You’re already using a computer to automate massive amounts of what used to be manual human effort.
Why is using AI tools self-debasing or degrading?
Why is using AI tools self-debasing or degrading?
almost every developer i know is fully aware, we are degrading every aspect of our skills.
The code writing, code reviewing, code understanding.
The more "time" passes and the more the code base grows, the more disconnected we become.
If you really loved horseback riding, or you really loved breeding and training horses, or you were really good at it, I'm sure that cars fucked up your day, and that it sucked to see cars replace horses.
I'm sure there were plenty of people who said that cars were horrible and that we should stick with horses. I'm equally sure there have been C programmers looking derisively at Python programmers, Python programmers looking derisively at Node programmers, etc etc.
But there's a pretty big gap between the feeling of unhappiness that something you liked is no longer as in-demand / profitable / common / whatever, and saying that cars aren't useful and we're all worse off for letting our horse-riding skills degrade.
All of your analogies (in other posts) discount that: - LLMs are not deterministic - they do not produce high quality/expert level output. - They are not easy to control consistently.
Once again, and i mean this in the nicest way possible. You do not sound like you understand how things operate at an expert level of engineering. I do not know of any senior engineer who thinks LLMs can consistently produce quality output.
You are way too invested in your argument and refusing to see other perspectives
AI has radically improved my ability to parse and understand new codebases, to validate my hypotheses, and to work in complex systems.
I wish I knew what I was doing differently than almost every developer.
It is pretty obvious that when you come into a large incomprehensible codebase (which most are), AI will be able to reason about it more quickly and guide you through it.
I switched away from my work for a few minutes, but at the very moment I'm using AI to summarise some spaghetti code in a particular area in our codebase, so I can refactor it.
And that is my style of working at the moment. AI coding is useful, sometimes amazing, but sometimes irritating, and from experience I think just telling it to refactor this area would result in something I'm not happy with. So instead I'm getting a handle on it, I'll form the design I want, then tell it to do it. I have a feeling a lot of complaints are from people who won't bother to do that.
Programming is inherently analytical and logic-driven. It’s a great brain exercise, even if the code has no value. When you use AI, you lose that exercise. What replaces it isn’t the same.
I mean, consider. I can solve a crossword, or I can ask AI to solve the crossword. AI will do it perfectly, and faster too. But which one is better for my brain? What was my goal with solving the crossword, anyway? On the surface it was to find a solution to the crossword. But, maybe, deeper down, the goal was to improve myself in some way.
People conflate the improvement of products with the improvement of self. Maybe it’s a result of our consumerist mindset. But the truth is the product can improve greatly, and you can be making it, while you yourself degrade.
We write better and better code, at a faster rate, but are we better programmers than before? Maybe, maybe not. I’m leaning maybe not.
It’s not new or unique. The assembly line is the same. Sure, I can build better furniture faster at the factory than by hand. But what is the goal here? Is it to make the best furniture, or to become the best carpenter?
If it’s to make the best furniture, the best product, then I’ve won. If it’s to become the best carpenter, then I’ve lost heavily.
It's not clear to me why programming is inherently analytical and logic-driven but prompting and iterating with an AI is not. What about Applescript, where it's programming but in something closer to natural language?
The core of this seems to be that there are people who assume that users of AI turn their brains off the moment they open a Claude prompt. There are surely some people who are doing that, but there were also plenty of people who were shipping sloppy code before. There are far more people for whom this another tool in their toolbox.
Or, you know, to pass some time in an enjoyable way. To have fun.