During Google’s Q3 2024 earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai stated: “Over a quarter of new code at Google is AI-generated, then reviewed and adopted by engineers.”
However, Google engineers were quick to challenge this claim.
Google Engineer 1: asdfman123
I work at Google and just finished my day. My work could technically be counted as "AI-generated code," but the code completion engine is mostly good at completing lines of code I’ve already half-written. For example, if I type “function getAc...,” it auto-completes to “function getActionHandler()” and might suggest suitable parameters and a decent doc comment.
Overall, it’s a useful productivity tool, but it doesn’t involve actual engineering work. It’s roughly as effective as Copilot, maybe even slightly less (though I haven’t used Copilot recently).
Google Engineer 2: NotAnOtter
I also worked at Google (until last Friday). I completely agree with you. My take is:
These claims are obviously exaggerated; they may even be counting fully automated code checks/pull requests (CL/PR) as “AI-generated,” which have been around for over a decade.
I previously mentioned that if a 10-person team’s productivity matches that of an 8-person team using something like Copilot, it’s fair to say “AI replaced two engineers.” More importantly, if this were true, tech leaders would have touted it long ago. Copilot and similar tools have existed long enough, yet no one claims “we’ve replaced X% of our workforce with AI.” So, following a “denial of the consequent” logic, I’d argue that using Copilot hasn’t fundamentally sped up development.
#AI #AIGC #Google #LLM #Opensource #Copilot #Code #programming
Google can cut 80% costs if it wanted. But they will not cut it! And, that has nothing to do with engineering productivity! They just can’t afford to become more profitable!