Our new CTO was remarking that our engineering teams AI spend is too low. I believe we have already committed a lot of money but only using 5% of the subscription.

This is likely why there is a lot of push from the top. They have already committed the money now having to justify it.

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hn_throwaway_99 a day ago | parent | next [-]

> They have already committed the money now having to justify it.

As someone who has been in senior engineering management, it's helpful to understand the real reason, and this is definitely not it.

First, these AI subscriptions are usually month-to-month, and these days with the AI landscape changing so quickly, most companies would be reluctant to lock in a longer term even if there were a discount. So it's probably not hard to quickly cancel AI spend for SaaS products.

Second, the vast majority of companies understand sunk cost fallacy. If they truly believed AI wouldn't be a net benefit, they wouldn't force people to use it just because they already paid for it. Salaries for engineers are a hell of a lot more than their AI costs.

The main reason for the push from the top is probably because they believe companies that don't adopt AI strategies now and ensure their programmers are familiar with AI toolsets will be at a competitive disadvantage. Note they may even believe that today's AI systems may not be much of a net benefit, but they probably see the state of the art advancing quickly so that companies who take a wait-and-see approach will be late to the game when AI is a substantial productivity enhancer.

I'm not at all saying you have to buy into this "FOMO rationale", but just saying "they already paid the money so that's why they want us to use it" feels like a bad excuse and just broadcasts a lack of understanding of how the vast majority of businesses work.

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empiko a day ago | parent | next [-]

Agreed. I think that many companies force people to use AI in hopes that somebody will stumble upon a killer use case. They don't want competitors to get there first.

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pseudalopex 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's incomplete but not false universally. Politics is part of how businesses work. Many companies which adopted AI now expected results now. People who promised results now have reputations on the line. Incentives influence beliefs.

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lelanthran a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> but they probably see the state of the art advancing quickly so that companies who take a wait-and-see approach will be late to the game when AI is a substantial productivity enhancer.

This makes no sense for coding subscriptions. Just how far behind can you be in skills by taking a wait and see position?

After all, it's not like this specific product needs more than a single day for the user to get up to speed.

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dasil003 18 hours ago | parent [-]

I disagree, agentic coding is a very different skill set. When you are talking about maintaining massive corporate code bases it’s not a instant-gratification activity like vibe coding a small prototype, a lot of guardrails and frankly a new level of engagement in code review becomes necessary. Ultimately I think this will change the job enough that many folks won’t make the transition.

	▲	hn_throwaway_99 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I totally agree - yes, the current AI tools will definitely change, but the difference in AI-tooling specifics is much smaller than the difference between "no AI assistance at all" and an agentic-AI heavy coding process. And I say this as someone who didn't make the transition after 25 years as a software engineer. While I get a lot of value out of AI, I felt it largely changed my job from "mostly author" to "mostly editor", and I just didn't enjoy it nearly as much, so I got out of software altogether and went to violin making school.

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rsynnott a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Note they may even believe that today's AI systems may not be much of a net benefit, but they probably see the state of the art advancing quickly so that companies who take a wait-and-see approach will be late to the game when AI is a substantial productivity enhancer.

This doesn't make a huge amount of sense, because the stuff is changing so quickly anyway. It's far from clear that, in the hypothetical future where this stuff is net-useful in five years, experience with _today's_ tools will be of any real use at all.

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nelox a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The main reason for the push from the top is probably because they believe companies that don't adopt AI strategies now and ensure their programmers are familiar with AI toolsets will be at a competitive disadvantage. Note they may even believe that today's AI systems may not be much of a net benefit, but they probably see the state of the art advancing quickly so that companies who take a wait-and-see approach will be late to the game when AI is a substantial productivity enhancer.

Yes, this is the correct answer.

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watwut a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Companies do not necessarily understand sunk cost fallacy.

> ensure their programmers are familiar with AI toolsets will be at a competitive disadvantage

But more importantly, this is completely inconsistent with how banks approach any other programming tool or how they approach lifelong learning. They are 100% comfortable with people not learning on the job in just about any other situation.

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dijit a day ago | parent [-]

yeah, I’ve been in so many companies where “sweetheart deals” force the use of some really shitty tech.

Both when the money has been actually committed and when it’s usage based.

I have found that companies are rarely rational and will not “leave money on the table”

	▲	rightbyte 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That is how the sausage is made. Ironically this is what democratic institutions like county admins etc are ridiculed for due to more transparency compared to private sector.

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ajcp a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> this is definitely not it.

> is probably because

I don't mean to be contrary, but these statements stand in opposition, so I'm not sure why you are so confidently weighing in on this.

Also, while I'm sure you've "been in senior engineering management", it doesn't seem like you've been in an organization that doesn't do engineering as it's product offering. I think this article is addressing the 99% of companies that have some amount of engineers, but does not do engineering. That is to say: "My company does shoes. My senior leadership knows how to do shoes. I don't care about my engineering prowess, we do shoes. If someone says I can spend less on the thing that isn't my business (engineering) then yes, I want to do that."

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hn_throwaway_99 a day ago | parent [-]

>> this is definitely not it.

>> is probably because

> I don't mean to be contrary, but these statements stand in opposition

No, they don't. It's perfectly consistent to say one reason is certainly wrong without saying another much more likely reason is definitely right.

	▲	ajcp 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You are absolutely correct; that was an error in my logic. Apologies.

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throwaway984393 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

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sschnei8 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Do you have any data to backup the claim: “vast majority of companies understand suck cost fallacy.”

I’m assuming you meant “sunk” not “suck”. Not familiar with the suck fallacy.

	▲	viccis a day ago \| parent [-]
		>I’m assuming you meant “sunk” not “suck”. Not familiar with the suck fallacy. There was no need to post this.

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vjvjvjvjghv a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Wish my company did this. I would love to learn more about AI but the company is too cheap to buy subscriptions

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foogazi a day ago | parent [-]

Can you buy a subscription and see if it benefits you ?

	▲	trenchpilgrim a day ago \| parent [-]
		At my job this would get you disciplined for leaking proprietary data to an unapproved vendor. We have to buy AI from approved vendors that keep our data partitioned from training data.