The solution to this problem is not throwing everything at AI. To get good results from any AI model, you need an architect (human) instructing it from the top. And the logic behind this is that AI has been trained on millions of opinions on getting a particular task done. If you ask a human, they almost always have one opinionated approach for a given task. The human's opinion is a derivative of their lived experience, sometimes foreseeing all the way to the end result an AI cannot foresee. Eg. I want a database column a certain type because I'm thinking about adding an E-Commerce feature to my CMS later. An AI might not have this insight.
Of course, you can't always tell the model what to do, especially if it is a repeated task. It turns out, we already solved this decades ago using algorithms. Repeatable, reproducible, reliable. The challenge (and the reward) lies in separating the problem statement into algorithmic and agentic. Once you achieve this, the $1000 token usage is not needed at all.
I have a working prototype of the above and I'm currently productizing it (shameless plug):
https://designflo.ai
However - I need to emphasize, the language you use to apply the pattern above matters. I use Elixir specifically for this, and it works really, really well.
It works based off starting with the architect. You. It feeds off specs and uses algorithms as much as possible to automate code generation (eg. Scaffolding) and only uses AI sparsely when needed.
Of course, the downside of this approach is that you can't just simply say "build me a social network". You can however say something like "Build me a social network where users can share photos, repost, like and comment on them".
Once you nail the models used in the MVC pattern, their relationships, the software design is pretty much 50% battle won. This is really good for v1 prototypes where you really want best practices enforced, OSWAP compliant code, security-first software output which is where a pure agentic/AI approach would mess up.
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