Pete Koomen
I noticed something interesting the other day: I enjoy using AI to build software more than I enjoy using most AI applications--software built with AI. When I use AI to build software I feel like I can create almost anything I can imagine very quickly. AI feels like a power tool. It's a lot of fun. Many AI apps don't feel like that. Their AI features feel tacked-on and useless, even counter-productive. I am beginning to suspect that these apps are the "horseless carriages" of the AI era. They're bad because they mimic old ways of building software that unnecessarily constrain the AI models they're built with. To illustrate what I mean by that, I'll start with an example of a badly designed AI app. A little while ago, the Gmail team released a new feature giving users the ability to generate email drafts from scratch using Google's flagship AI model, Gemini. This is what it looks like: Here I've added a prompt to the interface requesting a draft for an email to my boss. Let's see what G
AI Horseless Carriages | koomen.dev AI Horseless Carriages I noticed something interesting the other day: I enjoy using AI to build software more than I enjoy using most AI applications--software built with AI. When I use AI to build software I feel like I can create almost anything I can imagine very quickly. AI feels like a power tool. It's a lot of fun. Many AI apps don't feel like that. Their AI features feel tacked-on and useless, even counter-productive. I am beginning to suspect that these apps are the "horseless carriages" of the AI era. They're bad because they mimic old ways of build
saved by
- Anson Yu
- Sahil Patel
- Kaylee George
- Linda
- Emma Guo
- Shivam Siddaiya
- Samuel Lo
- Yushan Li
- Malaika Aiyar
- Devvrat Vaid
- Tim Wijaya
- Tony Kam
related reading
- AI is removing the middle class of software engineeringblog.florianherrengt.com
- Malleable software in the age of LLMsgeoffreylitt.com
- Using AI as a Design Engineerjakub.kr
- The vibe coder's career path is doomedblog.florianherrengt.com
- Your AI Product Needs Evals – Hamel's Blog - Hamel Husainhamel.dev
- Codifying a ChatGPT workflow into a malleable GUIgeoffreylitt.com
- How I Use "AI"nicholas.carlini.com
- Building better AI tools | Hacker Newsnews.ycombinator.com
- Where Are the Good AI Products?varunshenoy.substack.com
- Vibe-coding limits a creator’s potentialconnieliu.work
- How much I'm paying for AI productivity software (and the future of AI use)jacquesthibodeau.com
- Vibe engineeringsimonwillison.net