Future hackathons
I have stumbled upon a university project someone is doing for their diploma. The idea of the product is alright, but the site was clearly create by AI.
Is it good or bad? This got me thinking: prior, excellent teams have shown their mastery during hackathons. A bunch of people gathered together and dug through the tunnel, delivering often simplistic—but working and original product in 24 or 48 hours.
Do we ban AI use during hackathons now? Or do we encourage them?
How do we rate the work of a team? Does technical prowess not matter simply because the product needed web UI but team expertize is not quite there yet?
These are difficult questions.
On one hand AI empowers: it allows teams to leverage their creativity and expertize in other areas more freely. On the other, it levels out the surface somewhat. Literally.
If you don't put effort—and you usually don't have the time for that during a hackathon—then you end up with a generic design at best.
Is it important? Depends on the field, I suppose. After all, even games during game jams (analogous to hackathons, but for game development) usually lack high quality assets.
But before AI even those low fidelity assets had a chance to get created with love and care—even if hastily and not thoroughly.
I think we need to think long and hard why do we do hackathons. Because if it is for the product or the end result, then we can allow AI aid there and get performance improvements. If it is more like a sport, however, then AI is no more interesting than watching a computer play chess.