If AI is so good, why don't we have an infinite supply of 10x engineers?

10 points by YounesDz 117 days ago | 11 comments

I read here a lot about (maybe a mythical creature) called 10x engineer and today it occurred to me the above question.

bediger4000 117 days ago |

Interesting question. We also heard about how "apps" were going to disappear, and we'd have an "AI" driven slurry that configured itself intelligently to whatever the task at hand required. Or in the alternative, a flood of really great and helpful "apps" would flood app stores, all vibe coded by non-technical people who had really great ideas. I myself wonder why we still have compilers, VMs and interpreters. Shouldn't "AI" produce a kind of object oriented, strictly typed, functional, array language PHP, where a developer could write whatever kind of syntax(es) in whatever mode. "AI" would just figure it out on the fly.

The answer to all of this not happening is that "AI" isn't that good, of course, and we're being sold a bill of goods.

diavelguru 117 days ago |

We get a few not infinite. with a Claude 5x Max subscription I get 3-5 workable parallel agents that themselves spawn subagents to complete work in a ~3 hour window before tokens are spent. I imagine with 20x Max that could be increased to maybe 10 within a 5 hour window? so if you want infinite you're also talking infinite money. Working in parallel takes me personally to a higher plane of output than that of a 10x engineer as it pertains to fulfilling requirements.

_wire_ 117 days ago | |

In the must general terms, how do you verify that the code produced by agents does what you intend it to do?

How do you approach about this problem?

minimaxir 117 days ago | | |

Modern agents can write tests that are meaningful and require the agent to pass them with any change to avoid regressions. Humans can review the code/test the downstream application to ensure it works as intended.

It rarely takes a single prompt to get something done, but the agents can figure out as long as the human is specific about what constitutes accurate.

ares623 117 days ago | |

did your paycheck match your new found productivity?

fuzzfactor 117 days ago |

Hasn't there always been a significant surplus of 10x performers in excess of positions that pay 10x?