Really? I must be hallucinating the multiple people I know who do this here in Portugal. Clothes, random parts for stuff they need. They just point a camera and ask for it, often iterating. They clearly prefer the chat interface that somewhat also limits their choice, instead of the plethora of ad-filled websites that are hard to navigate. I'm aware this poses several problems we will need to solve, but it's still happening.

Related: Bar some of my somewhat AI-resistant friends and some older relatives, almost everyone I know (including college students I teach to, my dad, friends, non-tech co-workers...) no longer uses google as their first choice (they do fallback to it if they need to). They all use ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Used to be just ChatGPT but now there's a relatively equal divide. And an ever-increasing number of them are clearly using AI for pretty much everything else (proof-reading, writing e-mails, building spreadsheets, tiny custom apps for themselves, creating music, images, jokes, memes, photo editing/touch-ups, student evaluation, school material preparation/creation, personal/intimate advice, and much, much more.)

It is especially fascinating to note that, with the exception of AI-assisted coding, there is clearly more AI usage among the non-tech folks, as so many tech people are immensely resistant to using AI for something other than work. It's clearly shifting, though, as I see more and more of those AI-resistant people slowly also using it in their daily lives, as opposed to "only for work".

I can reply to an existing thread, just not create a new one.

How does something like this even slip by?...and why has it been like this for an hour?

EDIT: Oh, good, the issue should be solved in the next 3 or 4 hours. How lovely of them.

It works, but models seem to have these insane long traces to do the most basic things. I had to create a couple of skills so they know how to properly use the thing without breaking, so they don't always try to pass the wrong parameters to it.

It also doesn't let us change a couple of things (like icons). Or, if it does, not even Opus 4.6 can figure out how to do it.

I left a comment here with this sentiment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47879896

Some say it goes off on endless tangents, others that it doesn't work enough. Personally, it acts, talks, and makes mistakes like GPT models, for a much more exorbitant price. Misses out on important edge cases, doesn't get off its ass to do more than the bare minimum I asked (I mention an error and it fixes that error and doesn't even think to see if it exists elsewhere and propose fixing it there).

I've slowly been moving to GPT5.4-xhigh with some skills to make it act a bit more like Opus 4.6, in case the latter gets discontinued in favour of Opus 4.7.

It is also very fun to tackle hard engineering problems.

I enjoy both, and tend to oscillate between wanting to do a lot of one, or a lot of the other. I do recognize that I've been coding for so long that it's much more exciting to be solving "product problems" rather than "engineering problems", I suspect mostly because it's the area I've explored the least (of the two).

And there is a LOT to learn about a domain while you're working on the problem, even without even looking at the code.

I was surprised to realize that some of my friends don't share this sentiment. They take very little pleasure from being product developers, and instead really just enjoy being engineers who work on the code and the architecture. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, I just found it very surprising. To be honest, I guess perhaps what I found the most surprising is that I am not one of those people?

And when you get your product in the hands of users can finally get that direct feedback line to/from them and can start working on the problems they find and thinking of product (not necessarily engineering) solutions for them? Man, that's so satisfying. It's like falling in love with coding all over again.

Still, to me, good design is intuitive. I look at the thing, and I know how to use it. If it looks great and distinctive, even better. But most outlandishly distinctive design I've (consciously?) found is terrible.

Obviously, these short sentences hide a lot:

- To know how to use things, I must have prior experience. But different users have different prior experiences and acquired design patterns (i.e. interaction patterns)

- My knowledge of the domain is also different from that of other users.

- The way I interact with the system is affected by many factors (e.g. accessibility related concerns, zoom, etc.)

- Intuition is not magic. It comes after training as well. Good design is discoverable. Extraordinary design reinforces its own patterns seamlessly, so that I learn it without even knowing I'm learning (see: hidden tutorials in game design). I also include here the incredible attributes of good design that far predate computer-related design (e.g. how an icon should be recognizable just by its silhouette, or how apps "invisibly" teach us what each color or even section of the screen means).

- My incentive to learn (sometimes "tolerate") the design depends on many variables. Some of these include the design's "taste", yes. Others depend on how much my boss/client is paying me to "use this shit".

I wouldn't say I want a world where everything looks the same, but I certainly want one where everything works the same, and some geniuses once in a while add something new to my list of known (and loved) design patterns. I am not anti-design-experiments, but I will take a predictable UI that looks like windows 98 everyday over some "distinctive" shit that breaks all manner of expected behaviors (from keyboard shortcuts, to colors, to button placement, to relative sizing, to........)

You spoke of an Arduino, and I have a friend with zero coding knowledge who built a fun project with an ESP32 and a tiny camera to detect when they are "not looking at the computer".

But, sure, people keep saying we're delusional when we say that this is where the world is headed: people building things, so often without even knowing they are doing anything "different" than what they were doing before, when they simply clicked buttons and "things just happened in the computer".

- I don't think they need the extra you would offer them. I'm pretty sure they didn't add anything related to accounting. I also have to admit I'm a bit shocked that you would do all of what I described for "a tad more" than 900€, especially taking "a tad" longer than 3 weeks. To me, that's barely anything. But I guess I'll take your word for it.

- For many things, people no longer need the specialized production-ready work, precisely because they have this powerhouse at the fingertips. They "didn't find you" because it would make little sense to do so. It would take longer (which in some sense is higher risk), be more expensive, inherently be more likely to take even longer to really reach the right requirements (getting the knowledge out of their head and into yours would certainly add some overhead) and, in the end, it will likely really not bring in enough superiority for their use case.

- Because people don't need specialized production work, they won't even think of looking for it -- they already have the tools "at home". Why would I go out to buy a an electric screwdriver if I have a manual screwdriver at home? It's good enough. Sure, some people will try to use the manual one even when they shouldn't, but that's life: some people are better than others at figuring this shit out. I'm (slightly) hoping the AIs themselves will help people realize when they're trying to do something they shouldn't.

I truly believe that, for the most part, software engineering is not under threat. That there are many places where software engineering will continue to be essential. We're not developers and never have been. I think coding "manually" will die out, but not the knowledge of code (at least not for quite some time).

At the same time that I believe this, I also really believe that there is a sort of "new DIY" market (or a new "way of interacting with the machine") where ordinary people will just code things without needing to know how to code. Most of these won't be products, but they will be sufficient, for a sufficiently long time, for their needs. If/when they need more, they'll likely need the help of a software engineer, and that's more than fine.

I'm not saying this is the case with you (it doesn't seem like it is), but I see so much pushback from people who seem....either scared or in denial(?) about this (to me) very obvious new emerging way of interacting with a computer. People ask the computer to do things, and the computer builds programs and integrations between programs that....do the thing! When I was a kid, this would have been amazing, and I'm so excited that it exists now. And of course some of these "ordinary" people will also have this be their gateway into proper software engineering.

When I say friends and family, I mean it: they're all slowly starting to build tiny apps without knowing a single line of code. They often don't look good and have idiosyncrasies, but they're great for them. A friend of mine has a personal assistant with voice + telegram bot that edits their calendar and their notion, all deployed with railway (when they showed this to me I was gobsmacked!). They have ZERO coding experience...and yet...they have built this! I wouldn't use it (too finicky for me), but they swear by it and love it. (I audited the code after they asked me to and didn't find any security issues.)

Just like my dad used to grab a bit of scotch-tape to patch things up around the house, or like my grandpa used to build his toys, and furniture, he can now grab an AI and patch things up in his digital life and workplace -- how can people not see that this is happening? And, worse, why are they so very clearly upset about it and wishing that it just doesn't succeed? Is it job safety? The feeling that their favorite part of the job is being profoundly shaken up (coding)? I guess I can sort of understand and sympathize with feeling scared, but....not with the denial of it.

You know how so many people run their businesses off of excel spreadsheets? Often for way longer than they should, no doubt -- but they do. This is sort of the next step after that for some businesses. But, most of all, I really mean that for people's personal needs, interacting with the computer will involve the computer building some code for them to achieve their goals. Yes, MS is fumbling copilot, but one such integrated AI will eventually succeed, and people will open up their "start menu" / "copilot" / "Claude Cowork" / "whatever" and say "I want to create a library for my comic book collection", and over a couple of prompts (perhaps over a couple of days), their computers will just...build it. They will sometimes use existing solutions, but often they'll just build a good-enough thing that will be almost exactly what this person wants. And that's....awesome. So awesome that we're at a point where computers will enable people to do so much more.

I'm not sure how we're going to solve the obviously relevant problem of slop, but I would rather die trying, than restrict access to knowledge and capability because of evil. I believe in the GOOD of humanity. We WILL find a way.

In fact, in the very message you're replying to, I hinted at the opposite (and have since in another post stated explicitly that I very much think the profession will still need to exist).

My ideal world already exists, and will keep getting better: many friends of mine already have custom-built programs that fit their use case, and they don't need anything else. This also didn't "eat" any market of a software house -- this is "DIY" software, not production-grade. That's why I explicitly stated this is a new way of human-computer-interaction, which it definitely is (and IMO those who don't see this are the ones clearly deluded).

Here's an example from just yesterday. An acquaintance of mine who has no idea how to code (literally no idea) spent about 3 weeks working hard with AI (I've been told they used a tool called emergent, though I've never heard of it and therefore don't personally vouch for it over alternatives) to build an app to help them manage their business. They created a custom-built system that has immensely streamlined their business (they run a company to help repair tires!) by automating a bunch of tasks, such as:

- Ticket creation

- Ticket reporting

- Push notifications on ticket changes (using a PWA)

- Automated pre-screening of issues from photographs using an LLM for baseline input

- Semi-automated budgeting (they get the first "draft" from the AI and it's been working)

- Deep analytics

I didn't personally see this system, so I'm for sure missing a lot of detail. Who saw it was a friend I trust and who called me to relay how amazed they were with it. They saw that it was clearly working as intended. The acquaintance was thinking of turning this into a business on its own and my friend advised them that they likely won't be able to do so, because this is very custom-built software, really tailored to their use case. But for that use case, it's really helped them.

In total: ~3 weeks + around 800€ spent to build this tool. Zero coding experience.

I don't actually know how much the "gains" are, but I don't doubt they will definitely be worth it. And I'm seeing this trend more and more everywhere I look. People are already starting to use their computer by coding without knowing, it's so obvious this is the direction we're going.

This is all compatible with the idea of software engineering existing as a way of building "software with better engineering principles and quality guarantees", as well as still knowing how to code (though I believe this will be less and less relevant).

My experience using LLMs in contexts where I care about the quality of the code, as well as personal projects where I barely look at the code (i.e. "vibe coding") is also very clearly showing me that the direction for new software is slowly but surely becoming this one where we don't care so much about the actual code, as long as the requirements are clear, there's a plethora of tests, and LLMs are around to work with it efficiently (i.e. if the following holds -- big if: "as the codebase grows, developing a feature with an LLM is still faster than building it by hand") . It is scary in many ways, but agents will definitely become the medium through which we build software, and, my hot-take here (as others have said too) is that, eventually, the actual code will matter very little -- as long as it works, is workable, and meets requirements.

For legacy software, I'm sure it's a different story, but time ticks forward, permanently, all the time. We'll see.

Everyday people can now do much more than they could, because they can build programs.

The idea that code is something sacred and only devs can somehow do it is dying, and I personally love it, as I am watching it enable so many of my friends and family who have no idea how to code.

Today, when we think of someone "using the computer" we gravitate towards people using apps, installing them, writing documents, playing games. But very rarely have we thought of it as "coding" or "making the computer do new things" -- that's been reserved, again, for coders.

Yet, I think that a future is fast approaching where using the computer will also include simply coding by having an agent code something for you. While there will certainly still be apps/programs that everyone uses, everyone will also have their own set of custom-built programs, often even without knowing it, because agents will build them, almost unprompted.

To use a computer will include _building_ programs on the computer, without ever knowing how to code or even knowing that the code is there.

There will of course still be room for coders, those who understand what's happening below. And of course that software engineers should know how to code (less and less as time goes on, though, probably), but no doubt to me that human-computer interaction will now include this level of sophistication.

We are living in the future and I LOVE IT!

Having failed that, I'd look into trying to inspect (if possible, even we have to disable SIP) the dock itself. Have it do the work for us and read out its badges.

(Throwing random ideas out there, I'm sure you've thought of this)