Autonomy Sliders, Slow Productivity Engineers and a Surprising Book on Vibe Coding
Here are three things I’ve found interesting this week:
#1 The Autonomy Slider
When building autonomous (AI) agents, we have control over the level of autonomy we give those agents. A self-driving car, for example, might assist you in driving around corners, parking sideways or changing lanes. You might also outsource the entire job of transportation to it: bring me from A to B.
Now, the idea of an autonomy slider (as Andrej Karpathy calls it in the talk linked below) is exactly that: giving users a choice over how autonomous AI agents should be. I mostly use Cursor for AI-augmented development and I do so on multiple “levels”: using code completion features to write/refactor individual functions all the way up to using the chat interface to write bigger chunks of code (the autonomy slider is turned up fully). This can even be extended by using tools like RooCode, which fully automates feature development including design and testing.
Now, I don’t want to argue in favor of one autonomy level over the other in coding; I use the example to illustrate autonomy sliders. Andrej stresses the importance of including autonomy sliders when building useful AI agents.
Check out the talk here:
#2 The Slow Productivity Engineer
There are few authors who have influenced by thinking as much as Cal Newport. In his newest book, Slow Productivity, he defines pseudo-productivity as “using visible activity as a crude proxy for actual productivity." Being the dominant way we think about knowledge work since the 21st century, he states that
Long work sessions that don't immediately produce obvious contrails of effort become a source of anxiety--it's safer to chime in on email threads and "jump on" calls than to put your head down and create a bold new strategy.
Instead, Newport defines an alternative: Slow Productivity. He argues that by focusing on different things, we actually increase the outcomes of the effort we put in.
A philosophy for organizing knowledge work efforts in a sustainable and meaningful manner, based on the following three principles:
Do fewer things.
Work at a natural pace.
Obsess over quality.
In InfoQ’s Engineering Culture Podcast, Holly Cummins made some remarks about productivity metrics and software engineering that reminded me a lot of Newport’s ideas.
#3 A Surprising Book on Vibe Coding
What do artists like Neil Young, U2, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, AC/DC, System of a Down, Eminem and many more have in common? Every one of them had at least one record produced by Rick Rubin.
As I enjoyed his book The Creative Act (get the hardcover, the binding is great), I was surprised to learn that he teamed up with Anthropic to write a book about vibe coding. Check it out here: https://www.thewayofcode.com/
