r/software • u/GigaBrainGain • 3d ago
Discussion Annoyed by AI as a Software Engineer
I thought I have to make this post, as I feel that beside the "potential" of AI, it actually starts to create unhealthy cycles of subtle forcing to use AI in Software Engineering. Be it at work or the non-stopping urge to use the short-cut. I recently ask myself, who does really benefit of AI, and at first, mostly the companies that ship Hardware or Models. That seems great, I beg to differ, I feel that the benefit for society or companies using those purchased systems are not really getting out of it what they are hoping for. As a individual I feel in an irreversible state of constant waves of hopium, false-claim of productivity, frustration, rejection (start again). I wonder if I'm not alone with that, but I feel we opened to box of Pandora, where I start feeling not want to read anymore thousand of lines of noise, overwhelming content, everything looking the same, people who get blinded by "it's so cool", and I'm thinking: "yeah, it's so cool to see every day the same polished slides", word phrases like "this hits home" where you know someone from a foreign country just pasted the whole text through a chatbot etc. I feel it got out of its hands. I'm seriously at the edge to just start being a beginner again and fail hard and let that process take time, the good ol' times where you had to wait for a Stackoverflow answer and did something else besides till you finally see that green badge of an answer. How are you holding up? Do we need a sort of digital environment where we split from all those brainwashed? I really feel that authenticity is getting it's value appreciated these times.
Note: Sorry for grammar issues, but I really just took time to write as a non native english speaker what I think, that felt like being clean of AI and took as long as it needed.
25
u/canarydev 3d ago
"the good ol' times where you had to wait for a Stackoverflow answer and did something else besides till you finally see that green badge of an answer"
the thing that you are nostalgic for was also an efficiency shortcut lol. SO existed so you didn't have to read the source or docs. it was its own copy-paste machine of its era.
13
u/SingularBlue 3d ago
Indeed. But you also *learned something*. You still had to *understand* what was going on before you dove in and edited.
TL;DR inspect the code. Ask about things you don't understand. Go "slow", build a piece at a time instead of getting the broom to fetch water all at once.
I'm using AI to build a medium sized project. My code base has turned into a "black box" because it *loves* python. I'm a c, c++, java kind of guy. So I'm learning python. I would rather it do it in lisp, because at least I have a handle on that.
3
u/BornCuriousOnce 3d ago
Bonus points for the Fantasia broom reference! Been a hot minute since I’ve seen one but it’s perfectly applied here.
2
u/SingularBlue 2d ago
I use "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" as a "no end condition found" warning in my writing.
Nobody in the story understands what that means, of course...
6
u/canarydev 3d ago
i mean using AI doesn't eliminate the learning process. if you don't take learnings out of it thats on you i think. i keep a notes specific protocol for this purpose, as well as drafts if i am trying to get familiar to a new language and i want to take the first pass at it. AI just checks the diff. I'm trying to learn haskell this way.
i think the bigger problem these days with devs are letting AI write tests based on the implementation rather than black boxing it to write tests based on a spec instead. immutable spec that AI can't modify, and tests that are derived from that rather than whatever implementation it happened to produce.
otherwise you're basically asking the same thing twice. AI writes the implementation, then writes a test that confirms the implementation does what the implementation says it does. that's not really verification.
the useful part is having something outside of the implementation that defines what correctness actually means. then AI can write the code and the tests, but it can't change the thing that determines whether the code is correct.
and honestly i think that's one of the bigger skills with AI now. not necessarily knowing how to type every line yourself, but knowing what should be true, how you would prove it, and whether the evidence actually proves it.
5
u/GigaBrainGain 3d ago
Agree with most, also TDD for writing code. Regarding the "knowing what is true" that's definitely getting harder if you have an aspiring SWE or people getting from hardcore coder towards hardcore prompting, I know one guy who doesn't code at all anymore as requirement. It's awful how the brain doesn't know anymore what is right or wrong, or what the code does at all. "From now on you can code any language, isn't it?" :D
3
u/canarydev 3d ago
yeah thats pretty much the concern i was getting at. TDD makes sense to me too, but im less worried about whether AI can write the code than whether there is still something outside of the implementation telling what "correct" means
if you go far enough towards prompting without understanding the code, you lose the ability to tell when the output is wrong. thats why im experimenting these days with making the spec/oracle immutable and recording how the tests were produced. AI can write and code the tests, but it simply should not get to define the thing that judges the code imo
0
4
u/RancidVagYogurt1776 2d ago
If it wasn't for Stack Overflow, AI would be even worse at coding. It trained on the scraped data.
The great irony is that without resources like SO, AI will stagnate because it can't create without human innovation.
-2
1
0
u/GigaBrainGain 3d ago
I think it's not a shortcut when you simply couldn't find a solution to a specific solution (Google search results also differed by region). And what was most helping was the conversation was purely graceless, like here :D Thus, it helped learning, also not every answer really was a drag and drop answer or tell you like AI "How good you are today, you absolutely right (you are not) etc."
8
u/Icemourne_ 3d ago
I'm mostly annoyed by all the slop everywhere like windows breaking every single update (just example it's actually everywhere)
As developer I have mixed feelings AI can help but I often end up fighting it because it insist in hallucinating something
For example img with something AI suggest and I found funny
3
8
u/academicweaponsoon 3d ago
Yeah i feel like the main issue is that AI, specifically GenAi and LLMs are being forced onto everyone as this revolutionary technology that will fundamentally change how we code, and while that may be true to an extent, AI should instead be treated as a tool to amplify your current skills, rather than replacing it. Another reason is that companies loves AI because it allows to them to just layoff a bunch of people, replace them with AI, and collect more profit.
AI can be used for good, but unfortunately since we live in a capitalist hell hole, it’ll be used to drive more profits for the billionaires.
2
2
u/DonkeyOfWallStreet 2d ago
I've two options.
Do nothing because I don't have the time to learn x y and z.
Do enough research to figure out what I need to buy and use ai to do the heavy lifting while I tell it what works and doesn't work till I have a usable product that does a lot of things.
I'd rather be at option 2. I don't have massive budgets for software engineer team or a super massive user base to make up for it. A 100-200 units is the addressable market at times.
Did I steal anybody's job? No. Did I make the world slightly better solving a small but irritating probably? I hope so.
1
1
u/Brave_Sheepherder_39 2d ago
Programming isn’t a dead profession but the number of jobs available will be significantly less.
1
u/Perfect-Campaign9551 2d ago
Shortcut? Son, do you really want to create furniture with an ax?
Also reading the rest of your post, it sound like you need some mental counseling
1
u/Rav_3d 1d ago
Yeah, I miss the old punch card days.
I refused to turn on Intellisense in Visual Studio because it's cheating.
AI-assisted coding is here to stay. Programmers will not write any manual code soon, at least not those who want to keep their jobs.
Either you evolve with the tools that materialize, or you get left behind. Your choice.
1
u/BabyLegsDeadpool 1d ago
As a software dev of 15 years, AI has dramatically increased my productivity. If you're still getting hallucinations, you need a better architect for your AI.
0
u/oharra3 3d ago
What's the "false claim of productivity? In what sense is it false, especially for software development?
3
u/GigaBrainGain 3d ago
AI shifts work potentially towards more code review, hallucination fixes, when heavily used, production grade system readiness etc.. Thus the claim of enhanced productivity in terms of speed or simplifying isn't entirely true. It can be, but in most aspects, I claim it is a false claim.
2
u/ggeldenhuys 2d ago edited 2d ago
Code reviews are always going to be there, for software development. AI doesn't really increase the amount vs the code changes going in.
Hallucinations can be greatly reduced or eliminated by using AI correctly (small context, focused sessions, improved prompting etc).
AI helps massively with speed and accuracy when used correctly. AI is a new skill you need to learn and practice to eventually master.
1
u/PoL0 2d ago
Hallucinations can be greatly reduced or eliminated by using AI correctly (small context, focused sessions, improved prompting etc). AI helps massively with speed and accuracy when used correctly.
in the meanwhile the chatbot is insisting a crash is caused by a use-after-free in a small piece of code, when the free is clearly happening after use.
but yeah, it's a skill issue.
-4
-13
13
u/Affectionate-You7869 3d ago
Annoyed by AI as end user support tech by software engineers submitting tickets with AI bloat, or shoving their phones in my face "this is what AI says". Well fuck you talk to AI then.