So im having a “issue” that might not be an issue? Ill explain.
Most of work is going full AI. We have around 20 developers. Its about 3/4 that are using AI to do ALL the work with Claude. Earlier in the year, everyone got a ton of AI credits and the amount of “Finished” products have popped out in mass. The amount of projects we have had is skyrocketing.
Now for the problem. Half the projects have terrible bugs. Pages that go no where, bugs that are VERY hard to find in the code (because its filled with code smells). And sometimes the site/program/etc… will just stop working for no reason because they decided to use some old version of react instead of anything modern. Because AI.
Even the ones that work will often be very difficult to debug if its just something the AI did or something the user did.
So a LOT of AI projects are getting abandoned…for more AI remake projects. I cant even call it iterations because no one learned anything making the last project.
Now once in a while I do use AI. It was part of my research back almost 20 years ago. But its mostly for one offs like creating a command line argument in python or give the the reference page for xyz feature. But I dont have it write the entire codebase for me. Seems like a recipe for disaster. And ive seen it bork a couple of peoples machines before.
I dunno am I the old man yells at clouds now?
Its a strange feeling. I kinda get it, its easy to turn off your brain. But thats KINDA why I get paid. To think right? To solve the issue whatever it is.
Use it to skip the part where you type it all out yourself, and go straight to the part where you review the draft code.
Its not a ‘do my job for me’ imo its predictive text on roids.
The part where I type it out is the part where I come up with better ways to do it, though.
Also the part where I store a mental map of it so I know where to look when something breaks.
Yeah. It’s not why I became a programmer, to tell something else to program for me. Might as well find another job in that case.
Our job is to think of logic patterns that solve problems, not necessarily to manually type them out ourselves.
Its valid that the typing part means something to you, im just saying it is possible to integrate it without turning your own brain off.
i disagree with this take, when i type code out i start to see flaws in my own logic and am able to adapt it because i can start to see the bigger picture as it comes together. also when i start to see code smells i can decide to change my approach and refactor it to fit the problem better.
AI just gives you what you ask sometimes. sure it does it quickly but it doesn’t care about those logic bugs while introducing more through misunderstanding of intent. good luck finding it in review, especially when you have 10 PRs of 5-10k lines to review in a day because your manager has lost their mind and other developers appear to forget libraries exist. oh and you had feedback on one of those PRs? well lets just regenerate a complete new codebase and start from scratch.
i forget who said it but they mentioned it’s a DDOS on human intelligence and energy and i really have to agree.
I enjoy the typing part as well, yes.
The reason why I like the typing part is because it forces me to really think about my code. Often enough I realise that the model I had in mind for my code is not perfect and that it makes sense to change it now, so that future development gets easier. If I would have outsourced the typing to the AI, its possible, that I would have not realised that. This is especially important, when thinking about how I want to integrate a subsystem into the rest of my codebase, because that is nothing I would outsource to AI.
These coding LLMs are essentially like a vacuum that sucks your brain dry. Anything you do with it is used to train: those comments you leave in a PR, the instructions you give within the chat thread, the manual fixes you make to the broken output, etc. So you lose ability, while the models gain ability.
The logical extreme here is that, in the future, the only way humanity will be able to code/write/design/whatever is through LLM products, because everyone forgot and stopped learning.
Whether or not you think that’s progress, I think everyone can agree that what is definitely bad is that those models are centralized and controlled by a small group people (who also happen to be the worst people). It is the ultimate tech bro monopoly strategy, to win complete control over 100% of the high skill sectors of our economy. Any child not born to a billionaire family circle will only be able to make a living from physical labor.
Not very extreme from what I see.
It regularly happens for a lot of things to smaller extents (who can make a computer to run their code? I’ll hypothetically give you RISC V source and lots of money for materials and see if you can manage without giving said money to the company that creates fabrication machines) and AI just reduced the bar for the user, in a way that enough people might just want to give up trying to understand how stuff works.