Hacker News Reader

Comment by sdevonoes | Hacker News Reader

Can’t we just sabotage AI? We have the means for sure (speed light communication across the globe). Like, at least for once in the history of software engineering we should get together like other professionals do. Sadly our high salaries and perks won’t make the task easy for many

- spend tons of tokens on useless stuff at work (so your boss knows it’s not worth it)

- be very picky about AI generated PRs: add tons of comments, slow down the merge, etc.

View on HN

I think you should be very picky about generated PRs not as an act of sabotage but because very obviously generated ones tend to balloon complexity of the code in ways that makes it difficult for both humans and agents, and because superficial plausibility is really good at masking problems. It's a rational thing to do.

Eventually you are faced with company culture that sees review as a bottleneck stopping you from going 100x faster rather than a process of quality assurance and knowledge sharing, and I worry we'll just be mandated to stop doing them.

> be very picky about AI generated PRs: add tons of comments, slow down the merge, etc.

But that's the opposite of sabotage, you're actually helping your boss use AI effectively!

> spend tons of tokens on useless stuff at work (so your boss knows it’s not worth it)

Yes, but the "useless" stuff should be things like "carefully document how this codebase works" or "ruthlessly critique this 10k-lines AI slop pull request, and propose ways to improve it". So that you at least get something nice out of it long-term, even if it's "useless" to a clueless AI-pilled PHB.

Generate hundreds repos of plain old spaghetti code and put it on github. Easiest thing you can do.

It really is the albatross around the neck of software and software adjacent professionals... How you don't see the value of collective action is wild to me. Most of you are still working class, you can't survive that many years unemployed...

But the Kool aid has been drunk, and the philosophy of silicon valley cemented in your field. It will take a lot of pain or work to get it to change.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com