Thorsten and Quinn talk about the future of programming and whether code will still be as valuable in the future, how maybe the GitHub contribution graph is already worthless, how LLMs can free us from the tyranny of input boxes, and how conversations with an agent might be a better record of how a code change came to be than git commit tools. They also share where it works and simply doesn't work.

Quinn and Thorsten start by sharing how reviews are still very much needed when using AI to code and how it changes the overall flow you're in when coding with an agent. They also talk about a very important question they face: how important is code search, in its current form, in the age of AI agents?

Thorsten and Quinn talk about how different agentic programming is from normal programming and how the mindset has to adapt to it. One thing they discuss is that having a higher-level architectural understanding is still very important, so that the agent can fill in the blanks. They also talk about how, surprisingly, the models are really, really good when they have inputs that a human would normally get. Most importantly, they share the realization that subscription-based pricing might make bad agentic products.

In the first episode of Raising an Agent, Quinn and Thorsten kick things off by sharing a lot of wow-moments they experienced after getting the agent at the heart of Amp into a working state. They talk about how little is actually needed to create an agent and how magical the results are when you give a model the right tools, unlimited tokens, and feedback. That might be the biggest surprise: how many previous assumptions feel outdated when you see an agent explore a codebase on its own.

The crew gets philosophical about the ethics of building Artificial Intelligence systems. Are software engineers going to be replaced? Is it ethical to build AI systems?Links⁠SuperintelligenceBlog: Less WrongZizian cultThinking in SystemsDwarkesh Patel podChatGPT Medical Diagnosis StudyMCP Server Claude Desktop TutorialMCP Podcast⁠Overcommitted on Bluesky⁠Hosts⁠Overcommitted.dev⁠Brittany Ellich: ⁠https://brittanyellich.com⁠Eggyhead: ⁠https://github.com/eggyhead⁠Jonathan Tamsut: ⁠https://jtamsut.substack.com⁠

The crew chat about our experience using AI right now as software engineers (which is subject to change even by the time this episode airs). Including an overview of our current thoughts on the AI landscape, what tools we use for which tasks, and our thoughts on what we are excited about for the future!LinksThe S in MCP Stands for SecurityBook: The Scaling EraOvercommitted on BlueskyHostsOvercommitted.devBethany Janos: https://github.com/bethanyj28Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.comEggyhead: https://github.com/eggyheadJonathan Tamsut: https://jtamsut.substack.com

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