Jake Levirne On How to Use AI and The Internet the Right Way, How It Affects Our Psyche and How to Use New Tools Ethically.

06/25/24 • 67 min

Fortune's Path Podcast

On the risk of AI programing leading to crummy software: "At the end of the day AI is just a tool, right? And so it's how we choose to use it that could have impacts there. If we allow AI usage to be an excuse to move quickly [when developing software], but sloppily, then yeah, we're going to build more and more software that is is tenuous and has the potential of falling over."
On the idea of AI being able to help junior developers become senior developers more quickly: "Unless we are intentional as an industry, we run the risk of replacing the natural apprenticeship that's been in place for a few decades."
On AI taking our jobs: "Humans will always seek to work on the things that they're uniquely able to deliver value on, and I think so we'll just keep doing that in software development. But but I am worried about what the path looks like for people to get to that level of expertise."
On his new venture Ducky.foo: "Ducky.foo is is the outcome of me wrestling with the disparity that AI assistants are creating in terms of junior developer versus senior developer productivity... Create a human community where more experienced developers can teach and mentor and share their hard won expertise and real world knowledge with junior developers, but do it at scale...it's not novel to think of a community of software developers of different experience levels helping each other out. But I think what is novel is that I think we can hyper scale this type of community by injecting AI into it."
"Those with the most going into any kind of innovation tend to be the ones who benefit the most." Ducky.foo is hoping to stop this from taking place with AI innovation, and prevent the fruits of AI innovation from resting in the hands of the wealthy.
On the toxicity of Stack Overflow and general trolling: "here's a place where AI does have a leg up. It's infinitely patient, infinitely pleasant. And so I think That's one thing we can borrow from AI as we're building Ducky.foo.”

On the risk of AI programing leading to crummy software: "At the end of the day AI is just a tool, right? And so it's how we choose to use it that could have impacts there. If we allow AI usage to be an excuse to move quickly [when developing software], but sloppily, then yeah, we're going to build more and more software that is is tenuous and has the potential of falling over."
On the idea of AI being able to help junior developers become senior developers more quickly: "Unless we are intentional as an industry, we run the risk of replacing the natural apprenticeship that's been in place for a few decades."
On AI taking our jobs: "Humans will always seek to work on the things that they're uniquely able to deliver value on, and I think so we'll just keep doing that in software development. But but I am worried about what the path looks like for people to get to that level of expertise."
On his new venture Ducky.foo: "Ducky.foo is is the outcome of me wrestling with the disparity that AI assistants are creating in terms of junior developer versus senior developer productivity... Create a human community where more experienced developers can teach and mentor and share their hard won expertise and real world knowledge with junior developers, but do it at scale...it's not novel to think of a community of software developers of different experience levels helping each other out. But I think what is novel is that I think we can hyper scale this type of community by injecting AI into it."
"Those with the most going into any kind of innovation tend to be the ones who benefit the most." Ducky.foo is hoping to stop this from taking place with AI innovation, and prevent the fruits of AI innovation from resting in the hands of the wealthy.
On the toxicity of Stack Overflow and general trolling: "here's a place where AI does have a leg up. It's infinitely patient, infinitely pleasant. And so I think That's one thing we can borrow from AI as we're building Ducky.foo.”

Previous Episode

Beth Antony: Navigating a Better Way Through the College Application Process

Key Takeaways

“Applying to college is a series of tasks where you need information, guidance, and you need support through your own discernment process. It doesn’t have to be terrible. It doesn’t have to be scary.”
“I use the word discern a lot. And I do that intentionally to discern who they are. Because when you start a college as a freshman, you're not the same person you are when you finish as a senior. And we need to get that right environment where it can be flexible and support that kind of academic, social, and emotional growth.”
“...what's your philosophy of education? Do you view it as a means to an end, or is higher ed kind of this banquet table, you go and you feast and you try things, and it's just important to know what you don't like as it is to find out what you do like and what you're passionate about. We need to be strategic and intentional with choices for our students.”
On her pro bono clients: “Helping them realize their potential, but to also broaden...horizons...look at it through this lens.”
“If someone starts off a conversation, I want my child to go to a really competitive school. There's a lot to unpack in that statement. Once we start teasing out those factors...what I'm really hearing is I just want the best for my child. I don't know what that means. I don't have language around this, so I'm going to say an Ivy, I'm going to say, the best, the most competitive and what the most competitive for I'd say the majority of people isn't always the best decision.”
If you work with Beth, you’re getting a process, not an outcome. It’s sometimes hard for parents to understand.
“Children learn what they live. When they're shown another way. They're always receptive. I always said I can work with any student - parents: That's a different story. Kids are not the issue.”
“Sometimes people just need to be reminded that they can do hard things.”

Next Episode

Eve Eden on Designing for Accessibility, Anticipating Technological Development and Designing for Product Led Growth

"8% of the male population is colorblind, especially to red and green. And so think about the stock market and how that reads, or any kind of financial or big data company and their prevalent uses of green and red. People see those colors in shades of yellows and beige. ...I think accessibility design is still up and coming. I think user experience as an industry is still in its infancy... incorporating it into corporate spheres, companies, what does that mean? I make it a business to help build toolkits on how to define what it is that we do."
"Generally people put out surveys at the beginning of a workflow or when someone first drops into their site before login or after login. But where I find that type of survey being really beneficial is after they do something. So they come there with a certain thing in mind that they want to do. That is exactly when you should throw up those two questions: a rating scale or an open ended."
"Nashville is a place of connectors: "Hey, you know what? I know this person, let me email them for you. There is that love here of meeting, meeting people organically."
"Design principles are value statements that describe the most important goals that a product delivers for its users."
"With with product led growth, focus on customer acquisition, your expansion and keeping your clients. There's four ways to do that. First: it's with user experience and an intuitive interface. Simplify the user journey. When someone's onboarding, consider how they quickly understand the value of the product just because of the interaction they're having with the first page or the first few pages, and then make sure that it's a consistent experience across all devices.
"The second one is UI. You user interface is really the visual appeal of designing for attention. We touch on this with graphic design. It's bringing clarity and language to guide people through features. Think of things like feedback, how do you know this is working?"
"Another one that helps with product led growth is interaction design. Micro-interactions, you know, something that has minimal steps to complete the task or reduce friction and encouraging people to use the product later. A notification saying, hey, you forgot something! Those are all ways that, you know, kind of brings growth. You don't necessarily think about it."
"The last one is showcasing something that you can use for free. But then explaining: 'hey there's these other features that you might like!' And being exploratory with that."