Using AI for drafting

Although generative artificial intelligence and large language models are being promoted as direct replacements for certain types of workers, many companies that are actually doing it have found that using this new technology can cause more problems than it solves when it is given complete freedom to perform tasks . While this may not be true indefinitely, the real use case for these tools now is as helpers of sorts for certain types of work. For this, they can be incredibly powerful as (Ricardo) demonstrates here using Amazon Q to help develop Commodore 64 games.

The first step here was to create the code that would show the sprite moving around the screen. Originally the AI ​​generated the code in all uppercase, as was the style during the C64 era, but this caused serious problems in the development environment (Ricardo), so the code was converted to lowercase. In later stages, a more impressive transformation was made, as the program needed to take advantage of the optimizations found in assembly language. With the code converted to a 6502 Assembly that could run on a virtual Commodore, (Ricardo) was eventually able to display four sprites moving around the screen after several iterations with the AI, as well as restyle the sprites to an arbitrary design.

While the post is a little too optimistic about Amazon Q as a dedicated tool for developers, it may have some advantages over other generative AIs, especially if it can be programmed in assembly language. We’d love to hear from anyone who has real-world experience with this, and if it’s really worth the extra cost over something like Copilot or GPT 4. However, for any of these generative AI models, it’s probably worth a try, while they are in the early stages. Keep in mind that there is much more than programming it can also be done with some of them.