The Speed of Prototyping in the Age of AI

I'm truly hopeful that AI will open a new of prototyping. Back in the day, prototyping was how you figured out what to build, you'd very deliberately toss the entire first (or second!) version, and you'd plan to do that.

High quality ensued. Usually ;)

But is it really any faster than using an already existing code generator/scaffolding tool? How do you know your project isn’t just a regurgitation of another repository? Would it be just as fast to clone some existing project and hack on it?

These are the questions everyone seems to be ignoring and saying “only LLMs can make projects quickly” but ignoring everything those LLMs are built on (your llmis probably calling a code gen tool).

For the at work side, I personally haven’t experienced any disadvantages or missed any project deadlines because I didn’t use an LLM, so what does velocity get me? Thumb twiddling time?