Coexisting with AI

As humans we are social creatures, and we tend to believe that safety lies in numbers. This belief makes it reasonable for us to assume that millions of people can't all be wrong at once and that exceptionally intelligent individuals, who leverage tools and techniques to solve problems we can barely comprehend, can’t be wrong either. Hence, hype appeals to our innermost primal being – it is a potent mix of both.

However, recent events have proven that both of these assumptions might not always be true. The perfect example is when people were driven into a hype frenzy and invested trillions in Crypto and NFTs, despite some investment experts calling it a "gambling device”. The result?

Crypto investors lost over $2 trillion in the last two years and the value of NFTs has tanked.

The problem with hype is that it overrides our rational decision-making process, stoking FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) by promoting FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

The Rise of AI-Induced Anxiety

While AI has always been a hype favorite, for the first time ever, creative professionals are starting to fear machines displacing them, leading to AI anxiety caused by existential dread. Naturally, news headlines, such as the ones below, are not helping the case:

The emergence of several myths that depict AI as a supervillain and a contender for global domination has birthed an “us vs them” mentality.Our existing anxiety is further compounded by the addition of AI into the mix as we now compare ourselves not only to other humans, but also to advanced AI.

Imagining AI as if it were a human and giving it the ability to act independently is an interesting thought experiment, yet, this practice is fraught with various issues that might be the root cause of the FUD surrounding AI.

Regardless, we have overestimated AI's ability and underestimated our capability to learn and evolve, which may hinder our ability to coexist with AI.

Rethinking Our Approach to AI

At Villvay, we always start with the "why" before we approach new technologies and trends with a fanatical customer focus. We are interested in the strange and seemingly impossible, and we don't discount hype. Instead, we try to rationalize it by approaching it with cautious optimism and seeing the good that technology can do to make the world a better place.

We have focused our efforts on AI in a few key areas, helping our clients improve their products and empowering our engineers to become unstoppable knowledge workers who work alongside machines.

Building a Second Brain with AI to Enhance Capabilities

We understand that as engineers, one of our primary challenges is to remain competitive through continuous learning. Relying solely on rote memorization of syntax and concepts is not an effective way to retain information, nor is it the approach we seek from our engineers. Instead, we place emphasis on understanding the underlying problems that technology addresses and being able to recall relevant information as needed. This is akin to building a second brain, and it's where AI can be beneficial.

By leveraging AI, we're able to delegate rote but crucial work such as:

• sifting through documentation
• commenting on code
• generating automated tests
• fixing static code analysis issues
• obtaining feedback on code.

We can also utilize AI for natural language programming, generating sample data in various formats, and even describing poorly written code. All of these capabilities enable us to focus our attention on more mindful work and allow us to remain competitive in our field.

Personally, AI has been a game-changer in the workplace. I was recently working with GitHub co-pilot when I learned that it could automatically generate negative tests for functional tests based on the positive tests I had written. It could also predict Page Objects with the URL I provided, saving me valuable time. Additionally, when I was tasked with creating a starter project for an Angular coding interview, ChatGPT enabled me to efficiently add UI layouts and styling, proper component isolation, and code markup in just 10 minutes. On another occasion, it facilitated me to quickly generate code using Puppeteer, a framework I had never used before, to perform some basic web scraping.

These slight, but impactful changes in AI will transform the way we approach coding. Instead of memorizing syntax, we can focus on problem-solving and understanding the technology's abstract solutions.

The feedback loop will be almost real-time, and we won't have to wait until a code review to worry about clean code. The legend of the 10x developer is no longer a polarizing topic.

Harnessing the Power of AI for Innovative Solutions

In the age of AI, it is important for engineers to differentiate between different types of AI and take advantage of the tools and frameworks available to help build AI tools and machine learning models more efficiently. For example, tools like LangChain can enable engineers to tap into existing large language models or create their own and query them for specific tasks. Other databases and libraries like MindsDB are trying to democratize machine learning by incorporating AI into tables to make predictions based on the data.

At Villvay, we are focused on solving B2B e-commerce problems, using AI to prototype and tackle complex business processes like dynamic pricing and availability. By experimenting and building solutions with tools like MindsDB, we can predict prices based on customer segmentation and personalization, which can save us time and money.

Understanding the Potential and Limitations of AI

While the possibilities of AI are exciting, it is equally important not to fear it as a black box but rather to embrace it as a tool that we can control and use to our advantage. It is crucial for engineers to have a deep awareness of how AI works and its potential impact on our daily lives.

This includes understanding that AI is not a magical solution that can be easily applied to any product or problem, rather, effective AI requires quality data and training models, and its limitations must be understood to prevent catastrophic consequences. By understanding its potential and limitations, we can continue to evolve and create innovative solutions.

The use of AI to help write this article is a perfect example of how AI can augment human intelligence, enabling us to focus on areas where we excel while allowing technology to help us in areas where we may be weaker. Finally, and most importantly, it is crucial that we prioritize responsible and ethical practices as we continue to develop and refine AI technology to ensure a positive future for all.