The conversation about AI’s usefulness has matured considerably over the past year. Outright denial of its capabilities has diminished as more people have seen for themselves what it can do in their line of work. The battle is now over exactly how much value it provides.
One particular point of tension between AI’s boosters and detractors has been the disconnect between reported increases in coders’ output and the apparent lack of a corresponding boom in product or value creation. A new paper leaves both sides able to claim vindication.
The study by MIT’s Mert Demirer and co-authors tracked software developers’ work before and after they adopted AI tools. Importantly, they measured this at several different levels, from the amount of code written, to the number of discrete files edited, to the number of projects or features worked on, to actual releases of new software.