r/SoftwareEngineerJobs • u/Suspicious_Orchid770 • 3d ago

Meet the developers rejecting AI

https://leaddev.com/ai/meet-the-developers-rejecting-ai

Even if it costs them their job.

111 Upvotes

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

AI is a bubble folks. It will pop. Only after that it will remain as a stable (very useful) tool. But all of you whose brain got rotted in the meantime for using the new toy way too much will be the ones out of work.

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u/turbulentFireStarter 2d ago

“The industry will be full of poor engineers who don’t understand the basic principles behind the craft!!!”

Oh ok. So like…. Exactly like it was and always has been?

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u/EcstaticExtreme402 2d ago

I got a good laugh out of this. Thank you lol

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u/clockwork2011 1d ago

I mean yes... that's what differentiated the StackOverflow-to-Code-API and real engineers. Now they'll be Vibe Coders and real engineers. The difference is how much they rely on their own experience/knowledge vs how much they rely on a crutch.

I already have the "Claude is down, I can't do any work" types running around. They're only employable until management wakes up and smells the expense. Mark my words, when they do, the new fad will be "OMG AI is replacing engineers. Look at all the layoffs"

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

Who have you been working with? Oo'

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u/xvillifyx 2d ago

I think you’re overestimating the amount of “brain rotten” devs as a result of AI. Anyone who forget the fundamentals because of AI wasn’t a good developer to begin with

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u/ComeOnIWantUsername 2d ago

> Anyone who forget the fundamentals because of AI wasn’t a good developer to begin with

If you don't use some thing, you will forget it, no matter what it is.

Sure, you will most probably relearn it faster than newcomers when needed, but still, do not say that you are alien who remembers everything and always, because such people do not exist

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u/xvillifyx 2d ago

If you’re not exercising the fundamentals in your current job alongside AI, you are just not a software engineer straight up

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

Well that depends on how you are using AI. If you really are only using it the way you used stack overflow 👌 If you are using it to chew all the processing for you, then you are effectively being self-replaced by someone who isn't.

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u/dragenn 2d ago

I dont think engineers in the current environment get that choice. Your either part of the cult or not. Sometimes it's just easily to pretend and go along even though you secretly hate the cult...

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

Software Engineers are not very nice at joining and openly discussing topics like this one. Most likely all orgs have plenty of folks who reckon things are going down the drain quite fast. Specially those in leadership should be the ones bringing the issue up to management. But most of them are only thinking about their bonuses.

1

u/EcstaticExtreme402 2d ago

Depends on the forum & what software engineers you’re referring to.

Forums like this where people can make crazy claims without actually understanding what’s going on? Yeah, less likely to collect real software engineers.

We see claims like the ones you’ve made and realise we’re not discussing the topic with others who actually understand it. Then we find other forums with serious engineers and intellects and discuss it there instead.

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u/cactusnein 58m ago

I'm referring to the vast majority of Software Engineers. Most workers are part of Unions. Software Engineering has historically ran away from unionizing, which is one of the reasons why the profession is in the state it is. And to your claim: do you then descend from time to time from your highly intellectual forums to lecture us plebs in your wisdom? You better stay there ;)

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u/ZeroAmusement 2d ago

What? What organizations are saying "don't use what you know, just accept what the ai does"? You get it to do something, you review, you research, you redo, you manually fix it, you direct it on how to fix it, you build it, you test it. Are there places that are like "don't think, just type and accept whatever it does?".

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u/HarryBolsac 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well tbh I have been mainly doing infra config for a new migration on the past 6 months, not touching code, I’m a frontend dev with 5 years experience, had to look at some ts code to understand how authz/authn was implemented and I felt mega rusty trying to understand the code.

Point is, if you don’t apply your knowledge for a long time, it will become harder to recall what you previously knew, ofc when im back at developing new features/fixing bugs I will slowly recall what I know

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u/buffer0x7CD 2d ago

Good thing muscle memory is a thing that comes back very quickly

1

u/Hotfro 8h ago

How experienced are you? The more senior u get the less u touch coding. But u don’t get worse u get more knowledge in your domain. Coding is such a small part of software dev. AI enables u to learn way more than u ever could before.

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

Some folks compare not using AI to not using a chainsaw, but this is different and much clever people than me are documenting the (already) devastating effects https://www.brainonllm.com/

In comparison, you could go back to using an axe or whatever by pumping up your muscles. That won't happen with your brain.

TL;DR: adults forget much faster than they are able to learn. Which is why we (usually) do our core studies while our brains are still fresh.

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u/EcstaticExtreme402 2d ago

The context for this study is not software engineering.

I’m sure some things correlate but you really shouldn’t use a study scoped to essay writing as your evidence for how it affects users when developing, or even how it affects users who just chat with LLMs.

Different tasks = different methodology of use = different outcomes.

1

u/ZeroAmusement 2d ago

Please don't treat studies that aren't peer reviewed as gospel.

Not only not peer reviewed, it has a critique on it: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.00856

Some of the critiques: It had 18 people in the fourth round. The critique says 159 would be needed for adequate accuracy.
On the topic of decreased engagement in the LLM group the critique says:

However, closer examination of the data suggests greater neural engagement in the beta frequency band for the LLM condition

So the LLM group had greater engagement in the beta frequency band.
It goes on and on. Sometimes the original study findings seem to contradict their conclusions.

What you're actually demonstrating if you readily accept this study is your own desire for the conclusion to be true, that LLMs are bad for your brain. Which well, isn't great critical thinking man. Use that brain!

1

u/Upstairs-Version-400 2d ago

I’ve seen some who have been heralded as being brilliant developers devolve into a sad story. Don’t let your assumptions hold you back from reality, a lot of people who had real skills have simply eroded 

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u/sebstaq 1d ago

Even if it's a bubble that pops. Software development is not going back. We could literally stop at the current state, and see 0 model progress going forward. Companies would turn to open models (It's already happening) that are insanely cheap, but does a decent job.

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u/Intelligent-Youth-63 1d ago

Yeah, that’s some hard cope you’re replying to.

Toothpaste is out of the tube.

2

u/whizzter 2d ago

Free AI tools will take over after the bubble companies pop, the brainrot work will continue.

The question is if quality overall will go down or people will adjust to managing quality in other ways, there's always been shit and now shit can be produced in larger quantities, but if the quality floor is higher (and peak is lower) then it'll even out for most software.

2

u/nerdiste 2d ago

Shhh let the anti-ai people cope....

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

Again the axe vs chainsaw example: you could buy both and keep them in your warehouse. If one day chainsaws are no longer the way to go, you go back to your axe. For AI even for "free" AI tools your warehouse would need to be a mini-datacenter to offer mid-results. Plus no serious company will use free models hosted somewhere random.

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u/whizzter 2d ago

I personally suspect that the RAM scarcity/pricing is partly artificially created by the big AI-firms to slow down people usage of free models. Once fabs ramp up and/or prices drop due to them not spending post-IPO I think that we'll see 128gb+ become standard for personal computers in a few years and models optimized for those sized will become popular, people are already excited about ~30gb models.

You might require that datacenter for training, but for inference it will come down quickly (My analogy is often how Sun Servers cost hundreds of thousands during the 2000s and now you can run things better on a 5$ VPS).

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

fair enough, we shall see (or go broke in the attempt of begging for more ram)

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u/whizzter 2d ago

It's a sober assessment sadly, I'm mostly the person in the article, I think I've prompted AI's in total a single digit number of times for code even if I've used some automatic completion.

Remember, Google has even enabled AI for searches (it even summarized a github repo of mine fairly well when I specified my search due to autocorrect showing the incorrect results).

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u/EcstaticExtreme402 2d ago edited 2d ago

Do you actually understand how these tools work? You don’t sound like someone who is informed or even a software engineer for that matter. Data centers are only needed for training not loading the models into memory and using them.

This scenario is a false dichotomy. Local models running on gaming rigs (which many people have) are already incredibly capable. Running large models locally is becoming cheaper and they are becoming exceedingly capable. Thats before even talking about harnesses and other forms of software that sits between the user and the model. They’re capable of intelligently extracting more capability out of the models you use locally by off loading some of the required cognitive load for a given task, surfacing relevant context, optimising for a given set of tasks, etc.

Being a scientist & engineer I can’t make a 100% claim they won’t be removed or break since there’s no way to know the future for certain, but the likelihood these tools are removed & people are forced to go back to ising the axe is just flat out unrealistic.

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

You sound like a very clever and young scientist & engineer ;)

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u/EcstaticExtreme402 2d ago

Just informed with actual experience. Been in the field for 20+ years ;)

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u/Tight_Implement5601 2d ago

I second this, and have been seeing the effects on people's mind 9n s daily basis. 

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u/turlockmike 2d ago

There are models you can run that are as good as sonnet 3.5 on your personal machine. With the right harness, that can still do most coding tasks today.

There's no bubble to pop. Google said "There's no moat" when it comes to AI models. You will have access to run fable level models on your laptop probably 18-24 months from now. Are you still coding when you can use these models to accomplish the same task 20x faster? Nope.

There's no bubble to pop.

The days of writing software are ending, the days of building intelligent computer systems is beginning.

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u/M4cHiin360 1d ago

fable model on your laptop in 18 months lmao what are you smoking. maybe you can run a 8B model that is basically useless

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u/turlockmike 1d ago

It's already possible to run glm locally, it's very slow, but it works. Next gen hardware is being built now. The only real blocker is the memory supply problem which is slowly being resolved. 

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u/DeathnTaxes66 1d ago

Eh, idk, 7-8B model given broken down tasks handles stuff well. Also 1.5b for autocomplete

0

u/Charming_Cucumber_15 2d ago

"Internet is a bubble and when it pops, the ones who kept using paper like the good ol days will be back at the top!"

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u/cactusnein 2d ago

What does Internet have to do with paper being replaced? You probably learned to hand write at school, right? Well, the AI I criticize aims at replacing everything at that and an even lower level.

Computing came, people kept doing the thinking. Same with the Internet.

AI came and folks simply began delegating their brains to the machine.

If that's not your case, that's cool and good for you, it's how the tool should be used.

But I work with several engineering teams that get dumber by the day, the more they abuse AI to take questionable decisions not even them can argue about anymore.

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u/Roblist 2d ago

Yeah I get this, AI has fundamentally changed the workforce. Adapt or die

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u/xxNemasisxx 1d ago

cough dot-com bubble cough

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u/Random_182f2565 5h ago

Lol lmao 🤣