**, I haven't felt much urge to upgrade from my 16GB M1 Air and I even use it to play some Windows games under Crossover. Quite possibly the best laptop I've ever owned.
It's always come in handy for containers/VMs (and I assume compiling Rust, as it uses as much of every other resource as it can get it's hands on) but yeah, being able to run actually useful local LLMs on my now >4 year old machine has been fantastic.
We have reached a point of complexity and short-termism where it's standard practice to shove a huge, barely tested mass of Python, JavaScript, shell scripts, and who knows what else inside a docker container and call it done. Complete with hundreds or thousands of intractable dependencies, many of which we know ~nothing about and thousands of lines of esoteric configurations for servers we have barely any hope of even getting to run optimally, let alone securely.
Most software has been awful for a while.
Already, with AI:
- We can build everything in a statically typed, analysable, and memory safe language like Rust[0], even bits that really have to interact with the shell or wider OS and would previously have been shell scripts
- We can insist on positively deranged amounts of testing, at every level
- We can easily cut the number of dependencies in our code by >50%, in many cases more like 90%
- We can do the refactor as soon as it becomes obvious that it would be a good idea
- We can implement quality of life admin and monitoring features that would otherwise sit on the backlog for eternity
- We can educate ourselves about what we've built[1] by asking questions about our codebase, build tools to understand the behaviour of our systems, etc.
So yes, I agree that "The Future Belongs to Whoever Understands What They Shipped", but unlike the author I am somewhat optimistic[2]. There is more opportunity than ever to build and understand extremely high quality software that does not accept technical debt, corner cutting to meet deadlines, or poor quality (in design or implementation), for those that engineers who are knowledgeable enough and willing to embrace the new tools.
And AI, and the tooling around it, is only getting better.
[0] or Go or even TypeScript, but there's precious little reason not to pick Rust for most use cases now
[1] of course we need to choose to, and many won't…
[2] of course, there'll also be near-infinite valueless slop and some people will get sucked into that, but this seems little different to regurgitated SEO spam, short form video, and all the non-AI enshittification we already put up with, and perhaps AI will help more of us do a better job of avoiding it
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