To AI Assist or not to AI Assist?

CJ: What happens in the
desert stays in the desert.

How, how was it this time around?

Colin: It was good.

It usually, yes, what, what happens at
Burning Man stays at Burning Man, but

it was not, I think what I did this
year was not be what most people think

of as, as Burning Man, but I think
I mostly just needed to go camping.

It didn't matter where, and
so surprisingly got some

of the best sleep I've had.

Wasn't out all night.

Woke up early, went to yoga
and coffee and bloody Marys.

And just like that, that was
like rinse and repeat every day,

which you could just do at home.

But you know, being able to just
wake up, not have to go to work.

Cause it took, took some time off ride
your bike, you know, people joke about,

Like Burning Man being this like utopia
city thing, but it is very unsustainable

as, as that, but for a week being
able to not just think about going to

work, get on a bike, no cars, right.

And go ride to the nearest little,
this really cool live music yoga thing.

And then just kind of see
where the day takes you.

Like you don't really get
to do that very often.

So it was a good little time.

Not probably what most people
think of as Burning Man, but it

was, it was just what I needed.

CJ: Great way to get away from screens
and just like, let your mind reset

to just like complete refresh reboot.

So are you coming back feeling
like really energized and excited?

Or was it long enough?

Do you want it to be
like three weeks, four

Colin: Yeah, I'm excited for my
next vacation to be somewhere a

little bit less survival focused.

Because you don't really come back
super refreshed when you're dealing

with the desert and all of that.

But yeah, no, it was good to be away
from screens, to not have to have

deadlines and Those kinds of things
was feeling super good and strong.

And then I like bruised a rib or
maybe cracked a rib on the last

day doing the lead again, the
least exciting things possible.

But yeah, so a little, little,
little ouchy right now, but I

think, and I think it's fine and
it'll, I'll be back at it soon.

CJ: Sounds like a solid year.

Things are, yeah, things are busy here.

We we just kicked off the school year.

So the boys are back in school.

They, we just had open house where we
got to meet all of the new teachers.

And go through kind of like all the
processes and what's expected of them

for this new year and learning about
the new grading systems and whatever,

but the kids are super pumped.

We asked them at the end of the
summer, like, you know, are you looking

forward to going back to school?

Are you dreading it?

And they said of their friends,
they're the most excited.

They're just like so pumped to be
back hanging out with their homies.

Their words, not mine.

And yeah, I think it's, it's, it's great.

We love that being the reaction.

So,

Colin: Yeah.

CJ: It's

Colin: I think.

You have a pretty good household
of general learning and

curiosity, so I think, yeah, the
kids are going to be alright.

CJ: Thank you.

Yeah, we were, we're, we're trying hard
to set them up for success and, you know,

get them get them into position where.

It would be very, very challenging
for them to fumble the ball,

but we'll see how it goes.

Colin: Yeah, I mean, you model that,
right, in terms of like, you're always

trying new things, and From computer
stuff to let's see if we can make

maple syrup to, you know, whatever.

Right.

So I think that that's
that natural curiosity.

It rubs off on people.

It's good.

CJ: Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

I never thought about it that way.

Speaking of natural curiosity, have
you seen, I know we actually, we talked

about this a little bit, the cursor.

ai editor.

Are you, is that like
your daily driver or what?

Yeah.

Like kind of, what are you using most,
most of the time now to write code?

Colin: So it is not my daily driver.

I have not asked and I'm not sure
if we're allowed to use it at work.

So We already, we have copilot
as part of GitHub enterprise.

So I imagine the answer is probably
not, we're not allowed to use it.

And just because I think like there's
a lot of protections built into GitHub

enterprise and copilot with like
enterprise code and things like that.

So for cursor is on my personal
machine and VS code and

copilot is on my work machine.

CJ: Got it.

Okay.

Yeah.

It seems like, well, given that
cursor is a fork of VS code, it feels

like a pretty safe thing to add.

It's kind of just like an
extension on top of it.

It seems But yeah, like that extension
I'm sure has a certain limitations in

terms of, or as a, as a giant company,
you would probably want to like enforce

certain restrictions around just
adding extensions sort of willy nilly.

Colin: Yeah, I think Copilot has some
rules around like what can be trained

and what can't and things like that.

That's enforced at the enterprise level
So the org controls a little bit more.

I don't think cursor is quite there
yet Then maybe they are and so you

do have to have another Payment plan
with cursor right you have to do a

subscription with them and all of that
So are you using it as your daily driver?

CJ: so I am not yet, but I have.

I, I started to get FOMO.

I was like, I'm in Vim over here
and I've got co pilot working fine.

But when I, I started, I started
to see like a couple of screencasts

where people were building like entire
features where it's like adding and

or editing like multiple files in
a repo instead of just kind of like

auto completing as you're typing.

And I was like, I want
that, that, that seems.

Like, it seems like another
step change in productivity.

And so I started like kind of re
setting and refreshing and like going

out on this exploratory research
expedition to try to figure out what

is going to be the daily driver for
the end of 2024 and going into 2025.

And so I downloaded installed
cursor was playing around with it.

Kraftwerk is not a giant
corporate organization.

And so we're much more comfortable
kind of like just seeing what tools

work and make us most effective.

And so installed it index, the code
base, and was kind of like messing

around with some basic features,
which I thought were pretty.

Pretty decent, but like any of this
like chat GPT or AI stuff, like some,

some, some of the output was wrong
or like just needed to be nudged like

several times in the right direction.

I'm like, is this
actually making us faster?

So I tried cursor for like a week and
a half and then went and I found this.

Plugin, it was on Hacker News, Avante.

Neovim and we'll drop a, drop links
to it in the resources, but I started

exploring like, what would it look
like to have the same kind of these

or like similar features in Neovim.

And so the things beyond like type to
complete that I was excited about was

like highlight a block of code and.

Have that refactored for you.

So just say like, change
this block of code to do X.

Another thing was like
implement this whole feature.

And then the last one was
like chat with my code.

And so I was finding that I was copying
and pasting like many, like entire

code files and pasting them into
either chat, GPT or Claude, and then

asking questions like, how would you.

Like find the memory leak in
this Ruby thing, or how would you

optimize this query or, you know,
things like that, that needed the

context of several different files.

And so one of the nice things about
cursor was that you can at mention files.

And it'll like include that in
the context in order to like, give

you either like chat with it or
give you edit recommendations.

So I wanted that inside of Avante
and it turns out that Avante doesn't

have the app mentioning thing yet.

And also it was.

In order to get it set up and working
as expected, I had to like change

the mind, Vim plugin manager and
like a whole bunch of other stuff.

So yeah, so I'm just, I'm still very
much in like the exploratory phase for

what the next daily driver is going to
be including VS code, including cursor,

including a whole bunch of stuff.

So I don't know.

Yeah.

Colin: had mixed success with
it knowing like recent files.

This is not, this is more co pilot.

Like sometimes it's like,
oh, you want to do this?

I'm like, that's awesome.

But then like another minute later
and it's like, Back to being dumb.

And so I don't know if there's like
literally like, Oh, it's keeping

the file you're on in context.

And then maybe the last file by default
cursor felt like it had a bigger

context window, but also was indexed
on the actual code, like in copilot.

I might try to use a symbol from another
file and it just doesn't know about it.

Which is also like most IDEs should
just have that like it's not you don't

need AI for that if it's especially if
it's like a static language or something

but I think we mentioned it but like
what I have found is that Cursor and

Rails has been fairly insane like for
me just and this is Out of the box.

I'm sure that there's going to be more and
maybe cursors like just one step change

towards this, like whatever the next
thing is, but be anything that has lots of

conventions, it seems to do really well.

When you get into JavaScript
land, I'm sure it does fine.

But when you can put files anywhere and
you can do things any way, it's a little

bit less, there's less patterns to follow.

And like, when you think of these things
as predicting the next best thing,

it makes a lot of sense that Rails
conventions, you know, all of that.

And who are we kidding, most apps
are doing the same thing in different

steps, different ways, different buckets
of content and different, you know,

buckets of views and things like that.

So Yeah, it is funny when everyone's
like, Oh, this is going to revolutionize.

It's like, we, we don't really do
like the services that apps and

things enable are usually really cool.

But like the tech itself
is not rocket science.

Like we are not doing
crazy things over here.

We're putting dibs on the pages.

So like, yeah, it can handle.

Doing dibs on pages like does, does
that mean it's going to replace us?

I don't think so.

We still got to kind of figure out
what we want those dibs to do and what

the, we want them to represent and
the services it's, it's app enabled

services for a lot of things, right?

Like what you guys are doing is literally
a service that's enabled by tech.

CJ: It's funny.

Cause like probably.

Most apps out there are going to have
like some form of authentication, right?

And like the way that you implement
authentication is going to, if you like

squint your eyes a little bit, look
90 percent the same for every single

rails application out there, right?

Especially if it's using device.

And so if you go to auto complete, like.

Some method in authentication controller
that follows the same patterns and

uses the same naming conventions,
like the chances that it's going to

end up just spitting out what someone
else already did, you know, 9, 000

other times, like is pretty high.

And so yeah, I think the convention,
the convention based like the strong

conventions inside of rails, definitely.

Is a huge, huge reason why I think these
tools will be successful when paired with

rails and yeah, fully, fully aligned.

Like this is it's going to make it
so much faster just because it's

so much more predictable the way
that you, you build rails apps.

I do wonder the same thing about Python.

I feel like because there's so
many ways to do the same thing in

Ruby, you know, the innumerable.

Module in Ruby has just like a bajillion
methods and all of them could be

implemented with each or, you know,
it's like a while loop or something.

And so like, because there's so many
ways to do it with Ruby, maybe that makes

it a little tougher versus Python where
there's like, okay, you can do this in two

ways, pick, pick, or you can use a four
loop or you can use a list comprehension.

And that's it.

Like, that's kind of like all you get for,

Colin: Yeah.

CJ: In, in some languages, like the the.

The, just like the surface area of the
methods in the standard library is so much

smaller that I wonder if like autocomplete
will work better for general things

that are outside of web development.

But yeah, like when working within
rails, following the rails patterns,

you know, you open up a controller.

There's seven actions.

They're always like putting the instance
variable, the same spot, the same way,

saving it, checking if it's saved.

If so respond this way.

If not respond this other way, set your
flash message, you know, like kind of the

stuff that you would get from a scaffold,
which actually probably that's probably

also another big part of it, right?

Like the scaffold itself
is generating code.

That is the same for everybody
with just like different names.

So

Colin: Well, and I'm not
familiar and I've been wondering

whether or not it makes sense.

Like, are these models just
trained on all data, right?

Cloud and things like that.

But could you have a model that
is specifically trained on Ruby?

And rails and more so than
just seeing lots of copies of

GitHub and projects, right?

Like, like we talked about the campfire
project that was supposed to be this like

ideal rails out from 37 signals, right?

If it was trained specifically
on that, what would it?

Nudge you towards, right?

There might be 10 ways to do something
in Ruby, but because we've trained

it on these, like, ideal these
ideal apps or these ideal methods,

or this is more memory performant,
or this is this is the preferred

pagination or preferred monetization,
authentication, whatever those things are.

It'd be really interesting to
have a model that's specifically

trained for web development and for
performance and things like that.

I don't think that any of these
are doing that even cursor.

I saw, and I'll try to find it and share
it, but some prompts examples where

people have these things where it's like,
I want you to be as terse as possible.

I don't want you to explain
what you're doing to me.

I want you to just give me the answer.

And like making it so that even
the prompting is is more custom

and more and more quick in cursor,
you can define a lot of settings.

And so people are starting to share
their cursor settings page, which

I think is making it a little bit
viral to where people's like, this

is what my cursor setup is very much
similar to how people have VS code

extensions and things like that.

So Yeah, it'd be very interesting
to see, like, I think my knowledge

of LLMs is just outside, like, just
at the door of like, is it enough

to not to be trained on everything?

Or does it make it more unique?

Because how I guess, has it changed
how you work with documentation at all?

CJ: I think.

Colin: This is a loaded question.

But

CJ: yeah, loaded question.

I think I, hmm, when it comes to like
standard library or like core library

documentation for rails, I will just
like ask the LLM questions, but if it

comes to like a question about a third
party, then I will look at the docs for

the third party, but I fully expect that.

Docs will follow Stripe's pattern
of like ask the docs or something

like that, which will come soon.

But I also wonder, like, you, when
you load your your repo, it could

theoretically go out and index and,
Get all the docs from like, you know,

the GitHub repo for, yeah, for all your
dependencies and then just be like,

okay, now you're fully in your IDE.

And if you have a question you're
like, you're doing ask the docs, but

like the docs are behind a rag model.

That's like, I dunno, just
like right there in your IDE.

I do.

Yeah.

I'm at the same point where I'm
like right on the edge of like,

how could we train the models.

A little better so that they
match the stack that we're using.

So that it's like even,
even more advanced.

And yeah, sometimes it'll
recommend actually very often,

chat GPT will recommend stuff
for rails that is out of date.

And I'll be like, no, no, no, it
doesn't work that way anymore.

Remember like now we're in Ruby
three and it looks like this.

And then it's like, oh yeah, you're right.

Like now, now it does work like that.

And so, yeah, there's, there's
like probably tons of outdated

apps that are following outdated
patterns that it's trained on.

So like, how do you.

Yeah.

How do you make it work?

For yeah, modern rails development.

I don't know the answer, but I did finally
go back and listen to that full podcast

with Lex Friedman and Peter levels.

And one of the most interesting parts
of it was Peter talking about how he

how every single person who uploaded
photos to photo AI, he was training

a model specific to that person with
their photos that they uploaded.

And I'm like, Oh, I wonder if that's
how, you know, if you wanted to do.

Something where like you're, you take a
base model, that's an open source base

model about code and then train it on
some like rails app repos that you pick.

Maybe you just go find like 10, you
know, these are the ideal rails repos.

Maybe you buy them from

Colin: And the docs,

CJ: Yeah.

And the docs.

Yeah,

Colin: docs, the, and like,
cause I don't want Python, right?

I only want Ruby and Rails.

So like go super specific
and hopefully it cuts down on

hallucinations and things like that.

CJ: totally.

How are you thinking about it
with regard to writing the docs?

Colin: Yeah, so we can talk about
this because I've been playing with a

vendor and we're not using them right
now, and we didn't build it ourselves.

So I feel like we're gonna talk about it.

But we have I have trained a model on
our docs on our open API spec on our

Zen desk help center articles that
are public and on our GitHub issues.

And it's Shockingly good.

Like it, it, it, it's not pulling
in all these other things.

I think with discord specifically, we ran
into this thing where most of the code

samples out there are for discord JS.

And so if you don't prompt that you want
to You know, do like, I want to build a

bot and I want to do it in pure like HTTP.

I just want to use fetch and I
don't want to use any libraries.

You have to constantly prompt
it to stop using discord.

js because there's just
so much content out there.

They've done really good
job of doing guides.

Our docs don't have a lot of code
samples cause they're meant to be.

like the more implementation docs
that other developers will use

for their libraries and things.

And so it was cool to see, like,
based on just the docs and the,

the spec itself, like it was able
to understand and, and, and know

what, what, what I was trying to do.

And I like that idea of, like, it, it,
it's still, you still need content.

to train it on.

And I knew it was
getting it from the docs.

So like writing the docs
is very important still.

Otherwise there wouldn't be any food for
it to consume and then come back and say,

Oh, I've learned how this thing works.

Right.

Cause just the open API
spec is just the end points.

So it's not going to be able, like even
with descriptions and field names and

stuff, it's not going to be able to
like figure out the pros around that.

At least not that I'm aware of, right?

It's like, if this has been trained on
all rest APIs and specifically ours, then

it could be pretty interesting because
you're like, oh, this is OAuth, right?

At the end of the day,
this is how OAuth works.

And then you could even probably
detect if someone is doing something

a little bit different, like, oh,
they have a special flavor of this

OAuth that, you know, kind of breaks
tradition and this is how you use it.

So I've been trying to think about
like, whether or not it makes sense

To even put a search box or like an AI
prompt box on the homepage of our docs.

We have an onsite this week
and I'm going to throw that out

as a, just a fun brainstorm.

But we also have a hack week later
this year, so maybe, maybe I'll

save it for that and just build it.

CJ: That sounds like a fun project.

It, it sounds like, well, one of
the things that is falling out of

like reading the docs too, is just
like discovery of new features.

And this is, I don't know, I guess like
it's coming up for me when I'm thinking

about all of these different tools and
editors, like, how do you even know?

What is possible when the features
that are coming out for these

editor tools are coming out so fast.

And so like one problem I remember having
with building buckets is that the stripe.

API and the features that they
would support would change

and I wouldn't know about it.

And I'm like, I don't know if there's
a way to like subscribe to changes

for certain pages or subscribe to,
you know, I want to be alerted so that

I know that my problem is fixed or
like the product gap is, is filled in

order to like retry or like, you know,
be open to trying something again.

And so what I was surprised by is like
the last time I used VS code with and

then they had like chat with your code
and the paint brushes type things.

But I feel like there's actually
like full patterns that have

started to fall out of continue.

dev.

And now they're built into copilot.

So you can do like command I and command
K and command L to like chat with or

edit or like suggest refactorings.

And, One of the problems I'm seeing is
like this, it's just coming out so fast

that I don't even know like which of
these editors is the best right now, or

like which features I want, because I
don't even know like what's possible.

And so I think there's a, there's a
huge opportunity right now for dev rel,

specifically in the like Editor and tool
space to show people how to leverage these

things to get like crazy fast at building.

And there was a tick tock I watched
recently where someone was talking about,

like, find, find a couple of friends
who are like playing around with AI and

just pair with them on random stuff.

Like how are they organizing their email?

How are they, you know, writing
up a doc or, you know, using Excel

or doing SQL queries or whatever.

Like, just try to like, Try to
pair and cross pollinate with the

different tools that people are using
because they're coming out so fast.

And there's so many of them that
it's impossible to stay on top of.

So other than the, the like features
that I've suggested for editing,

like, are there other things that
you're using or like other ways that

you're using this stuff, whether
it's like writing docs or code, like,

Colin: Yeah.

I, so I have been looking for, and
I'll put this out there if anyone

knows of one, but I might, I was going
to go build it and then I discovered

the API doesn't exist anymore.

So I put my docs into Grammarly.

For some reason, Grammarly does
not play nice with VS code.

And I even had the desktop app.

Grammarly, I mean, has been doing
AI, they, before LLM, right?

They've been doing.

Grammar and all this stuff, but what
I really do want and I think a lot of

engineers could benefit from having like
a true grammarly VS code extension and

they killed their developer platform.

Like it's just gone.

You go to there and the
API has been shut down.

They do not let anyone.

And I'm assuming, I don't know if it
was similar to like when Twitter like

crapped all over their developer platform
or what, but like it felt like they got

rid of their developer advocates and.

And maybe you're only just
doing partnerships or something.

But there are not very many good
models for that and or plugins.

Like there's like a latex one
that kind of it's like, Hey,

this word is a double extra word.

But Grammarly is really good at being
like trying to teach you around passive

and active voice and things like that.

So I've been using it, but I've been
literally writing my docs and then

copy and pasting them into Grammarly
because even the overlay, like Mac

app isn't catching my stuff like it
does when I put it into their UI.

So that that's a big one.

Like I'm, I'm finding that it
is making me a better writer.

There's a, there's a big drama going
on right now with NaNoWriMo, which

is the November national national
writing month where they were

basically saying that AI generation
is okay for you to write your novel.

And they're also pushing their own.

LLM tool.

And so a lot of the tweets were
really funny where they're like,

Oh my God, I'm, it's not even
November and I'm done with my novel.

I can't wait to read it.

Right.

So it's, I, I don't, when you think about
what we're generating with these things,

I like to still think like we could
generate, Everything on the, that we could

possibly think of, but like why, right?

If no one's going to read it or if it's
not going to bring value or if it's not

worth our time, like then it's probably
also not worth the energy and, and all

of the other, you know, expense that
comes with generating these things.

For me, I still want to write it.

And then I want to maybe take a pass
and use it as a learning opportunity.

And now I'm going to stop
writing that way if it's like,

Oh, stop using passive voice.

Use active here.

Sometimes in technical docs,
it's not always obvious.

Like, it's not like writing an essay.

It's like you keep using this
word over here and you, it

isn't what you think it means.

Or you know, especially when you're
talking about APIs and things like that.

Yeah.

The one that, though, it was a funny
one, eh, it's actually not important,

but Yeah, so copy is a big one.

When you were talking about training it
on specific things, we mostly are focused

on generating code, but I would almost
be interested to like have an IDE where

you're like running your app in it.

And it's watching all the
requests and all of the execution.

And it's like aware of your app itself.

And it's like, hey, this code
over here, like is not good.

Like every time you do this thing,
we're making five trips to the database.

Like, the AI can understand that so
there's almost this, like, once the code's

running, this pager duty monitoring thing,
where it's like, don't just optimize

the code path, but also understand
that, like, the executions are taking

really long, and you're, you have no
index on a database, right, that, on

a table that you really should have.

Mm hmm.

CJ: It's like the scout APM
performance monitoring metrics.

But like, yeah, interpreted by
your, that would be amazing.

Like literally that's a giant problem
we're trying to solve is like, how

do we drive down memory consumption?

And I am going in copying and
pasting and like, why the hell is

this making so many allocations?

And yeah, like it's just
looking at scout APM.

And then going in the code, copying a
bunch of code that scout told me is,

is like, you know, the culprit pasting
it in Claude, hoping that Claude gives

me something that is like maybe a
thread of a, an idea of where to go.

So interesting.

Colin: but it's almost like a
little like by bug, like, like,

just, just hang out and watch this.

And then you tell me what you see,

CJ: totally,

Colin: this is the true AI assistant.

Like, I don't actually don't care about
writing the code as much as that, right?

Like, reaching out and doing an
integration, like send this to

Stripe, send this to this, pull
this in here, talk to the database.

CJ: totally.

So one of the, I was just like
digging through settings today.

This is a great example where it's like.

They need developer advocates to go
and like talk about how this stuff like

is what's coming out and what's new.

But I was digging through
the cursor settings.

And if you go into beta, they
have something it's, it's in

the beta tab, but it's marked
alpha and it's called AI review.

And it's supposed to use chat GPT to
scan your current PR diff for books.

Colin: Mm

CJ: So it's going to like
look and see if it can find a

bug in your, in your PR like.

That's great.

That's a, that's a cool idea.

So yeah, tell you before you commit
something that you've got a bug.

But yeah, I don't know.

I coming back to your point about
authoring and like wanting to have

grammarly built into VS code, it
might be interesting to have like a,

an LSP or something like that's based
on technical writing or based on kind

of like different flavors of writing.

And it goes through and
like helps you update.

Are you mostly authoring and Markdown
or like, are you, you're right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Colin: Yeah, mostly markdown.

So yeah, I'll even send it with all
the markdown tags and everything

because I'm not going to go clean
them out and then put them back in

so I'll just say like, what is wrong
with this and it does it pretty well,

but I would love to have it in place.

But if you've used the grammarly UI,
I can also understand how hard that

would be in VS code because they do.

They like highlight everything
in different colors and show you

like, This many weird grammar
things you should think about.

This is passive.

This is, and then they like make you
upgrade to get the, like, we recommend

different words and you don't get to
know what they are unless you pay.

So I can understand that they're trying
to probably create a moat in this world

of all the AI things that like you
probably could pull off a DIY grammarly

on your own and like an afternoon.

So.

CJ: Yeah.

So for work, we're reading We've
been doing these book clubs.

I love these book clubs.

They're that's like how we read
the unreasonable hospitality.

And so the one we're going through
now is called smart brevity.

And it's by, I think it's, yeah, it's by
the people who made Axios and Politico

but the idea is about trying to like,
be very clear with your communication.

And several of the chapters are
basically sales pitches for Axios HQ,

which is their like smart brevity AI.

Whatever thing that tries to re word
chunks of text into their recommended

framework and in order to be like more
yeah, more concise and brief, which

I think is definitely relevant for
technical writing, especially when you're

trying to like organize thoughts and be.

Very direct and concise,
especially for working with

impatient, discerning developers.

I, the book is great.

It's got a bunch of tips and tricks, but
yeah, I would say several of the chapters

are just like pitching this smart brevity
thing, but it definitely comes to mind

that in order to communicate effectively,
we're going to have this embedded.

You know, like LLM tools embedded in
every single input box that we encounter.

And so how do we make it the
best, smoothest experience ever?

Whether you're writing a doc
or you're writing, you know, a

new feature for an application.

And yeah, like the, the IDEs have
all this built in to highlight

stuff, different colors, or show you
warnings or show you different things.

Maybe the limitation for Grammarly was
like, how do we make people pay for this?

But

Colin: I mean, they've been around
for a while, so it probably was.

I think we knew someone at Grandmama.

I might have to reach out and
find out what the deal was.

I think we know a devrel that was there.

The smart brevity thing reminds me
of like the opposite of what we're

seeing with the generated copy.

Cause like apparently kids can't, and are
only writing essays by using this now.

And so I had a friend who was
applying to YC and they sent,

had me read over their answers.

And I was like, this just feels icky.

Like, did you use AI on this?

Like, this doesn't feel like
a human talking to a human.

And.

I think too many people are
using it as that crutch.

Like, the Grammarly one is
really good at not doing that.

And I actually would be curious to
take some purely generated chat GPT

and just drop it into Grammarly to
see what Grammarly says about it.

Because I think somewhere along the
line people thought that putting in

20 to 5 words was a good thing, right?

Like you're in college and you need to
pad that essay to get to your word count.

That's one thing, but we just, I don't
think people want to be talked to with

these like very weird, strange just like
slightly off word choice where like,

yeah, maybe that was technically correct,
but like, we don't talk like that.

And when I was training the
docs on it, it was pretty good.

I don't know that it was necessarily
answering in the style of our, the writing

of our docs, but I wouldn't be surprised
if it was because it felt like the docs,

it didn't feel like this other thing came
in and was like, you must proceed this

way and use caution and code passionately.

Like there's always these like weird
words where they're like, like, Oh,

you're gonna have so much fun doing this.

I was like, no one is going to be like,
Oh, I, I sent this email passionately.

It's like, that was the wrong word there.

CJ: Yeah.

Colin: yeah.

CJ: Yeah.

Just, yeah.

Figuring out the training data set.

That's not just like the entire opus of
the internet as your input is important.

And so like, yeah.

Training on other.

Material that's similar to what you
want to create is like super important.

I was just Googling like, what are
the open source models that you

would use to rebuild Grammarly?

And it looks like there are several
from like Mistral and others that you

could take and yeah, mess around with.

So yeah, I don't know.

I definitely.

That feels like the next step in, in
my learning at least is like, how do

we take a model and then like, not just
fine tune it, but like adjust it to make

it do a very specific job, much better.

So, I, let's

Colin: think that's where everyone's
trying to get general purpose AI, right?

They want general intelligence,
but turns out that's hard.

It's ethically fraught versus
having your own like thing, right?

Like, honestly, even if you just had your
own personal AI, that was like followed

you, like literally knew all the things
you've ever done in all of your companies.

You know, the, the, a very
specific set of skills that you've

developed over a long career.

And.

Then you, it, it's like just able
to pull up things and it knows

like, yeah, it, what would CJ do?

Right.

And not necessarily anticipate and do
it for you, but help you along the way.

It's, it's your, it's your exo suit.

Yeah.

Are you using anything else, like in, like
you mentioned email and some other things.

Are you using AI in other parts of, of
your day-to-Day, or is it just code?

CJ: embeddings for just like a
lot of semantic search type stuff.

For features I've been using tools
like or function calling for generating

content for a couple of things.

But yeah, like day to day, a lot of it is
just like, the, or like the most impactful

stuff is definitely editing for code.

We added that feature that's just
like type to complete for our sales

team to do customer engagement based
on like the full customer context.

That's been running now for like a month.

And I looked and it's quite expensive.

Every single time we're making a
call, we're sending like a pretty

giant prompt because it embeds like
the full list of frequently asked

questions and previous conversation
and all the history of that customer.

And so it, yeah, I think we'll
have to get more creative with

that eventually, but try to think
of other, other use cases playing

around, there was like that teal draw.

Tool where you could
kind of like enter stuff.

Yeah, I mean, I guess music just
like Descript for editing, like yeah.

I tried generating some like
music tracks for backgrounds.

So yeah, things, I guess, like
on the next, definitely like the

next frontier is like, how do
you make it, Specialized to you.

Many good examples of that.

Like, how do you train stable, a stable
diffusion model that looks, that can

generate photos that look like you, how
can you train an 11 labs voice model,

or like, how can you train a voice
model that sounds like you, how can you

train something to write a blog post?

That sounds like you wrote it.

How do you train something
that it's just Ruby and rails?

So yeah, that, that definitely feels like
The next rabbit hole worth jumping down.

So, Mm.

Colin: Yeah, I've been thinking about, I
don't know how to put the words around it

yet, but there's this, like, those are all
aids in creating something at the end of

the day that someone wants to listen to
or wants to watch or wants to learn from.

CJ: Mm.

Colin: feels like a dumping ground of
just AI generated garbage right now.

But, like, there's a person
specifically that I have in mind

that has been doing these, like,

CJ: Mm.

Colin: they're definitely,
I think, prompts.

that they asked for like, Hey,
give me some prompts that I

can answer as LinkedIn posts.

They're like thought leadership posts.

Right.

But they, so then they like do
this, like waxing philosophical,

like fucking question.

We're getting our first leap in there.

And then they generate an image with
grok and it's like, okay, so you

just created like this most, like
lowest common denominator milk toast,

like thing for people to consume.

I had to unfollow them because
I'm like, every time this pops up,

it's like, It's a waste of my time.

It's like literally no value.

Some thought leadership in
entrepreneurship or startups or we'll

save founder mode, startup mode or
whatever manager mode for another day.

But like no adding to the
conversation whatsoever.

And then the image that you generated was
this like, you know, guy in a field with

five, you know, with five extra fingers.

And it's just not, what anyone needed.

Like, so, and everyone's
doing it on LinkedIn.

They're probably doing it on Twitter.

You have probably had people who are like,
Oh, I'll be your copywriter and they're

going and generating a bunch of things
and you know, sending you a bill for it.

So that stuff that I'm just
like trying to wrestle with, you

know, is it just like that stuff?

And people are going to ignore
it, or is it really going to, you

know, be something that we have
to like, maybe it's just a fad.

Cause I know people were generating
images with mid journey for a long time.

And then they're like, cool.

There's only so many times we can do
like pictures of your cat around space.

Right.

Before we start to try to
use it for other things.

I don't use a lot of image generation
stuff just because it's like, I don't

have It's not good usually like if I
want I need art I need to go jump into

figma and make some illustrations and
stuff or work with a designer and have

them make something from scratch because
so that's that's been rolling around

and I'm just like now that I see it I
just unfollow or hide it or whatever

but have you seen any of this stuff?

CJ: Yeah, totally.

And just, I think it
was yesterday or today.

I got a pop up from LinkedIn that
said, you can, you know, Do do premium

for 30 days or something and in the
pitch for premium, it now says AI

writing assistance and whatever.

And so I'm like, I wonder if that's
where it's coming from is like, maybe

LinkedIn has some feature that's like
actually making it so that people can

more easily create that kind of content.

And it also comes to mind too, that
like, we've been trained that putting

a picture in your post will make your
post more likely to like get attention.

And so if people don't have a good
picture, they're just making shit

up with like, you know, or they're,
yeah, they're generating it.

And

Colin: Yeah, but it's like shovelware,
like they're just putting stuff out to,

to try to build their brand or whatever.

And it's like, you're
just building this one.

Like you did not do anything of talent
or skill, which I do think that there is

going to be this diff of people who can
and people who have to prompt for sure.

Like it's going to happen.

And if you're an engineer out there,
you're relying on these tools, make

sure you can still do it without it,
because I'm pretty sure Pretty sure that

like when we do interviews, we do not
allow you to use AI in your interviews.

So if you are coming out of a bootcamp and
you used AI to get through your bootcamp,

turn it off, make sure you do it.

I think you and I both are used to like
doing the same thing over and over again

until it just becomes a thing we can do.

Right?

Like we're prompting ourselves into
like, all right, build this, build

it again, delete it, build it again.

until you really know it.

And it's okay if you don't need to touch
that for a long time to come back to

it and refresh or ask chatgbt to prompt
you on like, how do you do that again?

Like, most people don't do a lot every
day and couldn't rebuild it from scratch.

And that's okay.

But knowing how it works is a good idea.

CJ: Yeah.

Definitely.

From using Cursor and saying like,
generate this feature for me.

And having it only work like one
in three ish, I don't know, maybe,

maybe the hit rate is one in three
where it generates something.

I'm like, yeah.

Like, let's accept that.

That seems legit.

That makes me a little bit nervous for
people who are like, I don't really

know how to code, but I built this thing
'cause I used Cursor and, you know,

I, I just prompted my way through it.

I'm like, yeah, cool.

Like,

Colin: one to accept?

CJ: Exactly.

Yeah.

They're just like, that looks good.

You know, maybe they try to run it
and they're like, I ran into an error.

Copy paste the error.

Oh yeah, you're right.

Change it to this thing.

And then you end up with in
the same way that it's not

fun to read AI generated text.

It probably will be very hard to
maintain an AI generated application.

And so I dunno, there there's,
I don't want to poo it too much.

Cause I guess like, if you are using
it as a way to like build a business

and you don't actually care about
the underlying tech, that's cool.

Right.

Colin: It is, yeah.

And I think that's, Josh Pickford
and some others have been having that

conversation of there's definitely
some purists who are thinking of coding

as craft versus coding as a result.

And Josh wants what's on
the other side of the code.

The code allows him to build
a business, to build a family,

you know, a life for his family.

Yes, he wants it to be good code.

Yes, whatever.

But he's not going to be over here
fighting some like language semantic

wars because he wants to ship a
product and make number go up, right?

That's, that's his goal.

And he wants to solve problems, right?

He builds lots of apps
to solve his problems.

He makes those solutions.

People want them.

He charges for them.

And at the end of the day, it doesn't
matter what the code was, right?

As long as it works.

So,

CJ: Yeah, I think that was like the big
takeaway from the Peter levels argument

too, is like, he's using PHP and jQuery.

That's what he knew.

And like,

Colin: react people are so angry.

CJ: yeah, I mean, yeah, that's, I
don't know, it's, it's funny to think

about, but yeah, trying to keep a laser
focus on growing the business or yeah,

growing your own sidekick or your own
sidekick, growing your own side hustle.

Like all of that is really Yeah.

It doesn't really matter what,
what the code looks like.

If people are just looking
at the interface, so

Colin: Cool.

Should we leave it there?

CJ: Yeah, totally.

If you want to check out the links to
the resources for stuff we chatted about

today, head over to build and learn.

dev and yeah, we'll catch you next time.

Colin: Bye friends.