The Quiet Guilt of Coding with AI
tomquirk.me
tomquirk.me
An assembler?
A chip die you didn't design and tape out yourself?
What about a library?
A framework?
An external service or product?
I've looked up opcodes on a little insert and hand entered the hex digits on a little hex keyboard.
I can't say I've ever felt guilty when using MS-Dos debug to "assemble" the opcodes instead. Or MASM or turbo assembler.
What you feel is what you feel. And that might not be rational, but if your feeling is valid about using LLMs, surely the same arguments should apply to using a framework or library?
Maybe you could try moving your focus from the code to the product. Even if you use tools to produce it - the product design and quality are still yours. You chose what tools to use and how to evaluate the product quality and design.
You can have a change of heart. Nobody says you can't; but you don't get to go back. In that sense, I say that guilt on usage of an AI is warranted. There was a way to get there, properly and these people have admitted the only reason these things exist is because they so broke the rules of ethics wholesale. I will not reward anyone for that, and consider any work product reliant on it as indellibly tainted.
The technology I have no issues with. The manufacturing and sourcing process I absolutely do. It was taken, not given and even worse, it isn't given back, but sold back. That's not okay. Consistency matters. If we're just going to ignore rule of law, then all I've really got left to work with is shame. And one who lifts the public good, without asking and erects a tollbooth and cash register around it, is one worthy of being shamed.