I feel like you're pretty strongly agreeing that taste is important: " I'm finding that you have to have an extremely clear product vision...""
Clear production vision that you're building the right thing in the right way -- this involves a lot of taste to get right. Good PMs have this. Good enginers have this. Visionary leaders have this....
The execution of using AI to generate the code and other artifacts, is a matter of skill. But without the taste that you're building the right thing, with the right features, in a revolutionary way that will be delightful to use....
I've looked at three non-engineer vibe-coded businesses in the past month, and can tell that without taste, they're building a pretty mediocre product at best. The founders don't see it yet. And like the article says, they're just setting themselves up for mediocrity. I think any really good PM would be able to improve all these apps I looked at almost immediately.
The way I understood it, the original article is saying the _only_ remaining differentiator is taste and the comment you replied to is saying "wrong, there are also other things, such as effort".
I don't necessarily interpret the comment you replied to as saying that "taste is not important", which seems like what you are replying to, just that it's not the only remaining thing.
I agree that taste gets you far. And I agree with all the examples of good taste that you brought up.
But even with impeccable taste, you still need to learn, try things, have ideas, change your mind etc.. putting all of that in the bucket of "taste" is stretching it..
However, having good taste when putting in the effort, gets your further than with effort alone. In fact, effort alone gets you nowhere, and taste alone gets you nowhere. Once you marry the two you get somewhere.
Aren’t you just making their point stronger? Effort is what is being replaced here, with some taste and a pile of AI (formerly effort) you can go to the moon.
In other words, it requires a tremendous amount of effort to fully communicate your tastes to the AI. Not everybody wants to expend the time or mental effort doing this! (Once we have more direct brain/computer interfaces, this effort will go down, but I expect it will not be eliminated fully)
This is the second time in two days I've seen a subthread here with folks seemingly debating whether or not defining and communicating requirements counts as work if the target of those requirements is an LLM system.
I'm confused as to why this is even a question. We used to call this "systems analysis" and it was like... a whole-ass career. LLMs seem to be remarkably capable of using the output, but they're not even close to the first software systems sold as being able to take requirements and turn them into working code (for various definitions of "requirements" and "working").
I'm also skeptical that direct brain interfaces would make this any less work; I don't think "typing" or "english" are the major barriers here, anymore than "drafting" is the major barrier to folks designing their own cars and houses... Any fool thinks they know what they need!
At some point, just an idea will be enough for your Neurolink to spawn an agent to create 1000 different versions of your idea along with things that mimic your tendencies. There will be no effort, only choice.
As both a software engineer and a creative, I absolutely do not want 1,000 versions of what I am trying to make generated for me. I don't care if it's free or even cheap. I want to make things.
I know this is a concept deeply alien to a lot of HN's userbase but I did not get into programming or making art to have finished products; that's a necessary function that is lovely when it's reached, but ultimately, I derive my enjoyment from The Process. The process of finding a problem a user has, and solving it.
And yes I'm sure Claude could do it faster than me (and only at the cost of a few acres of rainforest!) but again, you're missing the point. I enjoy the work. That is not a downside to me.
Deciding between 1000 different versions is a lot of effort IMO. With manual coding, you’re mostly deciding one decision point at a time, which is easier when you think about it. It just require foresight which comes from experience
Not really. The effort required to produce the same result has declined, but it has been on the decline for many decades already. That is nothing new. Of course, in the real world, nobody wants the same result over and over, so expectations will always expand to consume all of your available effort.
If there is some future where your effort has been replaced, it won't be AI that we're talking about.
Effort is still (and probably will always be) the hardest thing to replace.
Any time someone says AI can do this, and do that, and blah blah. I say ok, take the AI and go do that.. the barrier to entry is so low you should be able to do whatever you want. And they say, oh, no, I don't want to do that (or can't, or whatever). But it should be able to be done.. And I just nod, and sip my drink, and ...
.. and I'd like to point out these are seasoned professionals that I've seen put in effort into other things in their careers that have the capacity to literally do whatever is they want to do, especially now.. and they choose not to do so, at least not without someone guaranteeing them a paycheck or telling them they have to do it to survive.
“ I've looked at three non-engineer vibe-coded businesses in the past month, and can tell that without taste, they're building a pretty mediocre product at best.”
Are you doing this altruistically for friends - or as a consultant?
Both a) to help a friend out and b) to help non-technical founders I've meet at some Meetups/AI events to launch their product. My short-term goal is to put together a checklist/cheatsheet for all the technical things someone needs to do to launch a business because it's not just having a webapp running on Vercel with Supabase. And if they do have an app, is it a complete mess or not.
I think the solo-founder hype is an overplayed unless the person has the right skills, and even worked at a tech company, and knows what they're getting into. Alerting and monitoring for example is one of like 30 things they should be aware of.
Clear production vision that you're building the right thing in the right way -- this involves a lot of taste to get right. Good PMs have this. Good enginers have this. Visionary leaders have this....
The execution of using AI to generate the code and other artifacts, is a matter of skill. But without the taste that you're building the right thing, with the right features, in a revolutionary way that will be delightful to use....
I've looked at three non-engineer vibe-coded businesses in the past month, and can tell that without taste, they're building a pretty mediocre product at best. The founders don't see it yet. And like the article says, they're just setting themselves up for mediocrity. I think any really good PM would be able to improve all these apps I looked at almost immediately.