Then where are all the amazing open source programs written by individuals by themselves? Where are all the small businesses supposedly assisted by AI?

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Herring 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> 4% of GitHub public commits are being authored by Claude Code right now. At the current trajectory, we believe that Claude Code will be 20%+ of all daily commits by the end of 2026.

https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/claude-code-is-the-inf...

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amrocha 8 hours ago | parent [-]

There’s lots of slop out there, that doesn’t mean it’s actually good or useful code.

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simonw 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Keep moving those goal posts.

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jdlshore 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Doesn’t look like goal-post moving to me. GP argued that AI isn’t making a difference, because if it was, we’d see amazing AI-generated open source projects. (Edit: taking a second look, that’s not exactly what GP said, but that’s what I took away from it. Obviously individuals create open source projects all the time.)

You rebutted by claiming 4% of open source contributions are AI generated.

GP countered (somewhat indirectly) by arguing that contributions don’t indicate quality, and thus wasn’t sufficient to qualify as “amazing AI-generated open source projects.”

Personally, I agree. The presence of AI contributions is not sufficient to demonstrate “amazing AI-generated open-source projects.” To demonstrate that, you’d need to point to specific projects that were largely generated by AI.

The only big AI-generated projects I’ve heard of are Steve Yegge’s GasTown and Beads, and by all accounts those are complete slop, to the point that Beads has a community dedicated to teaching people how to uninstall it. (Just hearsay. I haven’t looked into them myself.)

So at this point, I’d say the burden of proof is on you, as the original goalposts have not been met.

Edit: Or, at least, I don’t think 4% is enough to demonstrate the level of productivity GP was asking for.

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beart 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It has been argued for a very long time, lines of code is largely meaningless as a metric. But now that AI is writing those lines... it seems to be meaningful again? I continue to be optimistically skeptical.

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famouswaffles 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not a great ask. Who's going to quantify what is 'amazing open source work'?

4% for a single tool used in a particular way (many are out there using AI tools in a way that doesn't make it clear the code was AI authored) is an incredible amount. Don't see how you can look at that and see 'not enough'.

The vast majority of people using these tools aren't announcing it to the world. Why would they ? They use it, it works and that's that.

	▲	sensanaty 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		So we're suddenly going back into measuring lines of code as a useful metric? Just because people are shitting out endless slop code that they never bothered to throw a 2nd glance at doesn't mean it'sgood or that it's leading to better projects or tools, it literally just means people are pushing code out haphazardly . If I made a python script that everyone started using and all it did was create a repo, commit a README and push it every 5 seconds we'd be seeing billions of lines of code added! But none of it is useful in any way. Same with AI, sure we're generating endless piles of code, but how much of it is actually leading to better software?

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8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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thesmtsolver2 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> where are all the amazing open source programs

> amazing

Nobody moved the goal posts.

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techpression 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They didn’t, amazing open source was asked for, meaningless stats were given. Not that GitHub public repositories were amazing before AI, but nothing has changed since, except AI slop being a new category.

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amrocha 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I deliberately asked for amazing open source projects. I’ve yet to see a single AI coded project i would use.

Keep licking those boots.

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simonw 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Here are a few of mine from the past month - for all of them 90%+ of the code written by Claude Code:

- https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-history-json

- https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-ast

- https://github.com/simonw/showboat - 292 stars

- https://github.com/simonw/datasette-showboat

- https://github.com/simonw/rodney - 290 stars and 4 contributors who aren't me or Claude

- https://github.com/simonw/chartroom

Noting the star counts here because they are a very loose indication that someone other than me has found them useful.

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DiggyJohnson 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You could have easily made the same point and just not included the last sentence. Guidelines an all that

	▲	entrox 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I feel different: the last line is very important in this context, since it communicates the underlying thoughts and values of the poster. Asking for "amazing" open source projects in this case is not asking out of genuine curiosity or want for debate, it is a rhetorical question asked out of frustration at the general trajectory of AI and who profits off of it -- namely the boot-wearers.

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com2kid 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Seemingly every day on Show HN?

Also small businesses aren't going to publish blog posts saying "we saved $500 on graphic design this week!"

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hackable_sand 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But they could have saved that $500 by paying... a human

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amrocha 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is saving 500$ by generating some shitty AI art the bar? I thought this supposed to replace entire departments

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afavour 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Someone asked “where are all the small businesses”, this was a reply to that. Small businesses don’t have entire art departments.

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amrocha 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Gotcha, so the impact of AI is small businesses get to save a couple hundred dollars and the cost is only 2% of your countries GDP. That’s good.

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com2kid 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Prior to industrialization if you wanted to paint something you had to know how to mix your own paints.

And make your own brushes.

Before the printing presses came along, putting up flyers was not even imaginable.

Signs for businesses used to hand carved.

Then printed. A store sign was still produced by a team of professionals, but small businesses coils reasonably afford to print a sign. Not often updated, but it existed.

Then desktop publishing took off. Now lone graphic designers could design and send work off to a print shop. Small businesses could now afford regularly updated menus, signage, and even adverts and flyers.

Now small businesses can make their own creatives. AI can change stylesheets, write ad copy, and generate promotional photos.

Does any of this have the artistry of hand carved signs from 600 years ago? Of course not.

But the point is technology gives individuals control.

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habinero 6 hours ago | parent [-]

None of this is even slightly correct lol

People have been painting with red and yellow ochre and soot for at least 50K years for sure, and probably several hundred thousand years in truth. You don't need a brush, you have fingers or a twig.

The walls on the streets of Pompeii are full of advertising -- they had an election going on and people just scribbled slogans and such on walls. You don't need flyers lol.

The idea that signs or advertising was "artistry" is deeply ahistorical. The reason old stuff looks real fancy is because labor was extremely cheap and materials were expensive.

	▲	com2kid 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> People have been painting with red and yellow ochre and soot for at least 50K years for sure, Compare those to the pigments used (mixed up!) by professional painters, and then to what printers could make. If you wanted to paint fine art in the 1400s you were possibly making your own canvases, your own paint brushes, and your own paints. And on top of that you had to be a skilled painter! > The walls on the streets of Pompeii are full of advertising -- they had an election going on and people just scribbled slogans and such on walls. You don't need flyers lol. The American revolution included a lot of propaganda courtesy of printing presses and some very rich financers who had a vested interest in a revolution occuring. Pamphlets everywhere. It is one thing to scribble on a wall, it is another to produce messages at a mass scale. That sense of scale has been multiplied yet again by AI.

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altmanaltman 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, that's just the impact that you're not going to hear in the news ("Small business saves a couple of hundred dollars" is not a good headline). But that's not the only "impact of AI". The bigger impacts are reflected in the news and the stock market almost on a daily basis over the last two years.

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AstroBen 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Couple hundred dollars

..a month

..multiplied by how many small businesses globally?