>Maybe I'd waste a day trying to get an API to do something it turned out it couldn't do.

I was working on a side project recently. I had spent months designing the data model in my spare time, thinking through how to make it as elegant and durable to change as possible in the long term, since (if I launched it) the repercussions for getting it wrong would be significant.

Once I had a working design, it probably would have been several more months to build a working prototype and start testing it.

Instead, Claude knocked out the prototype for me in an afternoon. And it immediately became clear that it didn't work: not because the data model didn't solve all the problems I wanted it to solve, but because it didn't fit the shape of how I quickly learned a normal person would need/want to interact with the product. I was so focused on the long term, that I never thought about what the first five minutes of a user with hands on the thing would need. And the changes needed would be significant.

Maybe there's some variable reward mechanism. But I sure was glad to be able to pull that particular slot machine handle and learn that than waste even more of my time on what was a dead end.