by keeda | 2025-06-02 21:55:35+00:00
A number of comments point out that OAuth is a well known standard and wonder how AI would perform on less explored problem spaces. As it happens I have some experience there, which I wrote about in this long-ass post nobody ever read: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/adventures-coding-ai-kunal-ka...

It’s now a year+ old and models have advanced radically, but most of the key points still hold, which I've summarized here. The post has way more details if you need. Many of these points have also been echoed by others like @simonw.

Background:

* The main project is specialized and "researchy" enough that there is no direct reference on the Internet. The core idea has been explored in academic literature, a couple of relevant proprietary products exist, but nobody is doing it the way I am.

* It has the advantage of being greenfield, but the drawback of being highly “prototype-y”, so some gnarly, hacky code and a ton of exploratory / one-off programs.

* Caveat: my usage of AI is actually very limited compared to power users (not even on agents yet!), and the true potential is likely far greater than what I've described.

Highlights:

* At least 30% and maybe > 50% of the code is AI-generated. Not only are autocompletes frequent, I do a lot of "chat-oriented" and interactive "pair programming", so precise attribution is hard. It has written large, decently complicated chunks of code.

* It does boilerplate extremely easily, but it also handles novel use-cases very well.

* It can refactor existing code decently well, but probably because I'ver worked to keep my code highly modular and functional, which greatly limits what needs to be in the context (which I often manage manually.) Errors for even pretty complicated requests are rare, especially with newer models.

Thoughts:

* AI has let me be productive – and even innovate! – despite having limited prior background in the domains involved. The vast majority of all innovation comes from combining and applying well-known concepts in new ways. My workflow is basically a "try an approach -> analyze results -> synthesize new approach" loop, which generates a lot of such unique combinations, and the AI handles those just fine. As @kentonv says in the comments, there is no doubt in my mind that these models “understand” code, as opposed to being stochastic parrots. Arguments about what constitutes "reasoning" are essentially philosophical at this point.

* While the technical ideas so far have come from me, AI now shows the potential to be inventive by itself. In a recent conversation ChatGPT reasoned out a novel algorithm and code for an atypical, vaguely-defined problem. (I could find no reference to either the problem or the solution online.) Unfortunately, it didn't work too well :-) I suspect, however, that if I go full agentic by giving it full access to the underlying data and letting it iterate, it might actually refine its idea until it works. The main hurdles right now are logistics and cost.

* It took me months to become productive with AI, having to find a workflow AND code structure that works well for me. I don’t think enough people have put in the effort to find out what works for them, and so you get these polarized discussions online. I implore everyone, find a sufficiently interesting personal project and spend a few weekends coding with AI. You owe it to yourself, because 1) it's free and 2)...

* Jobs are absolutely going to be impacted. Mostly entry-level and junior ones, but maybe even mid-level ones. Without AI, I would have needed a team of 3+ (including a domain expert) to do this work in the same time. All knowledge jobs rely on a mountain of donkey work, and the donkey is going the way of the dodo. The future will require people who uplevel themselves to the state of the art and push the envelope using these tools.

* How we create AI-capable senior professionals without junior apprentices is going to be a critical question for many industries. My preliminary take is that motivated apprentices should voluntarily eschew all AI use until they achieve a reasonable level of proficiency.