Technology

I had this experience once. We have a ChatGPT license where I work, and I asked it to configure a switch that I wasn't familiar with. I simply described in words what network architecture I wanted and it did it! It even made some nice-looking documentation.

But, then I tried the new configs, and they didn't work. It turns out there were some key syntax things it got wrong. And the documentation was wrong on top of that, with incorrect diagrams, and when I asked it to fix it it made different errors I the diagrams in different places. On balance, I still saved some time over reading all the manuals and figuring out the syntaxes myself, but only because I made my own documentation with the results that worked. If I had trusted the AI I would be sunk.

I've concluded that AI gives the illusion of competence, like a overly confident new manager. This can be very attractive to a less experienced person. But it's really guessing, just like we all are. It can just guess after actually "reading" all the manuals. I haven't used AI to write anything more than simple configurations and helper scripts. If I did want to use AI for more it would be in more of a pair-programming context. I might have a window open where I describe some things and ask for analysis, but I wouldn't just run anything it does blindly.

25year swe here. If AI disappeared tomorrow I'd "Oh no... anyways" in 2 seconds. AI's a nice tool, it provides slight value. I'd miss it like I miss auto formatting or integrated terminals in IDEs, not really a big deal.

It's almost like all Big Tech sells is addiction.

I can kind of relate. There are a lot of parts of coding I find a little boring.

• Once the interesting problem is solved and all you need to do is follow through
• Large scale refactorings in ways too complicated for an IDE.
• Fixing annoying dependency / migration issues

When you use an expensive AI agent, like Claude, it can nowadays handle these tasks competently, to the point where I only need to correct small things here and there.

When you give these tasks to an AI agent, it feels a bit like delegating to a junior, but without the guilt of giving someone a menial or boring task. That allows me to work on stuff I find more interesting. To me, THAT'S why it's adictive.

However, this isn't without cost. First, there's the societal costs: Environmental, centralization of power, contribution to hardware shortages and a bubble

Second, there are more personal costs. You'll come to rely more and more on these tools, and your skills will rust. You may end up avoiding learning things about a codebase because you delegate it away.

It's a tempting tool. One which in my experience can genuinely help, but is easy to misuse.

Addictive? What the fuck are they coding?

Every time I try to use AI for coding I just get endlessly frustrated and angry.

I was very hesitant to get on board with AI tools for software development for a long time, but my company just got us all Claude Code a couple of months ago and are encouraging us to use it. I know there is a pretty big stigma around AI in general, and I think the vast majority of AI integrations are a waste of resources at best. That being said, I've been using it in my workflow for a while now and have found it to be surprisingly useful. In my opinion, in its current state, it is still just a tool, and it has a number of shortcomings (even using the most current and "powerful/capable” models). I've found myself mostly using it for testing, documentation, and boiler plate stuff, and it genuinely has made me a lot more productive.

I still write a lot of code myself, because I believe I'm still far smarter and more capable than it is when it comes to designing and implementing new software. If it disappeared tomorrow, I'd be just fine. I would miss the convenience it provides, but it currently it's not anywhere near the point of being able to replace me.

Coding with AI is really leaves you in a similar mental state as if you've just scrolled tiktok reels during that time.

So my preferred agent atm is GitHub Copilot as a jetbrains plugin. The other day when GitHub had a 6 hour outage and I couldn't log in, my first instinct was "guess I can't work today". I realized almost immediately how fucking dumb that initial thought was. Like I had forgotten that I've been doing this for over 20 years, and around 17 of those with no AI whatsoever.

Was I slower that day? Yes absolutely. Was I incapable? Not at all.

I wouldn't want to do without it, because on the positive side it has helped me discover libraries and tools I had no idea existed, and it's made me a better archtitect. But, maybe we should still actually touch the code a little.

I use it to whip out bash and python scripts quickly. I review them to see what it is doing. If AI disappeared it would just slow me down but not stop me.

I don't really derive a sense of accomplishment from it, so I don't get the dopamine hit. It's more write a simple bash script to do X because I hate working in that syntax, or this library has terrible documentation, tell me how I'm supposed to use it.

You still need to read and understand everything it writes, but it's easier to validate something is correct sometimes rather than figure out the correct way to do something.

Also the freaking essays it writes as comments burying the useful information in the equivalent of a recipe blog post when you really just need assumptions about input, and side effects.

I find it anti addictive. Work is pretty aggressive (but now not too aggressive thanks to cost, but still a bit aggressive). So everyone is expected to show some utilization or be shunned. For the first time, I find myself thinking it might be nice to get out of this entire industry, if only I could afford to

Anyway, I managed to consume what was my monthly quota in a week and was quite happy that I could credibly ignore AI for the next three weeks.

Then disappointed as an administrator quintupled my quota the next day.

Though nothing is nearly as annoying as everyone else's use is AI. I hate using it, and it's just even worse dealing with the consequences of other people using it.

The only utility I've had with it is as a slightly more fancy document search. "Give me the syntax for [one line of code I want but can't remember]" or "Give me the syntax to do a c# style .select() call in [language I am less familiar with]"

And then I look at the docs and actually put the effort into understanding how the fuck things work.

Using it for anything more than that is a mistake. You still need to understand the context of what it is you're doing, you still need to think.

The biggest chilling effect I noticed, even as a developer who refuses to use AI, is that I feel like I can no longer ask my co-workers for advice. When I do, I get the the AI equivalent of "let me Google that for you, was that so hard?" So even without using it, I feel cut off from the normal places I would use to learn and improve my coding skills.

It is like drugs in the sense I have to keep going to my boss to ask for more tokens. They expect us not to write any code by hand and have a bot that checks so eventually I run out of tokens every few days and have to ask them for more. I can't work without them ( I actually like writing the code by hand anyways but they said not to lol ). Then they get mad when I use too many tokens so idk what the fuck they want anymore.

I just want to make useful things and not be micromanaged anymore

The internet is the purveyor of many addictions, gambling, pornography, gaming etc.... the difference is, whereas a generation ago the Baby Boomers were able to hold account the Tobacco companies for their addictive products, our Current generation is failing to do the same for tech companies and their addictive products.

The problem is cigarettes cant get people elected, while social media campaigns do, so business is now the legislator in a lot of cases. its a form of regulatory capture, really.

it's like gambling. you hope it churns out good stuff -- and some of the time, it does! lucky!

then you try your luck again. and again with small "fixes". and again.

This is a small, fairly biased survey with unpublished proper metrics. Whether you agree or disagree with the result, this is bad science.

But coding is fun and there's lots of free resources to help. What could be fun about begging an AI to write poorly made code?