Evolving AI Agents in Software Engineering

This chapter examines the transformative potential of AI agents in technology, moving beyond basic applications to more autonomous models capable of complex decision-making. It discusses how these advancements could reshape the role of software engineers, allowing for greater focus on creative projects while streamlining tasks such as debugging and iteration. The conversation also addresses the implications of declining costs in AI and the evolving strategies for pricing technology services in this new landscape.

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My guest today is Scott Wu. Scott is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, which is an applied AI lab that has created the first AI software engineer, which they call Devin. In just a year since founding Cognition, Devin functions at the level of a junior software engineer, capable of handling complete engineering workflows from bug fixing to submitting pull requests. He is a former competitive programming champion and describes the field as simply “the art of telling the computer what you want it to do." Scott predicts AI will surpass the world's best competitive programmer within 1-2 years and sees this technology not as replacing programmers, but as democratizing software creation. We discuss the bottleneck in software development, the future of AI in various industries, and the challenges of leveling up Devin. Towards the end, you’ll also hear Scott do an insane card trick on me. You can find the video on our X and YouTube to grasp the madness fully. Please enjoy my conversation with Scott Wu.

Watch Scott play the card game.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes:

(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best

(00:07:00) Discussion of Devin's current capabilities as a junior engineer

(00:09:00) Early use cases and customer adoption

(00:11:00) Comparison between IDE assistants and Devin's autonomous approach

(00:14:00) History of computer programming and its evolution

(00:17:00) Scott's background in competitive programming

(00:20:00) Future predictions for AI in software engineering