AI links

As always, another thoughtful article by Ethan Mollick on what AI can and cannot do:

Agents are here. They can do real work, and while that work is still limited, it is valuable and increasing. But the same technology that can replicate academic papers in minutes can also generate 17 versions of a PowerPoint deck that nobody needs. The difference between these futures isn’t in the AI, it’s in how we choose to use it. By using our judgement in deciding what’s worth doing, not just what can be done, we can ensure these tools make us more capable, not just more productive.

Amen to this:

The most underreported fact about AI: it has already started automating the kind of work no one will miss. Most of the conversation still circles around AGI timelines, speculative scenarios, and whether machines will ever think like us. This focus hides the obvious fact that we are already living through a productivity shift. Language models are stripping hours out of tasks that drained entire teams. Drafting documents, cleaning spreadsheets, and managing email are collapsing into minutes. What once required layers of staff now takes one person with domain knowledge and the discipline to apply these tools well. Meanwhile, most industries still run on workflows designed decades ago. Billing systems, compliance reviews, and logistics chains reveal entire processes untouched by modern AI.

Can AI write 90% of code? Yes but:

Is 90% of code going to be written by AI? I don’t know. What I do know is, that for me, on this project, the answer is already yes. I’m part of that growing subset of developers who are building real systems this way.

At the same time, for me, AI doesn’t own the code. I still review every line, shape the architecture, and carry the responsibility for how it runs in production. But the sheer volume of what I now let an agent generate would have been unthinkable even six months ago.

That’s why I’m convinced this isn’t some far-off prediction. It’s already here — just unevenly distributed — and the number of developers working like this is only going to grow.

Aaron Levie on AI:

AI agents are a force multiplier for the things that we’re already good at and the things we want to do more of. AI of course will let anyone get going in a new field that they’re interested in, and let them expand into adjacent spaces that weren’t possible before. The frontend developer can build their own services, the backend engineer can move up the stack, and so on. But, consistently, the biggest returns from agents are going to come to those that are already have some existing expertise in that particular field.

Simon Willison on Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Anthropic gave me access to a preview version of a “new model” over the weekend which turned out to be Sonnet 4.5. My initial impressions were that it felt like a better model for code than GPT-5-Codex, which has been my preferred coding model since it launched a few weeks ago. This space moves so fast—Gemini 3 is rumored to land soon so who knows how long Sonnet 4.5 will continue to hold the “best coding model” crown.