AI Can Write Code. Why Isn’t Software Better?
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Why does AI still struggle to deliver real automation in software?
Where the fuck is all the automation? AI is so unbelievably smart, and yet it's
so useless at all other stuff. It doesn't matter how much AI coding agents you use, the software actually isn't getting better. Maybe you're writing it faster, it's like arguably getting worse.
to automate customer service since 2020. What I want instead is smart software. I want to expand what software itself can do such that things that should be automatable can then be automatable. My favorite thing
that you guys say is we built prod not god. It's so good. Because if we had any other kind of like big lab leader, even if they had Joy, they would cover it. And then your view is so different. You're like, no, we're
gonna create a way better world. For nuanced reasons, I don't think we are on the path of RSI. In the SAS Pocalypse story,
um AI can write software, but what if the bigger opportunity is putting intelligence inside the software itself? In this episode, Ben Horowitz and Martin Casado sit down with Type-Safe AI founder Diogo Almeida to talk about JEV and a different vision for how AI changes computing. Diogo argues that coding agents make it faster to produce the same kind of software we already have. JEV is aimed at expanding what software itself can do. Giving developers a new primitive for turning natural language intent into decisions that programs can actually use. They get into why reliability matters more than impressive demos, what a new era of probabilistic programming could look like, and why AI might make existing software dramatically more useful, rather than simply replacing it.
And beneath all of this is the question that drove Diogo to build TypeSafe in the first place. If AI is already this smart. Where is all the automation?
Today we have the founder and leader of TypeSafe, Diogo, with us, who is a bit of a hero to both Martin and me. Yes. He is not only building like a really interesting product, but creating what we think is a very important movement. So we're super excited about today. Well, thanks for coming. Thank you. Maybe you can give us a brief on what is Jev, what is type safe, why is it important? Is this a curse friendly or no? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh okay. Oh okay, okay, okay. Cool. So I was actually asked I was actually asking
for like a elevator pitch, which I tend to ramble on and I don't do well. But like I realized my favorite elevator pitch for Jev is where the fuck is all the automation? Like this is like so unbelievably tragic. Yes. So much intelligence. AI is so unbelievably smart, and yet so not that I hate on chatbots or coding agents, I love them myself, but it's like so useless at all other stuff. And it's tragic. It's tragic so that we have so much like diamond in the rough, but not polished for work. But TypeSafe is making AI for software. You know, we want to make AI powerful, not just for humans in the loop, but to actually build real software. Yeah, yeah. And Jiv to us is our first model in this whole space to make it way, way better to like make automation.
Yeah, and so it's been interesting because it's kind of caught fire in software world. So one of the things that made us go, what the hell's going on here is like every developer we know is calling us and going, Oh, this is frickin' awesome. It's great. It's fast. It's great. Everything's better. Then how does that 'cause everybody thinks of, well, we've got cloud code. We've got codecs. Don't we already have that? Like what's the difference? And then how does that lead to real automation? Ooh
I Wish I had like uh some slopped visuals because I have a favorite slop visual for this. So I like Cloud Code and Codex. I love the description from Gary Tan on them. It's just in time software. Incredible way to describe what they're doing. It like it makes software on the fly, and you can like program software in natural language, but it has the same expressive power as software. What I want instead is smart software. Like instead of automating Software engineering, I want to expand what software itself can do, such that things that should be automatable can then be automatable.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does AI still struggle to deliver real automation in software?
0:00–6:07
2
What is TypeSafe’s JEV and how does it differ from traditional coding agents?
6:07–10:23
3
How does JEV turn natural‑language intent into probabilistic program decisions?
10:23–14:54
4
Why is reliability more important than flashy AI demos for production software?
14:54–20:52
5
What are the three dimensions of reliability (uptime, determinism, robustness) for AI‑powered code?
20:52–26:21
6
How can SaaS companies become the biggest winners of the AI wave?
26:21–31:55
7
What does a future with probabilistic programming and “smart” software look like?
31:55–37:13
8
What is the ultimate vision of ‘doing what I mean’ for AI‑augmented software?
37:13–43:04
Speakers
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