Here's a short story.

Claude just made me a trash version of free apps.

Well, it almost did.

I had this fantastic idea for an app. I wanted to make a custom dashboard for viewing stock trends, analyzing the market, and identifying correlations to help manage my portfolio.

I gave my ideas to Claude and fleshed out a specification. But when I read through it, most of the ideas seemed… already done?

So before coding, I asked if free tools could do anything in the spec, and how to modify the spec so it supplements free tools where needed, and points me to the tools where I can use them instead. Why rebuild Yahoo finance when it’s one click away?

80% of the spec, gone. The remaining bit? I was super excited to build.

What does this mean for developers? When AI promises you the world, but your goals were already accomplished by someone else?

Judgement is so much more important now, and I consider myself extremely lucky to have gained development experience before AI came out. I know that some judgement can be gained even while relying on these tools, but I feel like you need to work harder for it because it comes from experience and working with others who actually know better. If you're using AI for the first time, and you've never done something before, will you question it? I know that I often don't when it comes to domains I'm unfamiliar with.

So, let this be a short story about a man who flew too close to the sun, but unlike the well-known tragic story, used his better judgement to avoid doom.