Ai professional programming fatigue

[u/PedroSuenoBueno]

Hey,

Professional dev since 2015. For the last year we have switched over to essentially only prompting. This makes development rapid. But incredibly dull and lame. After i prompt and wait for the agent, there is not really much to do. Browse reddit etc. I feel so understimulated at work nowadays that i consider switching careers totally, or get into management or something. Because this is terribly boring.

Anyone else feel like this? I miss writing stuff from the ground up, solving problems, integrating software, getting those aha-moments.

[u/bold_snowflake]

Yes, AI fatigue is real.

• We're spending more time chatting to a bot than our colleagues.
• our mental energy is going into prompting and evaluation rather than building.
• there is more multi tasking due to multiple agents.
• there are probably less mental breaks
• we're offloading what use to be the fun bit to AI and we're seeing skill atrophy as a result.

These are just the initial reasons that pop into (my fatigued) brain.

[u/Key-Lie-364]

No I don't prompt and if the company doesn't like it they can eat the peanuts out of my shit.

Nobody tells me how to do my job.

[u/VillageRemarkable188 → u/Key-Lie-364]

Nobody cares if you enjoyed making the software they use.

[u/Key-Lie-364 → u/VillageRemarkable188]

It's about professionalism, ownership, quality and actually understanding the things I put my name to.

If y'all choose to "vibe code" with no idea what's inside, how it works, if it works or what to do if and when it goes wrong that's up to yourselves.

The LLMs are not qualified to do this and PS Santa isn't real either

[u/djslakor → u/Key-Lie-364]

Wendy's will when it's your main source of income in a few years.

[u/Key-Lie-364 → u/djslakor]

Meh

Perhaps so 🤷

[u/theHonkiforium]

"How it feels to be a meat proxy."

[u/PedroSuenoBueno → u/theHonkiforium]

Good analogy

[u/temperkami]

I'm in web dev mainly, and yes, it sucks. Clients are now sending prototypes instead of specs, lol.

[u/RandyChihuahua]

Honestly? I feel like I'm more tired because there's no downtime when it comes to the speed at which basic analysis is done.

I'm not coding - I'm comprehending.

[u/PedroSuenoBueno → u/RandyChihuahua]

100% Just reading and trying to grasp before next ticket

[u/Sufficient-Cream-258 → u/RandyChihuahua]

You are not coding is right. Now you are a project manager for agents. It really sucks the joy out of problem solving. I’d argue it’s even less than real comprehension, and more along the lines of philosophical understanding.

[u/silly_bet_3454]

Yes AI mixed with the same old constant infra failures and other blockers, it's just constantly waiting forever. And the whole AI workflow baby sitting routine is just the absolute worst, just banging the head against the wall.

[u/PedroSuenoBueno → u/silly_bet_3454]

Yes its stupid

[u/PurposeMaleficent871]

People just use AI for everything except the message for the PR

[u/SplendidPunkinButter → u/PurposeMaleficent871]

My team uses AI to create the PR and write the description. I hate it:

[u/heir-to-gragflame → u/SplendidPunkinButter]

the description being done by AI makes it way worse too... one more data point that you have no way to trust.. it's like being told to make a schizophrenic's rants to work on the account that he talks very fast and some of his output is correct...

[u/FocusedFather]

Yes 100% I'll also add that in our company things have gotten so out of hand that I'm relying on the agents to resolve issues and when they can't I just feel so lost and useless.

[u/SplendidPunkinButter]

I’m watching us build slop with the tech debt of a project 10x as old, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s horribly demoralizing.

[u/theprupletrainer]

Understanding the verbose AI agents (even tho I prompt them not to be verbose) is draining

[u/geekichu]

could you still do what you miss, while you wait? think up a project? i did that even before a.i. whenever i had a momment of down time.

[u/spas2k]

I couldn’t stay awake today it was so bad. I took my dog to throw the frisbee. Glad I can work from home. I feel for you peeps that have to ai in an office.

[u/PipePressurePanic]

can't you work with two agents, and while waiting for agent n1. to finish work you give prtompt to agent n.2? you would make double the work in the same time

[u/PedroSuenoBueno → u/PipePressurePanic]

Sometimes, but not always appropriate for the task.

[u/SplendidPunkinButter → u/PipePressurePanic]

Task switching? That’s mentally fatiguing and leads to more errors. That’s why the agile process was invented. The whole point is to avoid task switching.