Prompt Inflation

Claude Code is gut-wrenchingly good. If you're not using it (or similar), stop reading these words right now and go try it. Bye.

Still here? Either you're a Claude convert or you're the kind of person who doesn't do what they're told. Either way, we can continue.

But how much are the productivity gains? Twitter / LinkedIn / everyone in San Francisco seems to have strong opinions that it's a large number followed by an "x".

Is it 1.1x, 2x, 10x or 100x?

Diminishing Returns of Progress

Imagine you're building a Lego tower. You place the second brick and it's satisfying - you've just doubled what you've built. By brick 100, you're adding 1%. Same effort, fraction of the dopamine. Early progress is intoxicating. Late progress is a grind.

What's more - you prioritise the impactful stuff first... Obviously! However, that implies that the more you work, the less important each next task is.

This doesn't mean the final 1% isn't important or even essential. If you're building a rocket, 99% of the engineering might be done. But if the last 1% is "the bit that stops it exploding," don't let Katy Perry on board just yet.

A World Without Tolkien

Let's say you're using Claude to write some fantasy novels.

Your first prompt:

Write me a fantasy story. Main character's called Frodo - Small guy, big quest, evil ring. Throw in some walking trees and some really big battles. Three books, 400 pages each.

Congratulations, you've written a trilogy. Well, you haven't - you've described one and the AI has hallucinated something that structurally resembles one. But emotionally? You've written a trilogy. Your productivity was wild - 100x? 1000x? It doesn't have to be exact - just post about it on social media ASAP.

Many prompts later:

In chapter 5, introduce a character called Tom Bombadil. Make him as boring and pointless to the storyline as possible. Really lean into it. Ideally looking to lose about 30% of readers - the ones who were only reading for plot. They weren't your real fans anyway.

Many, many prompts later:

When Sam says "I can't carry the ring, but I can carry you" — can we try "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you"? Actually that's worse. Go back. But maybe italicise "you"?

Nit-picky prompting like the last one is a bit 2024 and not how I use Claude now. However, it illustrates a point that applies just as cleanly to the most efficient gazillion-x AI coding setups.

Call it Prompt Inflation. The more mature your project, the more prompts you "spend" for smaller gains.