AI (GitHub CoPilot) is now involved on this site

So I took AI out for a spin (GitHub’s Copilot Agent). Yeah, old guy, late to the game.

I described in about three paragraphs the capabilities my project needed to feature and how it had to tie in with other software I use, making the latter much more feature-rich. This is the kind of thing years ago I would spend the better part of two weeks coding up and debugging (usually finding errant semicolons or missing semicolons, typos of variables, etc.). It took GitHub Pilot 25 minutes.

I merged it with the main branch of my repository of code, and it worked without a hitch and had thought of a few extras I hadn’t even considered. I’d call it a beta release because I’ve already made a list of additional functions and some tweaks, but it works better than fine. GitHub Copilot Pro will cost me (after the initial first free month) US$10 / month should I keep it. I can cancel any time. The software I (it) created has no ongoing charges, which many companies are now charging for similar capabilities.

What this means for coders these days: be more of a curator of possibilities. There’s a myriad of services to tie together in infinite ways. Careful coding means precision writing skills, logical forethought, and sometimes letting the LLM make the call where you are less informed. Knowing your own limitations is important. I did this by allowing CoPilot select the underlying framework, while I mostly described functionality and the style of the user interface (“use pico.css”, as it’s lightweight, and something widely used). I also ended with “If any of this is unclear, please ask for clarification.” And the LLM did find some areas where clarification was important.

If I were doing work for a client, how would I charge? The coder is still highly expert and simply pushing the drudgery onto the LLM of typing out the logic, the functions, the views, etc. Would I charge for 25 minutes or about ten thousand dollars (what I would have charged before AI)? Paula Scher famously sketched out the new Citibank logo on a napkin during a meeting with Citi leadership. And her firm (Pentagram) probably didn’t charge for the time it took her to do that in front of Citibank’s C-suite suits.

Picasso painted someone’s portrait within an hour then asked a high price for it. The person who commissioned it, protested, “but it took you only 40 minutes to do.” Picasso’s retort: no, it took me a lifetime. That’s going to be the value of humans in the software game going forward. Project managers being more like creatives while pushing the carpal tunnel inducing work onto some LLM.

Preview of the edit screen for this page (until this line)

This is the beta release, mind you. I already have some scope creep and a list of eleven major or minor tweaks to add to improve the interface on smaller screens, remove extraneous fields, and “warm up” the header area with some lighter color and breathing room for the “logo” (what is that?) and the Add Post button.