Lalit Maganti writes about building a SQLite parser with AI — a project he’d been putting off for eight years, finished in three months. His comparison of AI coding to slot machines is uncomfortably familiar:
I found myself up late at night wanting to do “just one more prompt,” constantly trying AI just to see what would happen even when I knew it probably wouldn’t work. The sunk cost fallacy kicked in too: I’d keep at it even in tasks it was clearly ill-suited for, telling myself “maybe if I phrase it differently this time.”
Also, I agree that this is still true today, but I’m not convinced it will remain true beyond 2026:
AI is an incredible force multiplier for implementation, but it’s a dangerous substitute for design.