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AI coders think they’re 20% faster — but they’re actually 19% slower (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [M] to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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[–] 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

@dgerard What fascinates me is *why* coders who use LLMs think they're more productive. Is the complexity of their prompt interaction misleading them as to how effective the outputs it results in are? Or something else?

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  • [+] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)
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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is such a wild example to me because sitting at beach is extremely boring and takes forever whereas doing calculus is at least engaging so time flies reasonably quick.

    Like when I think what takes the longest in my life I don't think "those times when I'm actively solving problems", I think "those times I sit in a waiting room at the doctors with nothing to do" or "commuting, ditto".

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    What fascinates me is why coders who use LLMs think they’re more productive.

    As @dgerard@awful.systems wrote, LLM usage has been compared to gambling addiction: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/generative-ai-runs-on-gambling-addiction-just-one-more-prompt-bro/

    I wonder to what extent this might explain this phenomenon. Many gambling addicts aren't fully aware of their losses, either, I guess.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    The reward mechanism in the brain is triggered when you bet. I think it also triggers a second time when you do win, but I'm not sure. So, yeah, sometimes the LLM spits out something good, and your brain rewards you already when you ask it. Hence, you probably do feel better, because you constantly get hits dopamine.

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