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Comment by datsci_est_2015 | Hacker News Reader

datsci_est_2015

I almost agree with you.

Yes, we should be building systems.

No, it’s not equivalent to managing a team, because the AI has no skin in the game.

A decision an AI makes is not equivalent to a decision a human makes because the consequences are not equivalent. An AI cannot be fired; cannot be sexually rejected; cannot disappoint its loved ones; cannot spend a cold night on the streets. A human who makes decisions with complete disregard to material consequences is a human you need to get off your team ASAP because they’re a ticking time bomb: a liability.

So, in building your systems, you need to be sensitive and aware to the fact that AI has no skin in the game.

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I agree there are differences in the teams, but it sure feels like there is a lot of overlap in the skill I need to deliver software, regardless of who is creating the code.

You raise another point though: agents are not human. The things that drive agentic loops are not at all the things that motivate humans to do good work.

That's probably where the human-management skill ends in this new world. The techniques that get high quality from humans do not apply to agents.

Models have plenty of skin in the game during training, but zero during inference

AI may have no skin in the game.

But it will work all night and on weekends. It never gets sick. It never forgets to do something. And as far as I can tell, it does it best work all the time.

That's enough skin for me.

What do we need you for then?

I love my AI tools, but if left alone they would cover the front lawn in rabbit holes. For now they need people to make judgement calls.

Will this be the case in 5 years, probably. They will certainly be different rabbit holes.

2 years ago your AI tools didn't exist, and you're trying to make predictions 5 years out.

I wish I could be as bliss about the whole situation as you are!

Ignorance is BLISS!

You can’t really just redefine “skin in the game” to be “constant iterative code generation”.

Engineers (builders) who recognize that there is a difference in assigning a task to a human and a task to an agent will have a competitive advantage over those who don’t. That’s not to say that agents can’t be used at all, only that how they’re used is critical.

> It never forgets to do something. And as far as I can tell, it does it best work all the time.

I wish that were true. Even Opus 5.5 still ignores instructions and finds things it missed on a daily basis.

Its better then 80% of people I have hired.

You are aware that's a very bad flex.

It'd be one thing to highlight bad teams you've been thrown in to; its a very different one to state that about the teams you've hired.

What was it exactly that prevented you from building good teams, with good process supporting them; that limited you to 20% good hires??

I think of my AI use as me contracting an offshore team (no skin in the game) but I can be as micromanaging as I want to.

Offshore team absolutely has skin in the game, for the exact same reasons OP said -- they want to keep their roof over their head.

AI will never have this. AI is a product, and it has no motivations or self-preservation. The only goal for the AI is to increase your lifetime token spend to maximize profit for corporation.

That’s not been my experience nor the posters, I imagine.

I think both you and said poster have misunderstood what "skin in the game" actually means.

His point is that the offshore structure is deeply dysfunctional.

The consulting agency tells you they hired the best senior developers, then hand the project over to a junior developer that doesn't know anything about your project and could be reassigned at any time.

> doesn't know anything about your project

I consulted for a client who cut off an offshore consulting firm after they billed 40 hour for a one line CSS border-color fix change. We were suspicious of billing fraud, but the quality of developers we'd observed wouldn't allow us to rule out hanlon's razor.

The 'skin in the game' is I go to a competitor and use a different product.

Of course AI can be fired: by canceling the subscription OR stop using its API.

Every single manager and company wants to fire you over AI

The consequences can be made equivalent. Reinforcement training.

This is an odd take. By this logic, you should never hire someone that is financially independent and can walk away from a job.

You just stated the reason why engineers have a hard time getting hired as baristas when they're laid off.

The hiring restaurant knows you can and will walk as soon as you land another engineering gig.

Covering up work history could work. Though they might suspect something when you reassemble the cappuccino machine to operate autonomously.

Or when you desperately search for the undo button on the mop

Well, partially. Trust fund kids are notoriously poor employees, yes. Unless what they’re doing is somehow motivated by status or passion. Which now we’re back to those human motivations like sexual rejection and disappointing people you don’t want to disappoint.

But completely unmotivated financially independent people are probably the worst people to have on a team, yes.

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