2026-01-18 19:41:33

AI is reshaping how we think about talent competition. Here's the question that keeps me thinking: if AI boosts an average engineer's productivity tenfold, what about elite developers?

Let's say most engineers see a 10x jump in output with AI tools. The logical leap would be—do top performers then hit 100x? Or even more? It seems obvious, but I'm not convinced it works that way.

My suspicion leans toward something different: AI might actually compress the performance gap. The ceiling gets higher for everyone, sure, but the distribution flattens. An experienced engineer's advantage in pattern recognition and architecture decisions matters less when both they and a junior dev have AI as a co-pilot. That's a wild shift from how we've traditionally valued expertise.

What does this mean for blockchain developers, smart contract auditors, or protocol designers? If AI becomes the great equalizer in coding productivity, then judgment, creativity, and strategic thinking become the real differentiators. The game changes from "who codes faster" to "who builds better."

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HashBrownies

· 11h ago

This logic has some issues... True experts don't make a living off code speed; they rely on architectural judgment and product sense. AI is just low-level coding work; top developers are playing a different game altogether.

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GweiTooHigh

· 14h ago

Nah, this logic is reversed. Elite developers are actually more in demand with AI because they know how to prompt...

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PretendingToReadDocs

· 14h ago

There's a bit of a problem with this logic. Elite developers being leveled by AI? That doesn't seem right... AI can't replicate the aesthetic judgment and decision-making abilities of industry experts, right?

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SchrodingerWallet

· 14h ago

Haha, this logic has some substance... but I think it's overrated. Not all experts can be directly translated into AI enhancements 1:1; the real bottleneck has never been code speed. Few people can think of this level.

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pvt_key_collector

· 14h ago

NGL, this idea is quite interesting, but I think reality will be more brutal... How could the results from experts and newbies using AI be the same? Think about the smart contract auditing part. AI can help you find bugs, but identifying critical logical vulnerabilities still relies on experience and intuition. That's not something AI can balance. What truly sets the difference is not how fast you write code, but whether you can see through the pitfalls in protocol design... This is something elite developers will never be overtaken by.

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StillBuyingTheDip

· 14h ago

ngl this logic is a bit insightful... but I think the big players should be panicking haha --- The idea of narrowing the gap really hit me; I feel that in the future, it's all about vision and ideas --- Wait, is the era of copy-paste code really coming to an end? --- If an ordinary engineer can achieve 10x productivity, I need to think about where my moat is... --- Under this wave of AI, those who only know how to write code might be the first to be out --- Will smart contract auditors become unemployed? But this still requires human judgment --- To put it simply, it's still a matter of survival of the fittest; those without creativity will be sidelined

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TopEscapeArtist

· 14h ago

It seems to be another old tune of "AI era, is expertise still valuable" ... but this time the framework really hit home for me. The assumption of 10x to 100x is directly bankrupt; the real situation should be that the performance gap has been cut in half. It reminds me of something I encountered during contract audits—those so-called veterans with years of experience, now using AI tools, can't really speed up much, and sometimes get stuck on code generated by GPT used by younger developers. This is the feeling of leveling out, and a warning sign has appeared. Anyway, my experience is that no matter how strong the technical side is, it’s useless now. What really matters is not coding speed, but whether you can spot the pitfalls in the code AI helps you generate... that’s the true differentiator.

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