<![CDATA[There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them.]]>There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/0225fc2a-476d-4896-a45b-b278ec8404f7/there-really-is-an-opportunity-to-do-some-interesting-psychological-research-on-why-people-are-so-much-more-willing-to-write-documentation-and-detailed-instructions-for-ai-agents-to-write-code-for-them-than-for-other-human-beings-to-write-code-for-them.RSS for NodeFri, 15 May 2026 07:13:05 GMTWed, 13 May 2026 14:18:44 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 18:32:40 GMT]]>@technomancy @tael i am sure this is a big part of it. being told to write it by your boss does a lot for motivation.

but in addition to that, the llm is supposed to take the work you did on the documentation and turn it into work you don't have to do elsewhere. it's a fairly straightforward trade with little ambiguity and that's a very attractive offer.

writing for humans, otoh, means you may or may not get work done on the things you want to prioritize, and they probably won't have read the docs you spent so much time on.

this is mostly independent of the quality of the results. i think a lot of people value the direct feedback from their efforts much, much more than getting high quality feedback.]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://tines.spork.org/objects/a6bacf29-a539-408f-b7e7-3be6ecba4f35https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://tines.spork.org/objects/a6bacf29-a539-408f-b7e7-3be6ecba4f35Wed, 13 May 2026 18:32:40 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 18:00:42 GMT]]>@tael Because writing for AI agents gets them an immediate reward, but writing for others barely gets recognized, in most organizations.

Dave Rahardja (@drahardja@sfba.social)

If you can write and maintain CLAUDE.md to tell a bot how to work on your code, then you can write and maintain a document to tell your coworkers how to work on your code. I can’t believe it took coding bots to get some people to write documentation. #ai #coding #software

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SFBA.social (sfba.social)

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://sfba.social/users/drahardja/statuses/116568571425949484https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://sfba.social/users/drahardja/statuses/116568571425949484Wed, 13 May 2026 18:00:42 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 17:53:46 GMT]]>@javascript I foresee no issues with this process

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://yiff.life/users/tael/statuses/116568544143456271https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://yiff.life/users/tael/statuses/116568544143456271Wed, 13 May 2026 17:53:46 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 17:52:49 GMT]]>@petealexharris @tael Point.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.hackers.town/users/drwho/statuses/116568540437935970https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.hackers.town/users/drwho/statuses/116568540437935970Wed, 13 May 2026 17:52:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 17:45:33 GMT]]>@tael@yiff.life

Because part of that documentation can also be written by the same machine that is going to consume it later

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://app.wafrn.net/fediverse/post/5770403b-a062-4f2b-a8f4-976c28d27978https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://app.wafrn.net/fediverse/post/5770403b-a062-4f2b-a8f4-976c28d27978Wed, 13 May 2026 17:45:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 17:44:15 GMT]]>Because any idiot can write the first one, but the second one is hard? 🤷‍♂️

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/clanger9/statuses/116568506698062654https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/clanger9/statuses/116568506698062654Wed, 13 May 2026 17:44:15 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 17:33:08 GMT]]>@tael

Speaking from the PoV of one who came up through developer ranks, and was blessed with some truly excellent tech writers for documentation, i think it comes down to 2 things.

Writing a spec, is very different from documentation. Devs can be pretty good about describing what they want, but terrible at explaining how to use it. That's why you need excellent tech writers.

Second, as prompt, the spec doesn't talk back. Writing for humans involves negotiation, not just direction.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/pseudonym/statuses/116568463046194779https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/pseudonym/statuses/116568463046194779Wed, 13 May 2026 17:33:08 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 17:32:58 GMT]]>@tael at least some of the time it's because bosses refused to allocate time for improving documentation for humans and now people are tricking into letting them invest in it because "it's for AI"

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hey.hagelb.org/users/technomancy/statuses/01KRH6C7KQ15TW3M47PAFRSC1Rhttps://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hey.hagelb.org/users/technomancy/statuses/01KRH6C7KQ15TW3M47PAFRSC1RWed, 13 May 2026 17:32:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to There really is an opportunity to do some interesting psychological research on why people are so much more willing to write documentation and detailed instructions for AI agents to write code for them than for other human beings to write code for them. on Wed, 13 May 2026 14:28:37 GMT]]>@eviloatmeal But it does!! They just come in the form of "here's some non-working code" forcing you to explain what went wrong and tell it to go back to the drawing board.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://yiff.life/users/tael/statuses/116567737460423387https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://yiff.life/users/tael/statuses/116567737460423387Wed, 13 May 2026 14:28:37 GMT