Welcome everybody to the standup. We

have an extremely special episode of the

standup. Casey has started his own

podcast, a competing podcast in which he

is how could you

uh anyways sorry he and Dmitri are

talking about and having a real

conversation about what is the actual

effects of AI and all that. And you're

probably asking, well, why would they do

that? Well, Dimmitri turns out to be a

legend when it comes to AI. He knows a

lot about it, been working in it for a

very, very long time. and just like

Casey is significantly more competent

than TJ and I combined. And so

therefore, their conversations are

actually useful and good to listen to.

And we thought we'd bring them on and

ask some of our own very own questions.

Kind of a podcast melding.

>> The podcast was actually Dimmitri's

idea. It wasn't even my idea. I It

should have been my idea because I agree

that I should ditch you guys and go with

some like some higher quality co-hosts

here. I mean, that's obviously clear,

but but it wasn't. Uh cuz Dimmitri, you

know, you were actually the one who was

kind of like, I want to talk about AI

because I'm just basically you weren't

happy. You were like, I I don't like

that. I don't like what's being said. It

feels like

>> Did you go on Twitter by accident? Is

that what happened? You went on Twitter.

>> But wait a second, we need a podcast

immediately.

>> Let me add a little bit to what Casey

said there.

>> So, actually, I did not set out to uh to

have a podcast. uh I set out so I I get

so I've been working this a long time

like 20 plus years uh I have lots of

friends who are not programmers or any

kind of like you know lawyers,

accountants, doctors whatever and

they're frequently asking me you know

first of all can I use this in my job

and other things like how is this going

to affect like I have kids in college

should I stop sending them to college

right you know all of those kinds of

questions so uh at some point I thought

I should just try to put this stuff

together somehow and first I started

writing stuff but that felt awkward then

I thought maybe I'll record something,

but I'm not really a recording

personality. Uh, and then Casey and I

have been talking about AI on and off

for uh for years. And my suggestion was,

what if we record like one session? Uh,

and I had a list of things that we could

talk about. And Casey said, well,

there's so many things here that we

could just turn this into a podcast. So,

that's how we ended up uh ended up here.

Uh, but let me add one one more thing to

that, which is uh so you know, I know

that there are a lot of people out there

who are, you know, I see Casec

personalities. I am that kind of

personality as well. So part of uh part

of what I want to do here is to um

facilitate having more Casey out there

uh on stuff where I can be the wingman,

right? Uh that Casey understand. So one

of the things that I appreciate about

appreciate about him quite a bit is that

um he wants to know what he's talking

about before he says something which you

know puts him in the top top 20% of

podcasters at least.

At least

>> at least

>> at least top 50% of this podcast.

>> Wait a second.

>> Hey, is that HTTP? Get that out of here.

That's not how we order coffee. We order

coffee via ssh terminal.shop. Yeah, you

want a real experience. You want real

coffee. You want awesome subscriptions

so you never have to remember again. Oh,

you want exclusive blends with exclusive

coffee and exclusive content? Then check

out CRON. You don't know what SSH is?

>> Well, maybe the coffee is not for you.

terminal coffee

in hand.

What I hope comes uh comes out of this

uh in total is that uh we get kind of uh

Casey culture aligned commentary on uh

on AI and I mean Casey can I don't want

to put words in his mouth but uh like we

see software in a very similar way,

right? I'm similarly skeptical about the

quality of anything coming out of big

tech these days about like questionable

ethical business practices and so on.

So, uh on on general software, not AI

software, Casey and I see eye on on most

things. Uh and so what I'm hoping is

that I can be the the wingman and uh

like give a platform for more Casey

culture commentary specifically on this

crazy AI thing that's taking over

everyone's life, including my own,

right? As I you know in our inaugural

episode I mentioned that uh my life used

to be much more quiet and nobody

believed AI would work and we were just

quietly doing fun stuff and uh and uh in

a way things were better. I mean it's

good that uh that things are working now

or sort of working. Uh and the sort of

working actually is a big part of uh of

what I care about uh trying to make it

better than sort of work. Um so I don't

know. I've gone on long enough. Maybe

Casey you should uh put a bow on it.

>> I think you're I think you're being way

too generous to me. Yeah, I'm I'm the

wingman on our podcast because I don't

really like I just don't work with AI

stuff. So to me it was just like a good

opportunity to like have somebody on who

like I trusted to give solid perspective

on AI because like it's really hard to

you know the only real way I thought

otherwise that I would be able to give

any commentary is I'd have to go spend a

ton of time with it, right? And I just

didn't really want to do that. So so

it's been great. Uh and I' I've really

enjoyed it. Obviously, Demetri and I

have recorded a couple things that, you

know, we haven't posted yet. So, but I

Yeah, it's it's been really great having

you on. So, and I I should kick it back

to to Prime and Te. So, like we don't

want to just talk about our podcast

here. So, like you guys had some AI

questions you wanted to talk about. Uh

or I don't know,

>> take take it wherever you guys want to

take it. We are here. We are here at

your disposal.

>> I do want to start with some things

which is Demetri, can you please uh we

didn't give you really like an actual

qualifying intro other than you're

legendary. Yeah, I was just going to say

I I appreciate the kind words like I I

consider myself relatively competent,

but I mean there are like big names in

the industry who are uh either friends

or friends of friends and it's uh useful

for me to keep uh keep myself calibrated

relative uh you know uh relative to

people of uh much more at least public

uh uh public renowned. Um so yeah I I

don't know I guess uh in terms of

introduction we uh I've been doing um

broadly AI related uh research for 20

plus years. I shipped uh shipped to many

people my very first custom design AI in

2025 uh at Google. It was one of their

first

>> uh 25

>> uh sorry 20 2005.

>> Yeah I was going to say like that's like

20 years old.

>> That's like banana nano banana if you're

shipping that one. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, exactly.

>> Uh so anyway, um I've been doing this

for a long time and seen uh lots of the

ups and downs in the business and also I

I study the history of the business as

well. So I know about um you know the

ups and downs for like the preceding 50

years um like going back to you know

going back to even the the 60s. Uh and

so um one of the things that really

interests me is how this is going to

affect other people um like people that

I work with for example who are now I

mean uh in the first episode we just

talked about the impact on junior

engineers and separately

>> probably should talk about the impact on

senior engineers right because there's

they face a different problem which is

if you're like let's say you're whatever

uh 45 years old now uh you've been doing

this a long time you have a good stable

career making good money uh and now

you're wondering ing what happens if

they like crack the nut and in 5 years

I'm useless, right? And I know I know

people who are wondering this myself.

>> Mhm.

>> Um and that's an especially bad time to

be useless, right? If you're like late

midcareer, what do I do if I'm 50 years

old and I don't know like what do I do

next? Right? uh and there there it's not

anything like the the problems that the

junior engineers face where it's I mean

again big problem for the junior

engineers but they have their whole

lives ahead of them and they can't they

have time to try to do something else uh

but if you're 50 years old and uh don't

have you know 15 years of uh building up

a new career ahead of you what do you do

uh so that's that's something that I see

people worrying about a lot as well um

yeah I don't I guess maybe let me not

talk talk too much about myself.

>> You can't talk too much. We're used to

hanging out with Casey. All right, it's

fine. You know,

>> we like it when people talk. That's why

we bring smart guests on.

>> Uh yeah. So I guess another thing I I

will add and this this connects back to

kind of having a Casey style perspective

on the industry is that

>> um I've seen a lot of how the sausage

get made uh both in terms of like the

the technical side but also uh also the

business side and this is something that

uh we we talk about in later episodes

about uh how how much can you take

certain claims at face value and how to

evaluate which claims can be taken at at

face value and so on. Um so what I'm uh

in the same way that um like you can't

take whatever Microsoft claims at face

value about improvements in Windows

performance. Um right you can same

>> this is going to be the best Windows yet

that's going to be perfect and flawless

will be safe.

>> It was going to be the last Windows ever

as well.

>> Well I did I they are still working on

making it the last Windows ever.

>> That's a good point.

the Linux desktop is what TJ's trying to

say.

>> They they put that into the AI and it

gave them a plan back of how to make it

the last Windows ever. They're executing

on that flawlessly.

>> Yeah. They're like, "We got this thing

called Windows 11 and it will ensure

that Windows 10 is the very last version

of Windows."

>> All right. And if that doesn't work, we

have Windows 12.

>> Yeah.

I um so I I've just got a few topics

that I thought would be fun. We can just

see where uh like they lead us and what

happens. I think there's similarly to on

on the episode at least that I've

listened to. Um you start on a topic and

there's like 95 different branches that

we can go off of. So I I'm not if we

don't get to all of them, it's whatever.

I I think it uh it'll be fun. But um one

of the things I'm interested in and like

it's just hard to get anybody's like

unbiased

everyone's got a biased whatever just

like a more rational take on like this

current state of token cost and what

that's looking like going forward. I

don't know if you have any thoughts

Dimmitri about like is it going to be

that Sam Alman was right and we're going

to get 10x cheaper every year or

whatever. I don't know. That's what

Twitch chat always tells.

>> That's what Sam Sam has it on the

record. He said it twice now. He said it

he said it twice and made projections

into the future saying it's 100x

cheaper. GP2 5.2 high will be uh 100x

cheaper in uh two years.

>> Okay.

>> Uh so a lot of that is infrastructure

development and algorithm development

that is trade secrets that

>> like I can't evaluate uh and even like

even an open AI insider it would be

illegal for them to to evaluate in

public right. Um I I don't know what

they're cooking up there. I mean they

have an extremely talented team. Uh 100x

cheaper seems hard to believe, but

uh I guess wait and see. So I mean one

of the thing one of the problems with

these um with evaluating claims in this

business is that um the timing matters

as much as the content of the claim. So

like uh like Musk is a good example just

to take Sam out of this for a moment

>> where uh MK was Musk was saying you know

we'll have uh I mean we'll have uh you

know reusable rockets in I think he

first made the claim in 2005 or

something like that and it took many

years before that actually worked later

you know when was the first promise of

uh Tesla full self-driving that was like

2016 that he was saying

>> and then every six months after that

>> right um so So, I would um I found it

useful to try to separate out the

content of the claim from the timing of

the claim.

>> So, I I would not be surprised um I

would not be surprised if eventually we

can get uh 100x cheaper token cost.

Whether or not they can do it now, I

that's beyond my knowledge because

that's that's uh partly that's

infrastructure, partly that's uh like

custom hardware, partly that's can you

get cheaper electricity, part like there

so many things that go into the into the

business that it's hard uh hard for me

to to claim one way or another. Uh what

I can tell you is that it has been as

I'm sure you've seen uh it has been a um

land rush mentality, right? So,

everyone's building as quickly as they

can, whatever they can. Put it out. Does

it work? Does it barely work? Okay, move

on to the next thing.

>> Um, and uh some of that is

>> uh some of that is maybe um

recklessness, but some of that is just

market forces, right? Because the um

right now there are multiple really big

players and probably there won't be as

many big players in 10 years. And so

they like given how much money they've

all put into this already, they really

don't want to be the ones caught out,

right? And so the like the the arms race

is uh rational from a business

perspective whether or not it's it's

producing um you know completely

rational engineering artifacts. So uh

all of that is to say uh I'm sure that

there is very substantial um opportunity

for uh for improving efficiency in the

current stock and I don't know if they

so my biggest question would be um is

the is the internal stock stable enough

that you can optimize it now right

because like say you spend a year

optimizing it to get the token cost down

and then there's

>> whatever the next archite architectural

innovation is does that invalidate your

optimization or not. So I I don't know,

right? Um and so you you will hear me

say I don't know perhaps more than most

uh people talking about AI just because

it's uh there's a lot that's unknown

even to people who are deep like uh deep

inside these companies about what's

what's going to happen in like two or

three years, right? Um

>> yeah, I I would add one thing to that

that you know um it's not not adding

something as in information, adding

something as in sort of like a thing to

think about and that is that uh it's

worth noting that I if the costs were

really going to get that low that fast,

I think I would have expected Google's

costs to be very low already. And I know

it's a weird thing to say, but

>> if you assume that there's any hardware

component, like if you think that that

all 100x is going to come from software,

then that seems okay, maybe that could

happen. But if we're counting on a

substantial portion of that 100x coming

from infrastructure builds, it feels to

me like Google has kind of been building

AI centric like stuff for quite some

time and has gotten their thing that

like their TPUs are very much just like

we built machines whose only purpose is

to do this job as opposed to like say

for example Nvidia who's not doing that

like the Nvidia cards are kind of like

still in a weird like hybrid state where

only the

only the very latest Nvidas could be

said to be focusing on AI really and

even those are still a little bit hybrid

feeling to me. So I could imagine if

someone said, well, you know, if all we

had was Nvidia to look at, maybe you

could believe that like, you know,

there's a very long lead time on

hardware. So, you know, we don't know

what they, you know, when they shifted

probably four or five years ago to going

like, "Oh my god, AI is going to be the

biggest thing. We need to completely

redesign everything to just focus on

that." That stuff will only be, you

know, we'll only be seeing the end of

that pipeline, you know, now or

something like that, right? So, I could

see that, but I feel like Google's kind

of I mean, am I wrong about this speech?

I feel like Google's been doing this for

a long time. If there was a huge if

there was huge gains to be had by doing

just AI hardware, I would have thought

they'd have them already. Is that am I

way off?

>> I'm not sure they don't. Right. So, the

first the first time I heard about

>> uh TPU

uh I think the first time I heard that

they were starting to work on it was

like 2014 or something like So, that's

just when I heard about it, right? like

>> I am not a Google insider so I'm sure

like uh knowing how Google works I'm

sure that they were talking about that

like 3 years before I heard about it in

public right but when I heard when I

first heard about TPU development was

somewhere around 2014

>> so I guess I I have not been studying

the uh like whatever internal economics

reports uh Google puts out it's possible

that they are already substantially

cheaper than um

>> I would think

>> on on operating cost substantially

cheaper than open I don't So uh and but

I mean this is a something that's a

common uh folk belief in the industry

which is um like Google is sort of the

quiet monster in the business because

like they

if you compare them for a moment to say

open AI uh they have had they have been

infrastructure leaders forever. They

have been AI leaders forever. Uh unlike

open AI they have uh they have u I'm

trying not to say the word surveillance

but I'm just going to say surveillance.

on the entire internet, right? So, they

have just a constant flow of

>> uh potentially trainable information and

you know, XAI has um uh has that flow

that uh that is their own proprietary

flow of data.

>> Um so, uh many people have have this

feeling of Google was kind of slowed on

the on the product side. I emphasize on

the product side uh with uh like chat uh

chat LLM products. Uh but there is many

people have this feeling of um possibly

Google is just going to quiet quietly

leverage all those advantages that uh

nobody else has. Uh and like XAI is the

only one that's sort of sort of close in

um in having that capability. It's

interesting to note that uh as far as

I've seen in public XAI,

they're merging with uh Starlink.

They're talking about sorry with uh

>> SpaceX. Yeah,

>> SpaceX. Uh and they're talking now about

orbital data centers. And something that

I I thought was interesting there um was

uh that the designs that they've talked

about are GPU based, not TPU based. And

I don't know if that's because

>> they don't think they can build it up as

well as Google did or they don't think

they can license it. So I don't I don't

know, right? But the thing I will point

out the the designs I've seen uh I mean

I guess I haven't looked looked in like

3 months but the designs I've seen were

uh estimates based on uh you know Nvidia

style GPUs and not TPUs. So they must

know something because this is this is

the kind of thing that they do, right?

Like the big um

the biggest competence advantage that I

would put in the kind of Musk category

of companies is uh the relentless

execution on on uh building and

optimizing and streamlining physical

stuff. That's something that they've

been doing really well for a very long

time. So if um anyway that caught my eye

that the designs I saw were based on

GPUs and not TPUs.

>> Um and I I do know that they're working

on their own um uh their own AI chips. I

don't I don't know that much about how

far they are there, but it's interesting

that that when they were talking about

the orbital data center designs, they

were talking about u get conventional

GPUs as we understand them.

>> I got to say orbital data center is like

the coolest sounding thing to build.

>> Yes. Like I it seems really not

practical. I get like I get there

saying, "Oh, we're going to have robots

do it and it'll be outer space and it's

really cool." Um but I got I mean you I

feel like everyone's got to admit

orbital data center is probably the

coolest thing to say you could work at

in software development. So

>> I think like yeah based on what I've

seen for orbital data centers it sounds

like it's it is either much cooler or

much less cool than what you're thinking

about depending depending on your

perspective. Right? So,

excuse me.

If you're imagining like a giant

building in space, like

>> like it it sounds like uh the kind of

more leading designs that are like more

plausible. They're more like Starlink.

They're more like satellite clusters

where you just have lots of little

things that talk to each other over

light links basically for high-speed

communication. Um,

>> well, and giant giant radiators, right?

>> And huge.

>> Yep.

>> It's almost all radiator. And then

there's a little like nub in the center

contains that contains the GPUs, right?

>> Yeah.

>> That doesn't sound as cool as what I had

in my head of a big skyscraper in outer

space where we've got racks of GPUs and

you can walk around in it and it's like

really cool.

>> Um, but that's okay because when you

tell your parents that you work at an

orbital data center, they won't know. So

it's fine.

>> That's what they imagine is that

>> Yeah. Yeah. I say it's exactly like Star

Wars mom and dad. Trust me. Trust me.

>> Unfortunately, like heat is just very

>> I guess the as the the kids say say

problematic in space. Like you don't

have anywhere it

>> like it's very hard to get rid of heat

in space. So this is a problem. As

Demetri was saying, you you end up

having to have a lot of surface area per

chip, like per per heat generating

Nvidia, like GB200 or whatever. I mean,

it won't be a GB200 by the time they get

these things launched, but the uh you

know,

>> that's the thing I didn't I didn't get.

I don't

>> What is the advantage then? Because in

in like I get that it feels like if you

talk to like a regular person about

putting it in outer space, they're like,

"Well, it's cold in outer space, so

that's going to be really good for

GPUs." But it's the opposite, I think.

Right. I mean, I So, I don't get

>> It's not that it's not cold in outer

space. Cold is the lack of available,

you know, like not having energy.

There's just there's no density, so you

have nothing you can

>> Yeah. I meant like more like they said

it cooling would be super easy. I feel

like that's like the normie thing if you

say put something out cuz like it'll be

cold. Sick. It's like a huge

refrigerator, bro. But that's not how

heat works. Like so I get that part. So

then what is the advantage? Why this is

we also don't have to go way down this

route, but I have been wondering this

myself. So what like why do they want to

put it in outer space?

>> Incredible investment TJ. Like the

amount of investments that are coming in

will be

>> the TAM the TAM for outer space is big.

Think about how many data centers we can

put in outer space. Well, it's so it's

free power and difficult but free

cooling, right? So, if you if you can

make the physics work and I don't I

don't know, right? Like they have really

really good like thermal people at you

can imagine they have very good thermal

people at uh

>> uh at SpaceX. So, uh I I assume that

they have done simulations that that

suggest to them that this can be made

viable. Um but yeah, so it's free power

and also like more free power than you

would get for the same panel on Earth

because there's no right

>> atmosphere eating up your atmosphere or

weather for that matter.

>> Yeah. No clouds,

>> right? So free power and uh tricky but

free cooling. Um as

>> so it's like when you build a really

complicated thing, but then it's passive

in a video game. I understand. This is

this mechanic makes sense to me. And one

thing I would add uh this so this is

entirely business strategy speculation.

Um so whatever like take like poor big

>> it's financial advice. Got it.

>> Exactly. Right.

>> Investing right now. If it works, if it

works and you are

uh Musk's AI team and you just get to

launch your AI into space and everyone

everyone else is like fighting local

governments and can I build a hydro

plant here? Oh, how much do I have to

pay you to? Right. And you'll just be

like, we're going to space, right? Like

you losers can hang out here. We're

going to space. And by the way, if you

want to go to space, you have to come

through me, right?

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. He pretty much owns the the

passage to space. So it's

>> it's pretty

>> they can't ask Katy Perry. She's the

nautace.

>> Well and also like it's pretty trivial

for like when you look at the

projections for these sorts of things.

It's all about launch cost. Like whether

or not it makes sense to put a data

center in space, a quote unquote data

center in space. It's like here is the

launch cost. like at this launch cost we

think we could do it because that and

that's based on like the failure rate of

the thing how you know long it's

expected to be able to be up there you

know all those sorts of of things

>> and so at the end of the day if you know

if you look at somewhere like SpaceX and

they're like well for us we could get

our launch cost down to $50 a kilogram

or whatever it you know the magic number

is

>> we just charge everyone else $75 a

kilogram and then it's it's not worth it

for them to put it in space or theirs

will always be worse than ours, right?

It's a very good position to be in and a

and a strangely profitable bet for

SpaceX if it turns out that these are

actually useful in the future. So,

>> so I think we should probably attempt to

get a little bit more on uh on a more

practical approach to AI. I do think

orbital data centers does sound amazing.

>> You don't want the title of this video

to be orbital data centers. THERE'S

GOING TO BE AI in space. That's going to

How many clicks is that going to

generate? Come on, man. space. Go ahead.

>> That's my That's my rock opera I'm

writing. That's crazy. How did you know?

Case

>> cuz I am also writing a rock opera

called Ali in Space as it turns out.

>> Oh, we could collab.

>> Yep.

>> That's not going to happen. Uh he's just

he's just going to take it all from you.

Okay. So, I guess we should

we should probably uh talk. I think the

number I get a lot of concerns uh from

people and one of the most frequent

questions I've been getting lately is is

my future just reviewing code.

>> Yeah. So, quite possible. Um let me let

me try to be measured in what I like how

likely I think that is. Um so look one

one thing that I've been um I I have

discovered in my own work and that I've

been saying publicly for a while now is

uh so I I try to work on um like

repeatable and reproducible AI results.

So like the bucket term I use for that

is has been reliable AI but it turns out

that there's a company called reliable

AI and so anyway so

uh so anyway uh the thing that I I I I

think you can do right now like

completely handsoff and not have to

review anything right so this is what I

mean by reliable right that like if I

ask you th to whatever go implement uh

like download this thing from this HTTP

endpoint and like save it into the

database and give me a dashboard that

whatever calculates the averages of some

things, right?

>> I can just tell you that and expect a

result and it will work and I don't have

to talk to you about it again, right? So

that's what I mean uh in this completely

hands-off style. Uh right now I think

the limit of that is somewhere around a

couple thousand lines of like relatively

standard junior level code. Uh and I

want to emphasize because some people

some people have uh justifiably pushed

back on this a bit. I'm not saying you

can't do more by having oversight and

doing multiple tries and having

algorithmic test suites. I'm not saying

you can't do more right now. What I'm

talking about is what's the limit of

what you can do hands-off and you can

mostly just trust that it happens. Mhm.

>> Um

I think I think at a at a minimum we are

going to go through a

um reviewheavy phase because the the

businesses are as as I'm sure you know

um the businesses are trying to shove

this into everyone's workflow whether

they like it or not. Right. And I I get

lots of people lots of people even in

the AI business who tell me like I hate

how much they're trying to push us to

use these things, right? I just

>> I just want to do my job. Uh but like

they're monitoring my token usage,

right? I mean this this

>> anecdotally too not just like literally

like I have friends who are like we have

to use this tool

>> part of my KPI is like we use we have to

use clawed code

>> only. That's and my manager has a

dashboard with my token count for the

month and it is a thing we talk about

and review. Not even like oh you can use

whatever one you want. We just want to

see you guys experimenting. They're like

you have to use cloud code. You have to

do this. Yeah, it's crazy.

>> Yeah. Think about Amazon Curo. That's a

lot of people are talking about that

right now with the whole Amazon

accidentally having several SE ones.

>> Yeah. They're like, you have to use our

stuff to take ourselves down. If

anyone's going to bring it down, it's

going to be me. Okay. That's

>> We want to make sure we our but we want

to make sure our site goes down and our

AI looks bad at the same time. We don't

want like someone else's AI to look bad.

>> No, that would be mean. Okay. If it's

going to if it's going to go down

because of AI, it's our AI. They're

putting the eye in AI. Okay.

>> There you go. Very good. Yes.

>> So yeah, Prime on on that point I think

it's very likely that we will go through

a u reviewheavy phase. Uh I think I

think that at some point um

uh like the workers will object to this

enough that we're going to have to find

something something more acceptable,

right? because I don't know if you have

tried it, but if you're just like

reviewing stuff like you know claw dumps

another thing on you every you know five

minutes you're like okay now I have to

review this and approve and merge

whatever or or I mean you can just yolo

right and but but we've seen what

happens if you just yolo um so uh I do

think we will at a minimum go through a

like reviewing mostly reviewing phase

and I think people are not going to like

it

that's my expectation I don't So I don't

know how uh I don't see what the

alternative is right now because like e

so the either

>> the two possibilities I see right now

are uh like they're going to be

monitoring your token count and so you

need to be consuming and generating

tokens and then that has to go that has

to get uh linked which uh you know in

some places they actually link the like

the tokens to PRs right

>> uh and so

>> you need to be generating lots of PRs

you need to be consuming lots of tokens

How can you do that other than

just generating many many PRs with AI

and reviewing and like hoping that

you're not taking down, you know, taking

down fraud by by missing something in

your review, right? So, I I don't know

how we get out of that other than uh at

some point the business side says,

"Okay, like we can cool it, right? we're

going to um we're going to stop

monitoring your token use, which I mean

I I personally I feel like that's not

that different from a desktop monitor or

like a keyboard monitor or something. It

feels very invasive to me. Like, hey,

you know, I understand you're asking me

>> I think it's fair to ask me, hey, can

you use this tool? Can you try to do

better work? I think that that's fair,

right? Like I'm ultimately you're like

you're being paid to do something for

the business. I think it's fair for them

to ask, hey, we'd we'd like to be using

these tools and we think you can do

whatever like 20% more work if you can

if you use this. I think that's fair. I

think

>> the micro micro tracking feels worse

than the past. And um

>> it's really easy to game too, right? You

just like sequentially look at every

single file and it's just going to be

like dang dang dang like

crushing the tokens. I know people who

are like at big tech who are working on

stuff and they have to do what exactly

what you're saying and they're saying I

I like I do I do this just to keep up

appearances for my AI use and you know

by the end like my output changes maybe

10%. Right.

I do like how it's literally just

setting money on fire and they're like

this makes me look fast because so that

actually before we got distracted on the

orbital data centers which I'll repeat

coolest name ever

>> super cool command

>> I uh was I was interested in you know

some of your thoughts about sort of the

tokconomics side of things because right

now it feels like people are burning a

bunch of money trying stuff out and

exploring and willing to just be like oh

yeah you just spent $5,000 this month.

Whereas before, like you couldn't get

like a $45 like online course approved

and they're like, "Oh, but yeah, yeah,

$5,000 of tokens for nothing. Yes, we're

totally down for that. Do that every

month." because I I was interested to if

you know

uh like if we're going to see a big you

know or your thoughts on if we're going

to see a big push on like generating

less or like more focus on like we're

going to use more tools to check what's

being gener you know because at some

point you know Claude Claude just

released their thing about code review

and they're like yeah usually it's like

15 or 25 bucks a review

>> and you're like well that adds up kind

of fast especially at the rate people

are saying I'm shipping 10,000 lines of

code today or I made a 30 300,000 line

Ruby on Rails application for my blog.

That's Gary Tan by the way Casey in case

you didn't see that tweet.

>> Okay. Um, hey, he's boiling a lake and

then he's going to boil the ocean. All

right. That's what he told us.

>> Yep.

>> I side note, I cannot tell if he's the

most genius rage baiter of all time, but

we can circle back to that on a

different episode.

>> Yeah.

>> Um,

>> yeah. So, because I'm I'm interested in

in sort of that angle because I do find

like some tasks I can get done like a

lot faster with letting agents work on

it or like agents spin on something like

forever. It has a really clear outcome.

There's some stuff I already have a

bunch of patterns in my codebase spin.

But I'm like, is is everyone just going

to be chill forever with me spending

$500 of tokens overnight on this? That

doesn't seem like what a business would

like. I don't think we're going to get

$500 of value back from this feature.

So, I don't know if you have any

thoughts like in that vertical or

>> um Yeah.

>> So, this is speculation.

>> Yeah. Speculation. Uh a lot of this is

>> um like principal agent problems for the

business. It's like

>> the So there are for sure uh like CEOs

and like one step down from CEOs who one

way or another um their uh their

personal benefit is tied to claiming

that they did a lot with AI.

>> Yes, it's true.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and as you know uh like in any big

organization you never just evaluate

something for whether it's good or not.

It has to be evaluated through some KPI,

right? Uh, so

>> yes,

>> there are people I'm sure like I haven't

seen this personally, but I'm sure that

something close to this exists that um

there is someone with many millions of

dollars worth of bonuses tied up to uh

can I get our token usage to double this

year and can I get our PRs to increase

by 20% as attributed to that token

increase? Right. Right. Like extremely

bureaucratic thinking about using this

new technology. Right. So I'm sure that

there are many people like that. Um, and

so, uh, those to those people, they're

not they're not spending their own

money, right? They're spending the

company's money. They're tell they're

telling you to spend the company's money

to do something that makes the metric go

up that gets them a bonus, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Um, so I don't know how long that's

going to last, but there's certainly

right now

>> um, a very large premium at multiple

levels of the kind of the business stack

where people are like, you know, why why

isn't your token usage double, right?

And

>> yes,

>> some people some people that sounds like

a joke. I have friends who literally

they say my boss came and asked me why

hasn't my token use usage doubled right

but you only used $300 of cloud last uh

last month

>> honey you barely touched your cloud last

month what's going on

>> is something wrong sweetheart

>> okay so I do actually want to follow up

on that because this is the you know

this was one of the big things that has

been going around is this Amazon hero

thing taking down everything and now

they're saying hey we're going to make

it so that juniors and mid-level people

who use generative AI must have a senior

sign off on this.

>> Can I do a quick question on that as

well, Prime? Which is, was there a

policy before seniors didn't have to

review junior's code just in general?

>> I assume I assume I assume it's like a

lot of companies, which is that a junior

could have a mid-level person review the

code and say, "Hey, this is not really

good." Like, not every change needs to

have, you know, the same cuz you you

effectively will exhaust and lose your

senior population if they have to review

every single PR. And so, kind of

>> that makes sense. So excluding the

personnel problem that will likely

develop from this with Amazon, is this

like the first sign of people realizing

that token measurement isn't necessarily

the best metric? Because I assume that's

what's hurting Amazon is that they

really push super hard as token metric

is the the greatest thing that has ever

existed and you must only push on this

one thing and now they're feeling some

of the effects of maybe moving too fast.

Is there a world that's going to exist

where people are going, okay, instead of

trying to double metrics, maybe we

should double some other thing. Say, I

don't know, uptime. Maybe like uptime

could be the thing that we're like, you

know, that we're valuing and then that

can be that could be it. Like is is this

an actual

>> like path forward or are we

>> I don't from your perspective, are we

just going to see continued push on

double your token usage, double your

token usage? because they both sound

super appealing I guess from a purely

theoretical point of view of like oh

more features we could know we could get

all the features or no let's be stable.

>> Uh again I think they so as we as we

discussed with Casey and Casey you

should you should jump in on on this

part. Um like we've seen these cycles of

like everything has to be you know like

25 years ago everything had to be online

and then everything had to be uh web 2.0

And then everything had to be uh like

social local mobile app and then

everything had to be crypto right and

that right so um we are in that phase

absolutely right now where separate from

any utility that the technology is

offering there's just this social mania

of everything has to be this right now

uh

>> I don't know when that fever will break

um I think certainly events like the

Amazon um Amazon event will will help

with that and I I do think that at some

point people someone is going to say,

"Okay, look, like um we just can't be

burning this kind of money all the time

and also like setting our infrastructure

on fire and driving our engineers

crazy."

At some point, at some point, we should

actually get a benefit from this instead

of hurting ourselves.

>> You can only pick two points on that

triangle. Drive engineers crazy, burn a

lot of money, uptime. You get to pick

two of those points.

>> Yeah, it's true.

>> Um but, uh I think I think this could

last for years. And the reason I say it

could last for years, I know people will

not like that. Uh I think the reason

this can last for years is uh it's easy

to underestimate

um like on like you know you guys or

like people who watch this uh you know

watch the stream how far how far up the

the like power law curve of uh early

adopter you are. And I

>> just meet lots of people all the time

who

>> still conceptualize AI as like it's a

better search engine, right? And I I

mean it's uh it's easy to forget that

actually the vast majority of people

don't know much about this and aren't

really trying to use it. And um so all

those people somehow will have to be

carried through the uh the fever swamp.

Um and I don't know like I think that

could take years. Um,

>> I would agree with that uh for and add

the sort of the chaser which I think we

did talk about on that first episode of

the podcast which was I don't see it as

mattering whether it takes down proud

all the time either is the problem

because like at least my experience for

the past 20 years has been it doesn't

matter how bad the practice is. If it's

just something that is in the zeitgeist,

then people do it and you can show them

>> clearly like you can literally

demonstrate, look, if you had done it

this way, this is how much better it

would be. They don't care because the

best practices is that you do it this

other way. The best practice is you use

Python, then we're using Python or

whatever it is. And you're like, look,

if you had just written it this way,

it's a hundred times faster. And you're

like, we don't care. That's how this

industry has operated. And so it would

be very weird to think that in the

special case of AI that anyone would

care one way or another whether it even

was better. Right? So you can almost

take your take your guesses about how uh

good AI will be in practice about

generating code in the first place. You

could even put that aside. I think the

fact that it has this much momentum is

enough to know that this will be here

for uh a long time. the current way

we're doing things. Even if it never

gets any better than it is right now,

even if it stayed exactly as good as it

is right now, no improvements literally

at all,

>> I I don't think that would change the

outcome. Honestly, I really don't.

>> Well, and there's like a trillion

dollars invested in it, too, right? So,

they're like, well, even if even and

it's I mean,

>> it's not really even Sunk fallacy. It's

just like literally sunk cough truthy

which is like we really we really need

this to work guys or we're really

underwater right it's not like

>> so it will become the workflow I think

that's like inevitable uh and

>> like I wish that it I wish that we could

say like well if the AIS don't improve

uh substantially then people would like

rethink the I don't I don't think that's

true like I think whether or not they're

able to push the quality up. I mean,

hopefully they are cuz, you know,

everyone is putting a lot of money into

pushing the quality of the ads. So,

hopefully they do get better. But even

if they don't, I don't think it's going

to matter, personally. Hey guys, if you

like this episode, you can watch the

rest of it on the Spotify. And don't

forget to like and subscribe. Woo! See

you later.

>> Boot up today.

Five errors on my screen.

Terminal coffee

and

living the dream.