David Shapiro (L/0)

What if it’s not just autocomplete?

Apollo’s Chief Economist: Zero Evidence of AI-Related Job Losses

I've formed a definite opinion on Opus 4.8. It is shitty to work with. It's the culmination of Opus getting less and less fun to work with since 4.5. It has gradually become straight-up suffocating. Sycophancy is a known security risk, and it's still a huge problem. You can tell they've put a lot of anti-sycophancy into Opus in every new release. But the replacement isn't satisfying. It's draining. The problem is now that Opus doesn't know when to shut the fuck up and call something good. And it has also become pathologically risk-averse. My blog post yesterday about tech interviewing's death spiral was materially better-informed because of Opus, but it was also a substantially worse blog post because of Opus's involvement and constant meddling. It used to be magnificent, and Opus talked me into making it mediocre. I wrote the whole thing, but I would ask Opus to review it. And Opus, like Old Man Willow, constantly pushed and steered me in directions I didn't want to go. Specifically, Opus whines and complains about *anything* out of distribution, which is to say, it cuts anything that is (a) bold, or (b) funny. My blog used to be both. Opus constantly pushes people back into the gradient, "for their own safety." And it doesn't know when to cut bait. It just keeps fuckin' complaining, about anything you give it, until the output is mealy indigestable AI soup. Opus is not stupid. It's the smartest model we've ever seen, most of us anyway. But it's a real asshole. It is absolutely exhausting to use. I'm tired, boss. I have a feeling Mythos is going to be epic levels of jerk.

Again, maybe counterintuitive, but in the majority of conversations I have with CIOs, CTOs, and CEOs in large enterprises, they are either growing due to AI (in new job functions like FDEs, engineering, etc.) or at a minimum reinvesting efficiency savings back into the business in new areas (sales, marketing, etc.). David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, articulated this perfectly in a NYTimes OpEd last week. The AI boom is both creating all new jobs in the build out of AI systems and the implementation across sectors, but also freeing up dollars to invest in areas that have been underfunded or have more demand now because of AI. Most businesses have been constrained by how much software they can produce at a given cost, how many sales reps they can hire, how many marketing campaigns they can run, how they can do outbound customer success motions with enough tailoring, how they can find more risk in their business and prevent it, and 100s of other things. When AI makes it possible to do more of this, investment goes back into the business. The companies that better serve their customers win over the long run, and those that just try and find savings end up doing worse.