There were some really good comments on this post! The ones closest to my mental model all focused on the role people still need to play when working with LLMs. There were also some good thoughts on how to define cost/impact.
So here is how I think about prioritization with agents. Instead of the prioritization orienting around features or things to build, the prioritization framework must orient around the new scarce resource: my attention.
This is how I work now. In a world where I can build anything, I need to be super intentional with my attention. And so given a particular item of work, I think about how much attention it needs and then choose the right tool for the job. More on the tools later!
The below diagram calls out this idea of the loop. I mean this in the abstract sense - a software development lifecycle process - with observable points. When a Human is the loop, you are managing the SDLC yourself. When you have a human around the loop, you are monitoring those observable points of the SDLC yourself. When an agent is around the loop, you've built a harness or some type of adversarial review system to monitor the points of the SDLC. And finally, you can of course just ask the agent to do it all (there is no SDLC - it's just the agent).
I like this framework because it flips the focus on how to optimize workflows - you go from optimizing how you build to what you pay attention to.
SG 🇸🇬 head coach Gavin Lee and Ryhan Stewart react in the immediate aftermath of a narrow 4-3 aggregate loss to Thailand.
Lee emphasised belief and fan connection as the key takeaways from the ASEAN Championship campaign.
🗣️ “You can’t buy belief from Sheng Shiong”