If You Aren't Using AI, You Are Legacy

Then I guess I am legacy. I stay up-to-date with AI. I play with it a bit to see what it’s capable of doing. But for the most part, I like writing my own code. I have heard too many horror stories about AI writing, bad code and developers needing to spend more time correcting the AI than they do actually writing code. The fact that someone who does not know the fundamental principles of development are creating apps scares me. Especially from a security standpoint.

Yea sure. Whatever. Keep telling people they're useless without a computer crutch.

It's a shame people like Chris Gambill think they need AI to stay relevant. Makes me glad I don't have to fool myself into feeling good about my oppressive job.

What will actually happen is that the vast majority of coders will become completely dependent on AI. Anything the LLM can't do, they won't be able to do. Their output quality will be no better than the output quality of the LLM. If the AI is offline or their token budget runs out, their productivity drops to near zero. They will not be software engineers, merely dime-a-dozen LLM operators.

And the AI advocates might talk big about elevation and becoming architects but don't kid yourself: even for the fraction of coders capable of becoming architects, there isn't enough architectural work to be done for all of them to remain employed.

Sure, by all means, use AI. It is useful and quite powerful when properly wielded. But take care as well because it is shaping you as you use it and you might not like what you end up becoming.

100% agree! Not only will it keep you up to date, but I think updating your workflows to include agents and LLMs will make the work of a data engineer more engaging. You get to focus on a different level of problem solving that is even more impactful.