Raw LLM Responses

One of my friends who still works as a software engineer in Big Tech pointed out Cal to me, and said "Can you believe this guy?" I had to see for myself. I'm a retired software engineer (30 years in Big Tech). I still keep up with the advancements, and I regularly use the frontier coding models (Claude Code mostly) for hobbyist engineering (Unity 6 game development). Let me just say this - I don't know what planet Cal is on, but it isn't Earth. He is completely disconnected from the current reality when it comes to capabilities of these models. First, let me say he is intentionally strawmanning the other side. No serious AI researcher or software engineer is claiming these models can currently write ERP software from scratch. However, the vast majority of software engineers I keep in touch with (and my own personal experience) write much code anymore (if any). 90-100% of code amongst my peers is written exclusively by AI models now. My guess is that this is pretty consistent in the leading tech companies, and most of them have said as much. Now, this does NOT mean that the AI models are doing end-to-end software engineering. That is an entirely different story. However, the models are doing more and more of the SWE work, as well, and it is conceivable that they will be doing most of it by the end of 2026 given the progress. Cal has, unfortunately, due to his obvious bias, locked himself in an echo chamber both on his YouTube channel and IRL. I don't know what to say to others who claim that these models aren't useful at all. Either they are completely lying, they haven't used these models recently, they aren't learning HOW to use the coding models/MCP servers, or they are just plain bad at specifying what they want from the models. I assure you these models are be leveraged heavily by ALL the leading tech companies. They are writing your software and driver updates, designing new hardware and software, and finding new algorithmic efficiencies. Peddling misinformation like Cal does is a complete disservice to humanity. If people listen to him, they are not going to be prepared for the massive change that is coming.