adminLately, I’ve discovered that Codex can do magical things. Now, I’m able to do so many things in a day; it’s almost hard to believe. My productivity has skyrocketed, but I’m not sure if it’s a good thing. Let me explain.
Last week, I still thought that I had to use Mandy’s laptop to work with OpenAI’s Codex. An AI tool that helps you write software, even if you have no idea how to code. Until recently, you needed a fairly advanced MacBook to run Codex. So, every evening, I had to ask Mandy to use her laptop. Then I was talking back and forth with an AI agent all evening until well after midnight.
It was already super impressive with what I could do. I have very basic knowledge of programming. But in the last year, by rebuilding the website for Thais Tafelen three times, I know exactly what I want from our website. So now, I can just type in whatever I want; Codex gives me commands, and I input these commands on my server. A couple of times back and forth with adjusting, and voila, I created a new plugin that would have otherwise cost hundreds.
Now, over the past three days, I’ve learned that AI advances swiftly. I didn’t have the time or opportunity to work with Codex for a month or so. Resuming our website project, I got the first glimpse of what the future will look like. Directly from my old-ish computer, I can now run commands. AI directly adds whatever I want to my server. It does tests and checks settings more thoroughly than I did (by far). Other than typing what I want and checking what’s done, there’s no manual labor anymore. Which is nice, but also scary.
I’m addicted now. There were so many things on our website that I still needed to improve and wanted to change. Although the old Codex way was already 100x faster and cheaper than hiring someone, the new way is as if you have a whole design and development team working. Checking off one to-do item after the other is the best drug there is. It’s so addictive that I can’t stop ‘coding’.
Now, there are too many things that I want to work on. At the same time. It makes it difficult for me to focus on the real-life tasks I have for Thais Tafelen. Such as sorting deliveries, packing shipments, packing goods, managing our employees, etc. Also, I’m working on so many ideas at the same time; I have the ultra-luxury problem of not having a clear focus on one project. This can lead to mistakes. No bueno.
AI is a great tool to quickly improve our lives. Software companies will have a hard time in the future. Everyone will be able to just write their own app and create their own solution for every problem they have. From micro problems to world-changing problems. The micro part is good because it’s an equalizer. Less fortunate people can also benefit at a lower cost. The world stage of AI is scary. But we’ll dive into this topic in a future story.
We are living in the new ‘internet’ boom era. I’m surely not one of the frontrunners. But I’m also not lagging. Hopefully, I can find a way to optimize my AI usage so that it can make my life better than I could have wished. I’m sure I’ll find a way.