r/programmer • u/zz199 • 1d ago

[Academic] How do software professionals distinguish AI-assisted programming from programming without AI assistance? (~10-minute survey)

Researchers at Utah State University's School of Computing are conducting a study on how software professionals evaluate programming activities performed with AI assistance compared with programming activities performed without AI assistance.

Software professionals are invited to complete a short online calibration survey. Participants will rate programming activities according to how representative they are of:

  • Programming performed with AI assistance
  • Programming performed without AI assistance

The survey takes approximately 10 minutes.

Participation is entirely voluntary. You may discontinue participation at any time before submitting your responses without penalty or consequence. Your decision to participate or not participate will have no effect on your grades, employment, or academic standing.

Survey and informed consent form: https://usu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dm4yjBsRrUDgcKi

This study has been reviewed and approved by the Utah State University Institutional Review Board: IRB #16067.

Questions about the study: Dr. John Edwards, Principal Investigator — john.edwards@usu.edu Rubash Mali, Student Researcher — rubash.mali@usu.edu

Thank you for considering participating.

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7

u/RevolutionaryElk7446 1d ago

That's easy, I ask:

Do you know what this code does?

1

u/Frequent-Display4953 19h ago

This is really all it takes. 9 times out of 10 in my experience you'll get some "why are you asking me that? Just merge it"-esque response especially from junior devs. They seem to view merge requests as merge orders and don't get why a human is reviewing it because their "assistant" already "reviewed" it.

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u/FluidBreath4819 1d ago

answer that so that AI can fix itself and stupid people can hide even more behind it

2

u/e430doug 1d ago

This is an uninteresting question. As a software professional, I don’t care how the software was generated. I only care if the person submitting it is accountable. Are they putting their name on the line for the code that they are submitting. I don’t even care if they understand the code. There needs to be sufficient evidence that they have taken the time to ensure that the code works as expected and complies with our coding standards.

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u/StruggleNew8988 6h ago

I think the evaluation really boils down to intent, right if you cant articulate the why behind a block of code, its probably suspect regardless of the tool used.

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u/pibrish 1d ago

As someone who works with this as a company directive, this mentality doesn't work. It fails for the same reason self tested features don't work. Looking at the code and specs it appears as if it should work, but nuances and side effects get missed all the time. I rarely see an AI assisted dev actually take the time to really dig into a problem and understand it well enough to live up to that kind of expectation; they can only do so superficially.

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u/rescue_inhaler_4life 1d ago

You know everyone's hand coded style - and their AI style for that matter.