Setting: Adil's office. Max: Are you still following that Python programming course, Adil? Adil: Yes, soon I will crush you puny geeks with my hacker skills! Max: You won't use those skills to again doctor one of our demos, I hope?
Adil: No, I have heard rumors that Alana has collected weaponry to beat me up if I dare. But hey, you know Python, right? Can you help me with this week's homework exercise? It is about class versus instance methods… Max: Hold it, are you asking me to do your task? You do understand the concept of exercise, right?
Max: Do you also go to the gym and then ask others to lift the weights for you? You're supposed to learn to do things yourself. Adil: Grmbl, then I'll just ask ChatWSL. Max: I can't wait until A.I. becomes truly intelligent and also refuses to help with cheating…
Story arc: The Future Is Now
SONAIS 162 - Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Setting: The kitchen/lunch area. Adil: I am now writing Python code with A.I. assistance, it goes 55% faster! Steve: Well, that kind of speed-up is actually inversely proportional to programming experience. For senior programmers, the gain may be less than 10%.
Adil: That must obviously just be because old farts do not dare to embrace these new tools, and stubbornly write everything themselves from the ground up. Steve: Um, not really. It is mostly because those old farts simply know how many mistakes the A.I. will make, hence either write all the code themselves, or waste a lot of time fixing all the mistakes.
Steve: Consider this: a baby has zero knowledge of writing code, and has infinite gain from anything being auto-generated. An old fart who knows exactly what to write, is better off writing it right away, than to coax exactly that code out of an A.I. assistant. Adil: Well, then at least I am not a baby anymore…
Story arc: The Future Is Now
SONAIS 163 - Friday, May 2, 2025
Adil: I have taken my A.I. assisted programming to the next level with vibe coding. Zhang: You mean you just ask A.I. to generate stuff until it vaguely seems to work, and don't even review the code? Adil: Yes, the speed gain is ginormous! Zhang: Let me see the result…
Zhang: There is an obvious bug in this ‘vibe coded’ thing of yours. I doubt the A.I. will be able to fix this for you. Adil: Don't worry, I'll just debug it myself, how hard can it be?
Caption: Several hours later… Zhang: Found that bug yet? Adil: I had to throw it all away and start over from scratch. The code was pure spaghetti.Vibe debugging is a total nightmare!
Setting: the workshop. Zhang: Hey Heidi, how is it going here, you haven't been vibe coding like Adil, I hope? Heidi: Hi Zhang. No, although A.I. assistance does help to move things along. In fact, I have discovered something new that is pretty astonishing. Zhang: Now I am curious…
Heidi: As you probably remember, with the ‘Truth Helmet’ we were sort of able to read minds. Zhang: Yes, although it was not the greatest success. Heidi: I think I can make it work the other way round. Zhang: Wait… what? You mean upload instead of download?
Heidi: This technology seems able to project experiences into someone's mind. Like Virtual Reality, but then bypassing sensory input. Zhang: No way. This could be mind-blowing. Heidi: Yeah… maybe quite literally if we are not careful.