AI Tooling for Your Dev Team: To Adopt or Not to Adopt?
Plus, an AI open-source boom, a new repo of AI tools for your team, AI’s inclusivity blindspot, and RIP Kevin Mitnick.
Amid the escalating buzz surrounding AI tools, many development teams grapple with deciding which ones suit their needs best, when to adopt them, and the potential risks of not doing so. As AI continues to pose more questions than answers, the fear of falling behind the competition lurks for many.
This week's episode of Dev Interrupted aims to dispel these uncertainties by welcoming CodiumAI’s founder & CEO, Itamar Friedman. In one of our most illuminating discussions this year, Itamar pierces through the AI hype, explaining what AI tools bring to the table, how to discern the ones that would truly augment your dev teams, and the strategies to efficiently identify and experiment with new tools.
Beyond the allure of AI, Itamar doesn't shy away from addressing its pitfalls and adversarial risks. He also probes into the future of the developer's role in an increasingly AI-driven landscape, answering the question: “Will there be developers in 10 years?
“One risk is that the outputs of AI, at least in the generative mode, is that it naturally goes with a common well-versed solution. Like some kind of a lower, common denominator because it's trained on a lot of data and it's going for what's common in the data.”
Episode Highlights:
(2:40) Founding CodiumAI
(8:25) Will there be developers in 10 years?
(11:20) What kinds of AI tools are popping up?
(15:00) Core capabilities of AI
(19:30) Finding AI tools to solve pains you don't know you have
(23:00) Enabling your team to use AI
(26:45) Falling behind the competition
(33:00) Pitfalls of AI
(38:30) Adversarial risks of AI
(43:45) Experimenting with new tools
(47:40) Measuring the success of AI tools
(50:15) Will AI replace or empower us?
The Download
The Download is engineering leadership content we’re reading, watching, and attending that we think you might find valuable.
1. Inside the ChatGPT-alternative boom
One of the most exciting things about the recent AI boom has been the sheer amount of experimentation. This never would have happened without Llama - an open-source project that has unleashed a boom of new tools.
took a look at why Llama was created, what happened when it was leaked, and the fruits of the hottest movement in open source.
2. A Database of 3,000 AI tools
Are you overwhelmed with the amount of things in your feed that have started to end with “.ai”? So are we. To the rescue comes a database of AI tools - free ones and paid - for every department and industry.
Check it out: The AI Repo
This Download is sponsored by “Winning over the Board: The Data and Slides that Communicate Engineering Health”
One of the most difficult parts of engineering leadership is reporting the progress and health of your organization in an understandable and impactful way.
In this on-demand presentation, LinearB CEO Ori Keren and CTO Yishai Beeri walk you through the engineering slide templates used to organize the org’s data when reporting to the LinearB board of directors - and they give you a free copy of their engineering exec slide template.
You'll learn how to:
Relate engineering health metrics to business outcomes
Present engineering data in a way that makes sense to non-engineers
Answer common questions you’ll be asked by investors about engineering data
Use project investment metrics to estimate delivery timelines & get more headcount
Surface KPIs that quantify the developer experience and use them to improve it
If you’re tired of sifting through Jira data for days before your next board meeting, this is for you.
3. The Importance of Building Inclusive AI
AI may be young, but it’s still susceptible to a lot of tech’s oldest problems. That’s why training AI on data that reflects and reinforces our values is so important.
4. RIP Kevin Mitnick
As the “World’s Most Wanted Hacker,” Kevin Mitnick shaped the modern developer ecosystem like few others. A legend to some, a new name to others, Kevin wrote some of the most influential books and code that we are still using to this day. Take some time to learn what it takes to make your mark on this industry without doing an IPO or topping the app store.
Read: The Life of Kevin Mitnick