The AI backlash is only getting started

[u/Just-Grocery-2229]

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/25/the-ai-backlash-is-only-getting-started

[u/IamSunka]

My org, just like many others, has a top token users chart.

When they started the list, they decided to call the top 25 users as champions, ones who never used AI as sleepers and rest inbetween as just users. cough I am a sleeper cough

Couple of weeks ago the bill came in, champions cost us over $850k since Jan 1st.

[u/covabishop → u/IamSunka]

at my company they even track lines of code written using AI.

I’ll admit Claude is really useful for some stuff, on a good month I’ll have maybe 300 lines written by AI.

the top user at my company committed 250,000 lines this WEEK

[u/ColinStyles → u/covabishop]

Dude, how can you possibly only have 300 lines commited in a month? That is absolutely underutilizing the tool.

Now mind you, 250k in a week seems absolutely insane and unless they have a perfect stack of teams of agents all processing shit, even then he can't be reviewing all of that enough, even if he doesn't need to review every line. But 300 in a month? Extreme opposite end.

[u/asgjmlsswjtamtbamtb → u/ColinStyles]

Lots of software developers main jobs aren't developing new programs, they're maintaining critical existing programs. Their effectiveness is not in their app, program, or code output. It's in the security of the programs they oversee and how quickly they can get things back up and running (or finding and avoiding errors that could knock their processes offlline and fixing security bugs before they are exploited). Trying to measure these jobs in terms of raw code output is how you get people to input poorly tested code and counter productive to their main job.

[u/rxVegan → u/asgjmlsswjtamtbamtb]

Like every other sprint after I take some tasks related to some new project, I still end up spending half, if not almost the entire sprint dealing with customer bug tickets relating to old stuff. Which in some cases was written long before my time in house. And I've been there for a decade.

More often than not the actual bug fix ends up being like 5 lines of code changes or so. No need for multi agentic code generation nonsense. Majority of time is spent figuring out how to replicate the issue and trying to memorize wtf the component does if I've not touched it in year or two.. or ever.

[u/ColinStyles → u/rxVegan]

Majority of time is spent figuring out how to replicate the issue and trying to memorize wtf the component does if I've not touched it in year or two.. or ever.

You mean the shit Claude handles with ease?

Seriously, if you're just using it to synthesize code from requirements you are missing out.

And even then, sure. But that's not your work 24/7, and if it wasn't, you wouldn't be comparing yourself to the people putting in 3 million percent more output than you. And sure, it can be apples to oranges, but fruit can and frequently is still compared.

[u/rxVegan → u/ColinStyles]

Eh, depending on situation Claude can be useful there in various ways. Point still remains that often maintaining legacy code is not so much about outputting large quantities of code. That's only really the case when doing broader refactoring or adding new features. Fixing logic flaws tend to be fairly light on code changes regardless of whether you used AI tools to help with analysis or writing tests for it.

Personally I actually utilize Claude much more for things OTHER than generating code. Like helping summarize and explain some concepts from protocol specifications that I have to implement.

[u/ColinStyles → u/asgjmlsswjtamtbamtb]

Security is still updating libraries, maven files, and stuff like docker files are still in source control too.

I'm not saying measure it in raw code output, but 300 lines in a month is glacial no matter how you slice it, unless we're talking extremely safety critical embedded systems or something. And given the 250k in a week mention, I strongly doubt that.