Epistemic Slot Machines

Every completion or prompt is a pull of the lever.

Every successful text completion saves you seconds at a time and gives you a little dopamine hit.

Every successful prompt can save you hours at a time and gives you a giant dopamine rush.

And when you have a hot hand—it’s like swimming in an infinite dopamine pool.

You remember these wins, but you forget the numerous little failures.

And you discount every time you discovered that it borked your code beyond recognition.

It must have been your fault.

You just need to review the code more carefully.

You just need to refine the prompts.

You just need to add new workspace rules.

You just need to finesse your pull of the lever. 

Besides- when you finally do discover that it somehow managed to trash your code without you catching it, what are you going to do? You are in the hole. You’re not familiar with the code anymore.

Your only way to get out is to pull the lever again and hope that the thing that broke your project can also fix it.

Maybe you can still break even?

And if you don’t break even, you certainly aren’t going to tell anybody.

That would be too embarrassing.

Nobody else is failing at this.

They all seem to have it figured out.

There are people out there writing complete applications in forty-five minutes.

There is one machine whisperer who can even generate realistic SVG images of a pelican riding a bicycle.

And there are whales out there placing bets of billions of dollars.

They must know something you don’t know.

They must have an angle.

But at the moment, you are in the red.

So it’s double or nothing. 

And you pull the lever.

Again.

And you hear the ping on your phone notifying you that your account has been automatically topped up.

Again.