What does human collaboration bring to AI-assisted software development?

If we have an AI agent that knows it all, what do I gain from talking to my colleagues while developing software?

At times, it seems like an ideal scenario to have an entity that answers whatever I throw at it and gives me countless alternatives (even the exact number of alternatives I ask for) to solve my problems. Of course, it depends on how you use the genie, as Kent Beck calls it, but even in good hands, it's not the same experience as collaborating with a person.

The discomfort of teamwork also adds value

The experience of collaborating with a person is messier. It can be frustrating depending on the work dynamics that emerge; there might be more mistrust or a need to justify our point of view. Everything that initially seems negative, I believe, can give us great added value.

The fact that collaboration takes us to uncomfortable places motivates us to think outside the box. Right now, when we have a box so perfectly tailored to what is comfortable or aesthetically pleasing to humans, stepping out of it requires extra effort, and we can easily fall into questioning whether it is really worth going through. It seems like all the answers are right there in that little box, and we fail to realize that perhaps we need more questions than answers right now, when answers are just a good prompt away.

Yes, Artificial Intelligence personally helps me a lot. But it helps me even more to make that extra little effort to ask a colleague for a bit of their time to debate, to vent, so that we can both be more lost than ever and truly find our way together. Leaning on AI at times, of course. Getting frustrated when it speaks to us using weird metaphors as if it were our friend (or as if it were a person). I'm trying to fix a bug; don't tell me we need to sink our teeth into the problem as if you had teeth or as if I would ever use that metaphor. When facing an entity that "knows" everything, collaborating with someone who is just as lost as you are often helps to solve things.

Don't let AI sell us smoke and mirrors

The genie sounds so convincing and is so verbose if left unchecked, that it's easy to say yes to everything just to avoid the cognitive overload of absorbing so much seemingly correct information. I've seen so many charlatans in my professional career who sounded similar, and generally, you were bound to lose if you got carried away by their smooth talking.

How we approach AI-assisted software development at Esfera

Collaborating with another person pushes you to challenge ideas and spark new ones that didn't exist before—even when using the snake-oil salesman as a tool and evaluating its answers with a critical eye. When approaching AI-assisted software development, we must remember that AI can bring you what works on average for the prompt you give it, but innovative and disruptive ideas don't come from that space.

That's why at Esfera we like to work as a team. And a team doesn't mean a person and an AI agent; a team is at least two people who can empower their work with agents.

Learn more about our services regarding AI-Powered Digital Product Development.