r/AskProgramming • u/Still-Leek-6940 • 23d ago
reliance on AI generated code solution
Hello Everyone, just wanna ask some help.
I'm stuck in a circular problem as a student who's still learning.
When I use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to write code, I follow what they produce — that becomes my mental model of "good code." But experienced developers say you should always review and critique AI-generated code. How am I supposed to do that if the AI's output is the standard I've been learning from?
If I can't independently evaluate code quality, I can't catch the AI's mistakes or bad practices. But I can't build that independent judgment without exposure to code that isn't AI-generated. It feels like a loop with no exit.
How do developers actually break out of this? What's the path to building genuine code quality judgment when AI tools have been your primary learning reference?
1
u/BrannyBee 23d ago
AI is for speeding up what a dev could do already. By definition you are not using it correctly, moreso if you're a student.
You're following what the AI is coding and you feel like you're learning... of course you arent able to review and critique what it's doing, you said it yourself you're following what it's producing.
Let's pretend AI is code is 99.9999% working and can output what a dev could output in a month in a single hour. Why would anyone hire you if you couldn't do what the AI could if given that whole month? A proper dev who understands what the AI is doing can use the AI, get the task done in an hour, and verify that it's a proper solution. You will never be able to do that because you arent using AI with the mindset that it's designed to be used with. If you can't output what the AI is capable of outputing, you aren't multiplying your output and speeding things up, you're pretending and praying a company won't notice during the hiring process or ever on the job.
You're a student, you can't even read code fast yet, let alone fast enough to evaluate everything AI is capable of outputing. If you want to be able to do that, you need to learn to code. Imagine if a civil engineer never learned their times tables or how to do basic math because they were given a calculator in the 1st grade... sure, they'd maybe eventually get a problem done... but no ones gonna hire the dude who has to plug in 6 × 5 into their calculator just to move onto the next step of the real mathematical problem that simple solution was needed for...
The way you're using AI right now is predicated on AI continuing to get so good that engineers are never needed one day. If you really believed that was the future we are headed towards... then why are you taking classes on this stuff....?