Shadowing Practice: I Spent 1.5 Billion AI Tokens on Absolute Slop - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I spent 1.5 billion tokens on this project and put it through GPT-56-SOL on high.

I did have it spawn extra workers on high to try and knock this out in a couple days.

Overall, about 24 hours of consistent compute runs.

There were some times where it stopped because of usage errors or a reset needed to happen.

But I did use, I think, four resets of the $100 plan and just a ton.

I got lucky in opening.

I had a reset as well.

So I was able to use a ton of inference.

I don't know what that 1.5 billion tokens will equate to in dollars, but I would assume probably around $10,000, maybe more.

And I wanted to say this was terrible.

It made slop.

and I wanted to kind of showcase it because what I had was a .NET project.

Most people know my Windows utility that's written in PowerShell

and my .NET basis I've built over the last year or two off and on just kind of hacking away at it.

It had roughly, I think 5,000 lines of code and I wanted to expand it out so it has feature parity.

An idea behind Win OneShot was just to have something kind of on deck in case something happened with PowerShell, I could easily translate everything to .NET.

So all the functions I built was like changing registry edits.

Instead of doing a set item property, I could actually just force that through the .NET libraries instead of using that section of the code.

So I could always fix windows essentially.

So it's always been kind of like my fail safe or a possibility of maybe doing a standalone.

But I wanted to see what AI could do with it.

So I already had the scaffolding.

I already had the structure.

I just needed to feed it a roadmap, a spec sheet, and then have it build out of tasks for it to run.

And I thought, hey, let's split this up with workers.

And I got this whole idea because I saw something online about Bun being rewritten and ported from Zig to Rust.

And I was like, well, shit, if it can do that, surely 5.6 Sol High could do this.

This is nothing compared to that kind of port.

And sure, they use Fable 5, but I was like, well, 5, 6 old should be good enough.

And I want to say, I think we're to the spot where it's not really about the models.

It's about you, your ideas, your skill, your software development ability.

And I think this is always going to be a thing

that you just I don't see a way around this where you have to think through the problems, the structure, and AI just can't think for you.

You can tell it and direct it, but my directions was have feature parity.

Here's my parity project with PowerShell script.

Here's the scaffolding where it already has the functions in place.

Just add the missing functionality, whether that was, I think win 11 creator where it creates an ISO or,

uh, the app X removal that was just added in this last update to when you till.

And I was like, I, that should be relatively easy to do maybe five, 10,000 lines of code.

And at the end of the day, we ended up with 169,310 lines of code that was added.

Holy shnikes, Batman.

That is an absolute ton of code.

What does that mean when you have, well, we'll just call it 170,000 lines of code that was changed.

It means the project's no longer years.

You don't know what's up.

You don't know what's down.

When you look at the code base, it is no longer maintainable.

You just have so much stuff, you're better off just starting from scratch again.

In this instance, I'm going to show you what it created, and then I'm going to show you what it had to work off of,

because they're just two vastly different things here.

What it created was this.

Pretty good project on launch.

I did notice right away on launch, it launched considerably slower.

Well, to be expected with over six figures of lines added to the project.

But with a built binary, it's going to be menial to the end user.

Compute these days is so cheap.

And most people, you know, most software developers, even before this, had bloated projects, and it really didn't affect performance that much.

So I looked at it, I was like, yeah, all right, that's good.

Now, when it first spit out, it was all one single column.

So of course, a couple of reiterations needed to be made.

It was like, all right, let me give this an honest try.

Let's split it up.

Let's match this.

Did okay job after all of that.

We still have like a category load fail element not found down here.

Trying to track that down.

I was like, okay, that needs to be reworked a bit, but it does work.

And then for the tweaks page, I was like, okay, Let's see what happens there.

It tries to inspect all the tweaks and then tell you what the current state is.

Sometimes it can do this.

Sometimes it can't.

It just depends on the tweak.

But to try and go through and maintain this, let's say I was to release this on the world.

Well, people are going to go, hey, the acrylic blur is applied, but it says not applied.

And you're like, well, I, okay.

And then there'd just be tons of issues like

that with this iteration and you're relying on an LLM prompt to fix this.

At this point, the code is pretty much unreadable, unmaintainable, and that's a problem, especially if you're charging money for something like this.

And this is where I think a lot of people are gonna get in trouble.

So this is what happened with the tweaks, configuration.

I had to kind of move this around.

Initially, it made this check boxes.

Then I was like, no, those need to be buttons.

That was fixed the updates just didn't work at all i

think they still don't work something about state infection i was like okay well i'll go ahead

and click this hopefully it doesn't blow up my system it kind of works on a lot of things

but it's close but not and i think the fallacy here for someone

that never done programming before i even saw i think it

was a meme online where someone was like the new state of development, you know, idea, first build,

and then the last 10% is this massive chart where the last 10% took up more than 60, 70% of the time.

And honestly, this is kind of how it's always been to try and polish that last 10%.

The problem is, when you have so much tech debt from all this AI and iteration for big projects, it's impossible to read the code.

So that last 10%, if AI can't fix it, you're kind of screwed.

It just doesn't, you're basically relying on it 100% with no safety net.

So you can't go to market with something like this.

It's just really important that people have that or know that up front.

And you might be thinking, Titus, just use a different model.

Models will not save you from just plain bad foundation.

You have to have maintainable code.

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It has to be readable.

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And then you could pass it off.

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I've also heard horror stories of like CEOs

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or someone from the C-suite making something or vibing something up and then handing it off to a development staff.

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That is the opposite of how that should go.

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It should be the development staff makes a mock and then gives it to the C-suite to look at, not the other way around.

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Where we're failing with AI is, or LLMs, whatever the hell you want to call it,

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is normal people still can't make software let's just be real here let's i'm going to say

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that and scream

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that from the mountaintops you have to know the foundations you have to think through the projects

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and understand what you're getting into even when i gave it proper instruction

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and just let it run wild it completely screwed everything up now it's on git

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so it's not a big deal let's get to and rewind to show you what I gave it, where we were at using Git.

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And if you don't understand Git, you should not be doing any of this.

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Git is the very first thing And it's so important to understand.

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I can't say that enough.

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It will save your bacon so much because this is 170 lines, 170,000 lines, thousands of dollars.

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Let's say if it's a company, it would have been probably tens of thousands of dollars it would have spent on.

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And now it has to be thrown away.

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So I'm going to go directly to this private repo because I didn't want this to be public.

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If you're interested in the code, I could make it public so someone can look over it.

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But I'm going to go back to before this all started.

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So here's the commit history for win one shot.

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I'm going to just grab this because I haven't pushed any of these changes.

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And we can just discard pretty much all of it.

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So the commands get reset, dash dash hard, and this.

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It's going to reset everything from here.

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So once we do this, say goodbye to the project.

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And then you're going to see how the project changes.

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Look at the current structure.

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And here we go with the git reset.

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So now we're back to this.

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And if we look at what we have, we have a sources, test tools, all this.

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These are untracked.

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We could actually get rid of these.

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We're going to just do a git clean FD.

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It's going to push out all these tests, everything that was wired up from it.

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So now we're working off of a clean from May.

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I'm going to do a clean and then the build really fast.

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It looks like there was a bunch of artifacts left over.

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So essentially we can use LLMs.

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I'm not saying I'm not anti-LLM.

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We can use it to troubleshoot this.

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Like, why didn't this reset happen?

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And it said there's a bunch of leftover sources in the OBJ directory.

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And then we looked through, it was still looking and referencing some of those sources from the source directory that was created by the LLM,

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which was causing the errors.

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So now that that's done, it probably will wipe out that.

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We're going to clean those generated paths and restore and build.

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And now we should be able to build the full release.

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Now it's successful.

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Now we can do a .NET run.

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And here is the project as it was before the LLM took over.

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Obviously quite a bit simpler, obviously not so much bloat.

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I did kind of like the sidebar.

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So while this seems like a massive waste, it did give me some ideas.

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Like I really did like that sidebar pop out.

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I might actually take that, implement it.

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That's actually a pretty good thing.

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Obviously still have to work on the config page.

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Updates page, I was kind of thinking through a few ideas here for like default security and disabling.

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This all kind of has a few different changes here.

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Obviously it's not reading my Windows version.

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This is actually Windows 11, not Windows 10.

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So this is not without its own bugs, because it was hand coded by me.

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But you got to look at the code at the end of the day, like this is what was there.

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It's so much easier to just kind of right there's my views.

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I don't have five or six different sub projects.

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It's very maintainable in this structure.

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So I look at the spec sheet and all the stuff that the LLM built over that.

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And the problem isn't the models.

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The problem is me, my ideas, how I instructed it, and then just letting it run wild without proper checkpoints.

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Bigger projects need those checkpoints.

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You need to understand before it just completely goes off the reservation

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and then makes 150,000 lines of code when it should be 10,000 lines of code.

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Well, I don't even know how many lines of code is in this entire project.

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Let's find out.

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Here we go.

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Roughly about 10,000 lines of code.

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So you see the difference there.

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And to manipulate this to be better,

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like removing the checkboxes, making those icons and those cards like I did in WinUtil, you can do all of that here.

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And the lines of codes change for that kind of implementation.

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We're talking maybe 100, 200 lines of code.

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Maybe it's in that ballpark.

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And it's so important to understand you can't just let these things run wild.

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So what this should be is go from here and say, hey, let's improve the cards.

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Instead of check boxes, let's add cards with icons.

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And then slowly go through and change the things that you need changed.

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And then go from there.

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That's probably the biggest takeaway from this is I think we're in an era where you have these extremes.

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You have people that don't have any business making software, trying to vibe up something and then handing it off to a professional.

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That should never happen.

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Professionals need to make it using these tools that can make it faster, but they are the ones to commit that structure,

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do those checkpoints, make sure it's doing it properly and making sure it's maintainable in the future. So important.

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And then the second thing is There's also people, the tech bros out there that just say, hey, make me an app, go.

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And then just sit there and reiterate, spending billions upon billions of tokens to make something that kind of works.

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But as soon as they go to market with this, it's going to fall apart.

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And then it's not going to be maintainable.

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And then all of a sudden they sold something that just doesn't work at all.

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And they're just like, oh crap, that was false advertising.

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And it just runs down this entire terrible cycle.

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So out of my last video, 10 projects for AI to do that I've done, I wanted to make a video today saying,

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here's where AI failed miserably.

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And I don't blame AI for this.

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I blame me for it.

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I should have checked in.

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It should have been a phased approach where after each phase, I'm checking the code and going, nope, stop, stop.

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That's just bad.

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No, we don't need to do that.

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We don't need to write 20,000 lines of pester tests for something that should never even be tested.

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We don't need to do all these other things

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that it ended up doing because it was just not the right way of doing it.

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So it ended up implementing it incorrectly.

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Not that it didn't work, but it's not done how I would want it being done.

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So hopefully this all makes sense to somebody.

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Don't one feel like, hey, you're a normal person and then you're just gonna be able to develop software that you never developed before.

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Small software, sure.

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Dashboards, go for it.

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I think normal folks should do that all day long.

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I do it.

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It's great.

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Like just look back.

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Websites, wow.

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Fantastic at websites.

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But when it comes to big projects, I very much caution you.

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You need to think of it as a pair programmer code review.

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It's fantastic at those things, fixing really like nuanced bugs.

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Like why the hell is it doing this weird glitch right here?

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Tell me why.

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And then it'll spit out and go, well, you idiot, you're utilizing it this way improperly.

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And you should be pulling this library.

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And you'd be like, Oh yeah, that, that makes sense.

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That's where it's at with great, like big projects.

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It's fantastic.

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It's a great tool for it, but it will never replace the programmer.

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It will never replace the developer.

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I think it'll cut down or make that developer a lot faster

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and it'll make them be able to do a lot more with less, but a replacement is not.

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And that's what this video was.

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This is just kind of a state of 5.6 Soul.

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You could say, hey, Fable 5 would have done a better job.

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Maybe, probably.

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I mean, I couldn't imagine doing a worse job than this.

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But I don't think it's a model issue.

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I think it's a me issue, an ideas issue, a foundation issue, an instruction issue.

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You have to think through these projects.

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You have to think through these problems before it encounters them.

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So it sets it up with a structure that can be maintainable and usable and verifiable.

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It's so important.

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anyways I hope this helps somebody with

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that let me know your thoughts down in the comment section and I'll see you in the next one

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 251 sentences and 2877 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:48. The speaker talks at a natural 171 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
reset verb	/ɹiːˈsɛt/	To set back to the initial state.
developer noun	/dɪˈvɛləpɚ/	A person or entity engaged in the creation or improvement of certain classes of products.
token noun	/ˈtoʊkən/	Something serving as an expression of something else.
essentially adverb	/ɪˈsɛnʃəli/	In essence: by nature.
sheet noun	/ʃit/	A thin bed cloth used as a covering for a mattress or as a layer over the sleeper.
roughly adverb	/ˈɹʌf.li/	In a rough manner; without kindness, softness, or gentleness.
commit verb	/kəˈmɪt/	To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto.
rely verb	/ɹɪˈlaɪ/	To trust; to have confidence in; to depend.
bug noun	/bʌɡ/	An insect of the order Hemiptera (the “true bugs”).
implement verb	/ˈɪmpləmənt/	To bring about; to put into practice; to carry out.
suite noun	/swiːt/	A group or train of attendants, servants etc.; a retinue.
icon noun	/ˈaɪ.kɑn/	An image, symbol, picture, portrait, or other representation, usually as an object of religious devotion.
instruction noun	/ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/	The act of instructing, teaching, or providing with information or knowledge.
dash noun	/ˈdæʃ/	Any of the following symbols: ‒ (figure dash), – (en dash), — (em dash), or ― (horizontal bar).
speculation noun	/ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/	The process or act of thinking or meditating on a subject.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
think through verb		To fully consider, so as to understand all the consequences of.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
blow up verb		To explode or be destroyed by explosion.
cut down verb		To cut downward.
fall apart verb		To disintegrate, to break into pieces.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go ahead verb	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	To proceed with; to begin.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 78 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, sheet /ʃit/, instruction /ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/, dash /ˈdæʃ/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: developer /dɪˈvɛləpɚ/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, directory /dɪˈɹɛktəɹi/, implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like reset, developer, token.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being rewritten · was just added · was added
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've built · it's always been · I've also heard

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: I Spent 1.5 Billion AI Tokens on Absolute Slop - Learn English Speaking with Video

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