Watts Martin: Is there a ‘right amount’ of AI?

I’m struggling to figure out what to quote from Watts Martin’s piece, because a) it’s great, and b) it covers a lot of ground.

I debated whether I wanted to write about the kerfuffle this week surrounding Big Walk, and I didn’t. The short version is: Big Walk developer House House acknowledged using AI tools to fix bugs in their hugely popular game, which was a frontrunner to win major prizes at the Independent Games Festival. Some judges from the IGF published an open letter declaring that they wouldn’t vote for any game that used generative AI tools at all.

I’ve written plenty, as recently as yesterday, about AI-assisted app development; I couldn’t make my apps without Claude’s help — not as functionally, not as polished, and not as quickly.

Martin:

While I’ve made my skepticism of AI clear by now, I’m not an anti-AI purist fighting against “no apps with any hint of AI coding allowed on my machine.” For one thing, it’s almost certainly a lost battle. …

I’m not saying you can’t use generative AI in the creation of terrific apps; IGF award arguments aside, Big Walk seems to qualify. But LLMs, by definition, can’t make *anything*thoughtfully, because LLMs have no thoughts. Everything Lex wants—apps that feel crafted, that show refinement, that feel intuitive—requires a human developer not only with taste, but with understanding.

Read the whole piece. And yes, my favorite part is this parenthetical:

(Note that’s Lex Friedman, who is cool, not Lex Fridman, who sucks.)

This week’s sponsor