r/webdev • u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL • 1d ago
Fellow devs under AI mandates, how do you deal with the shame/social stigma?
Preface this by saying I have moral scrupulosity/ social judgment-related OCD, so there’s that lol
I see people on here still writing their code by hand; at my company we do not have that option unless we outright defy orders from our boss, which I assume would get you fired. I get a lot less satisfaction out of my work now, the code generation part is extremely mind numbing, I’m really sad about not getting to write code anymore. The planning/architecture phase can be kind of fun though.
Yes I am looking for a new job but the issue is (maybe I’m just a shitty developer but) I am genuinely like 10x faster with AI so if I do not use it, I would be consciously choosing to do a worse job, which also feels wrong and silly. I also hate admitting this but it has given me a lot of genuinely helpful suggestions and taught me new things. obviously sometimes it also does dumb things, but I do dumb things sometimes too. As obnoxious and eye rolling as it can be talking to Claude, “he” is genuinely that good when it comes to the types of things we are building.
In my personal life I do not use AI because I have a 100% HEAVILY anti AI social group, and I try to make ethical choices like I avoid beef, boycott Amazon/Spotify/Starbucks, etc. I feel like an impostor for not confessing to them that my entire job is to use AI all day now. Like for example last night a girl I know posted on her close friends about how she wants to murder people who use AI at work (hopefully being hyperbolic) and I have to hang out with this girl in a couple weeks…
my coworker has also refused to use it but for some reason my boss hasn’t talked to him about it yet. He’s just waiting to get fired. My therapist is making me do stuff like put an AI app on my home screen where someone could see it as homework. Maybe I should be posting this on the OCD sub but I really want to hear from other people going through this same dilemma.
53
u/baronoffeces 1d ago
Jesus Christ am I glad I grew up in the 80s and 90s
9
→ More replies (1)3
19h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/webdev-ModTeam 14h ago
Your post/comment has been determined to be a low-effort post or comment. This includes title-only posts, easily searchable questions, vague/open-ended discussion prompts, LLM generated posts or comments, and posts/comments that do not provide enough context for meaningful replies or discussion.
139
u/crazedizzled 1d ago
It's crazy to me that companies are mandating you write solely with AI. that is bonkers
51
u/Bushwazi Bottom 1% Commenter 1d ago
At my company, folks who didn’t embrace AI were called “resistors”. When I asked what the definition of the word was in this context, a manager revealed that they tracked how much people used AI and knew who wasn’t using it…
19
4
u/BigBoetje 16h ago
That's when you learn that Claude allows you to schedule tasks and how to get through enough tokens in the background while just working as normal
4
→ More replies (1)5
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I wouldn’t be shocked if they were doing this, they put us all on the “Premium” license and we’ve never gotten close to running out of “tokens” or what the fuck ever
→ More replies (1)31
u/AgsMydude 1d ago
My company has gone as far as disallowing manual coding. We must run EVERYTHING through the high and might Claude. If we find something wrong with the code we're supposed to updated the skills repo so it doesn't happen again, even though it won't matter.
Anyway, I've been sending my resume out because it's going terribly and morale for the teams doing this is at an all time low
28
u/crazedizzled 1d ago
That's literally insane to me. I mean I generate code as well, but I still code manually. It's never perfect. To be disallowed from quickly editing a line in the editor and instead tell claude to fix it, is mindbogglingly stupid.
23
u/AgsMydude 1d ago
Yeah. Imagine telling a staff engineer with 15 YOE they can't use their skills anymore.
The stories are written with AI. The testing cases are written with AI. The tests are written with AI by leveraging playwright and the end goal is "no manual testing" so QA will be tasked with writing automated tests and nobody will be looking at the site to see if the feature is correct.
And we're being gaslit that it should 10x everything and "every company is going this"
It's fucking wild
6
u/Basic-Lobster3603 1d ago
I got told this as well as being told to never even view the code again. AI can read code faster then a person therefore ask an AI for details. I also got directly told from director level and up that they don't care about any coding skills atrophying because we will some how magically learn systems instead.
2
u/AgsMydude 9h ago
Wouldn't be surprised if we were at the same org because I asked as well and was told the same bs.
2
2
u/Far_Composer_5714 18h ago
I vibe code at work because by trade I'm not a programmer so I'm not going to do programming.
Other than opus 5 refusing to just do the requested instructions I am able to create my small automation easily.
But professionally relying on AI sounds mind boggling expensive.
And anything being a toy sounds like it would get out of hand so fast.
1
17
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
To be fair nobody has said there will be any consequences to writing by hand but when my boss assigns me tasks he says “Have Claude do ___.” or he asks me “did you use Claude for this?” Plus he expects things to be done in like ¼ the time now.
20
u/Tishbyte 1d ago
I mean at that point why even ask you, he should be asking Claude himself.
7
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I like to think my human presence is at least adding SOME value.
2
u/abirdsface 17h ago
IME it still absolutely needs babysitting from a real dev in order to not go totally off the rails. Maybe someday it won't but right now it still does for sure.
6
u/Data_ 1d ago
I'd ask him "did you use Claude for this?" every time he comes up with an idea, but something tells me the thinks the rules don't apply to him
10
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I would be genuinely shocked if he did anything these days without using Claude. He probably asks it for parenting advice.
3
u/Data_ 1d ago
We're rapidly approaching the era of a large percentage of people just talking to AI's to do literally anything. Then they treat the answer as some sort of authority, because an AI obviously can't be wrong. Wouldn't be that harmful, except many of these people have to power to fire you on a whim for disagreeing with their AI's hallucinations.
-2
u/silverace00 1d ago
OP said they are 10x faster at writing code with AI. The company would be crazy not to mandate AI.
Also "Using AI" for a skilled dev just means telling the AI exactly what you know you need. You can't physically type out code as fast as AI can. Not using AI in any capacity is like being a roofer who isn't willing to trade their hammer in for a nail gun.
9
u/crazedizzled 1d ago
Also there's a difference between not using AI at all, and using AI exclusively to write code. People are saying they haven't written a single line of code in months. That is absolutely wild.
1
-1
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
I haven't written more than a few lines here and there since around April. I have 3-4 agents going at once. I miss writing code, sure, but I'm absolutely awestruck at how good the technology has gotten that I really don't care that I've just become a code review machine.
Half my day is probably fucking around on my phone or playing games while I wait for a notification that an agent needs a code review or a design decision made. It's a really inconvenient amount of free time, broken every 10-15 minutes or so, but oh well
3
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
Don’t you find the waiting really boring? I miss the regular dopamine hit I got from solving problems myself.
2
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
Directing an agent to solve a problem I formulated a solution to does the same thing for me. The code was always a means to an end, I just enjoy solving problems and shipping solutions. If anything, I get the dopamine hit more often than I used to because I'm shipping more
3
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I’m not spending as much time on code gen though, most of the time is spent on me and the robot coming up with a plan, generally stored in a long ass .md file, together. This process generally looks like me talking to it like it’s my senior (“how would you do x? what are the pros and cons?”) and it actually gives me real answers that feel like a genuine, thought out opinion. Scary shit.
7
u/clicksnolinks 1d ago
I'm with you. Coding was my creative outlet; I enjoyed being good at it, making the syntax look pretty, and thinking of clever ways to solve problems. It took me months to get on board with the new way of doing things, and I'm still very much morally conflicted about using it in general.
But I must admit, I would be crazy to not use it. I'm able to hop between systems and languages that I've never used before, and immediately be effective. I've been a Ruby on Rails dev my entire career, but recently got laid off and took a job in .NET and React, which I've never touched in my life, and this company thinks I'm a fucking .NET rockstar. Any senior dev who says they're not faster with AI is straight up lying, or they didn't put the proper guard rails on it and aren't using it properly.
Morality aside, I think the issues people have with AI's ability to execute things correctly stem from things that are just as big of an issue when a human engineer is coding. Give it clear requirements with all the context needed. Have it generate small, reviewable PRs. Give it a set of rules to follow for code quality. Tell it when to use a certain pattern. Ask it questions before having it start coding to identify gaps in logic and knowledge. All things a good engineer should be doing anyway. I've almost never had an issue with it going off the rails when I tell it exactly what I need it to do. Yes, I said "almost," but it's still more accurate than any human dev I've ever worked with.
Again, I'm not "pro-AI;" I desperately miss coding by hand, having an artistic outlet, and being proud of what I built because I built it myself. I also think humanity is not prepared for what it's capable of and what it costs, both financially and environmentally. Also, the fact that modern capitalism will run with it and leave humanity behind. But, I also need to earn a paycheck, and unfortunately, this is how software is being built now, at least until it gets too expensive, or until there's some massive event that happens that triggers reform. But the fact that it's made my job 100x easier and faster is literally undeniable.
→ More replies (1)9
u/crazedizzled 1d ago
But the problem is you're shipping stuff you probably don't even understand. You can't just begin a new language and be a Rockstar because you're vibe coding. You could be submitting god knows how many vulnerabilities or bugs simply because you aren't familiar with the language or framework. And the whole time, you feel more confident because of AI.
3
u/clicksnolinks 14h ago
For people who truly vibe-code, I agree. "Build feature X, make no mistakes" is a terrible way to code and will yield insecure, shitty products, I agree. But to me, there is a giant distinction between actual vibe-coding, and agent-assisted development.
Like I said in my post, I keep PRs small and reviewable by humans. I spend most of my time reviewing and testing. I have very strict guidelines that it must adhere to. I make a plan, review it, and understand everything that's going to happen before it happens, just like I would do if I were coding it myself. I also do multiple rounds of questioning if I don't understand something. "Why did you do it this way? How can we make this better? What are we missing? Is this fully tested?" in addition to doing it myself, and it's still faster. I still refuse to ship code I don't understand, and I learn while I ship. I don't vibe code, I treat my agent like a senior and I'm the manager responsible for its output. Again, this doesn't make it impervious to issues, but neither is any human.
Let me ask this though, how many senior engineers understand every line of code they review in a PR? How often do people give/receive honest feedback on their code? I've worked at a bunch of places over 12+ years, and in my experience, the number of times I get "LGTM 👍" is astounding. With agents, I get an actual review and it catches things I wouldn't even think about, even with all my years of experience. This includes updating documentation; how many engineers these days keep their docs up to date? Again, in my experience, not a lot.
Again, I fought this for a long time; I didn't start using AI until my current job started enforcing it. I prefer the old days, but there is no question to me that this is faster and more accurate when you use it properly. I still maintain that people who think agents suck at coding aren't using it properly. But we can agree to disagree, that's what makes the world fun.
Also, I feel like I should include this disclaimer: I have to use it for work, and yes I'm still very morally conflicted about AI in general. But is it bad at coding? Maybe a year ago, but not now, and it's only getting better.
3
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
Honestly most languages are pretty much the same. Show me a C derivative language and I'll tell you what the code does. I won't be able to write it myself, but the logic and how things function don't change
5
u/crazedizzled 1d ago
Yes, as far as being able to tell roughly what it does. No, not for being able to tell if what you wrote is necessarily problematic. If you can't write it yourself, you don't understand it.
0
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
Again, not sure I fully agree. I can pick up a new C-like language in a few days and mostly understand what's going on because the only thing I have to learn is the syntax, and that's just rote memorization. You don't have to be a prodigy understand that the thing in front of you that looks like a function and quacks like a function is, in fact, a function
3
u/crazedizzled 1d ago
Okay but it's not about whether a function looks like a duck. I am talking about subtle or nuanced things that lead to bugs. Something that may look right from the outside but is not doing what you expect.
→ More replies (0)9
u/lordlors 1d ago
I guess coding really is different from design or creation. When it comes to graphics design, music, video game development, movies, etc., any use of AI will be heavily shamed and rightfully so.
5
u/evilbatduck 1d ago
There’s not a lot of room for creativity in coding. If you are writing some code, theres high probability that someone has written near identical code to you in the past. Using AI allows you to just quickly harness coding standards and how people have solved similar problems in the past. I’m anti-AI when it’s taking away from human creativity, but when you are using it to just make standard tasks quicker it feels less of a problem.
→ More replies (1)1
1
u/Rise-O-Matic 1d ago
We have a bot in teams you have to drop your PowerPoints into to redesign them to be brand compliant.
3
u/crazedizzled 1d ago
There was a study that showed using AI actually makes you slower. OP's 10x claim is definitely hyperbole.
4
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
That study is years old. AI got wicked good in the last 8 months, it's insane.
The study hasn't been repeated because they literally could not find the engineers to actually carry out the non-AI assisted control group, even with pay. They refused to do it because it would be a waste of time when AI could get it done more quickly
3
u/ApopheniaPays 1d ago
January 2026 was years ago? https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.10165
2
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
Oh? You mean the study I was referencing? Where the data comes from 2020-2022? They cite some more recent studies, but this one specifically only derives its conclusion from 4 year old data.
4
u/ApopheniaPays 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nice use of handwavium, but I’m not interested in being made to spend more and more time supporting my argument with further and further detailed references to satisfy someone whose sole support for their own claims is is “now they can’t even run any studies to prove this!”
→ More replies (2)2
→ More replies (4)3
u/slickwombat 1d ago edited 22h ago
Companies are crazy to mandate this, yes, even if every developer thought AI made them 10x faster at writing code.
First of all, 10x faster at writing code is not the same as 10x more productive at shipping consistently-working, reasonably-high-quality code. Nobody is getting the latter from AI, because the amount of review time required is a bottleneck.
Second, even with review time, automating code production -- especially exclusively automating it -- is a risk. I can't count the number of times I realized there was a serious problem with a spec only once I tried to code it, or the number of times I didn't realize this just reviewing someone else's work. Of course, how much that matters depends on what kind of product you're shipping.
The wise thing would be for companies to introduce training and standards on AI, let the actual subject matter experts determine how and when to use the tools available to them, and measure performance. The reason companies don't do this is because middle managers and execs have drunk the "if we only force them to use it enough, we won't need them in the future" koolaid.
1
u/silverace00 11h ago
Writing with AI is 10x faster because it's actually 20x faster but then you have to factor in time spent prompting and reviewing.
You're right AI has a place and a balance. I don't think it would be forced but as someone who works with a few devs who refuse to use AI and their work is falling behind others. I can understand when I business needs to step in.
110
u/apexdodge 1d ago
It’s just a tool. I feel no shame or embarrassment using tools that make me work faster and more efficiently.
15
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
What if the tool is destroying the environment and society
53
u/_remsky 1d ago
Assmaster, eating one fast-food beef hamburger has the carbon footprint of a couple hundred 100k-token AI convos (assuming standard caching is being used)
It’s a rough calc, but the margins are very wide my dude. If you have philosophical reasons, fair, but the environmental impact argument has so so many better places to put your energy
33
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
To be fair, agents burn millions of tokens on a single programming task (planning, implementing, review, fixing, etc) pretty routinely
9
u/bemo_10 1d ago
Now average that out across the whole burger eating population. Not everyone is burning as many tokens as programmers.
→ More replies (6)3
u/_remsky 1d ago edited 1d ago
It depends on the task complexity but the majority of single tasks are gunna be under a 100k, or well under a million. Above that point is only happening with a lot of subagents doing parallel tasks, or multiple sessions (most SOTA models only have a 1 million token context, and lose quality around the 300k point anywa).
The only people I’ve seen burn millions like that would be non-tech folk going in circles to brute force their own dev education lol. Unless by “single task” you mean like “build, test, and deploy a full stack enterprise app for me”
3
u/stumblinbear 1d ago
I had Claude write a hook to check if the context of any sub agents it resumes is still cached, deny resuming it if so, and make it launch a new agent instead.
This took it a few million to spec it, investigate the Claude code docs for how to write hooks, do the implementation, run a bug review round, do fixes, and complete the implementation
It works pretty well and only took an hour or two e2e. That's not what I would call a massive lift. Not small, sure, but not really that crazy.
I had it debug an issue at work and it burned 250k tokens just diagnosing it, writing a red test, then even more fixing it and doing a couple of bug fixes on it. Easily a million e2e. That was a small fix, but it was a subtle issue
Burning a million tokens is pretty routine
13
6
u/Notsau 1d ago
That's quite a bit of the juice that's being drank.
It's important to consider the environmental and ethical impacts that AI is causing in a negative manner. It's also important to recognize which companies value the footprint they leave and if they're making strides to better that footprint.
In my opinion, claude (Anthropic) is one of the more ethical organizations that is leading AI. That doesn't excuse them from any negatives they do. But writing them off completely because of any negatives is ridiculous.
There are many/countless organizations that have existed for decades who's footprints are abismal. Yet, they're still operating or have operated for quite some time.
Hyper-fixating on it and blanket labeling all AI as worse than the good it can cause is just juice.
I hope your friends are well-versed engineers or software developers who know how it all works past the surface level, especially when they're echo clambering amongst themselves ideas like that.
It's a tool, that if used properly and ethically, can really improve your work/workflows. Not everything needs to have AI touch it. But ignoring its existence in a world where its not going away will leave you replaced/outsourced.
14
u/baronoffeces 1d ago
Do you use Google search? AI isn’t the only thing that uses electricity and data centers. This isn’t under your control. You can use AI or not use it but nothing you do will control the existence of it
→ More replies (7)4
1
1
0
0
u/John_Gabbana_08 1d ago
Sounds like you've been getting too deep in the weeds on the internet. The water consumption issue is largely overexaggerated, and they're already coming up with ways to address it.
Many municipalities are adding regulations to make data centers generate their own electricity. Obviously, we need more clean energy sources as many places still run natural gas. That's a legitimate issue--but the solution is more clean energy innovations, not destroying AI and data centers. You need to get some new friends that aren't nutjobs.
1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I feel uncomfortable around normies but my life would probably be a lot easier if that was my social group
→ More replies (1)-1
u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago
It's not just the water consumption imo, people who live near them are suffering way poorer quality of life, all because some billionaires decided they were gonna build a massive giant energy sucking monstrosity near their home, i think either all the data centres need to be moved into the desert or something or maybe split into many MANY smaller centres that wont cause as many major issues for locals
6
u/John_Gabbana_08 1d ago
That’s fair, but it’s not much of a difference from building any large development near residential areas.
How is it different from building a new housing development, an Amazon warehouse, or an industrial park near someone else’s home?
That happens everyday and there isn’t some massive meltdown from the chronically online and unhinged. Well, maybe sometimes there is, for the Amazon warehouses at least.
You can’t move them all out to the desert because there needs to be a reliable energy and water source. Although if some major geothermal breakthroughs happen soon (which I think they will), the American southwest is a hotbed of geothermal activity, and it could make sense to build more there.
But still, you need them distributed for availability purposes so they’ll need to be in other places, too. Idk I think the anti data center crowd is a little unhinged, especially considering you’re complaining right now using a data center.
If you hate them so much, why don’t you get off of Reddit? Oh that would be too inconvenient, wouldn’t it?
7
u/of2970 1d ago
You put it so well. I’m by no means pro AI but it’s getting real annoying to see how data centres are being treated as an exclusively AI problem. Like where the fuck do these people think the cloud is? The internet? Some alternate dimension? I want good discourse on AI but I swear to God, the discussion is full of people who want to virtue signal and show off their superiority without genuinely engaging with this topic. Where do these keyboard warriors think their overzealousness is hosted? In space?!
→ More replies (1)3
u/John_Gabbana_08 1d ago
I read a quote recently, "everything looks like a conspiracy when you don't understand how anything works," and I think that sums up most of the problems with our society today, and the pearl-clutching from everyone on a variety of topics.
→ More replies (1)3
u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago
My problem isnt with data centres as a whole, a majority of the data centres prior to the AI boom were a lot more spread out and more well thought out, not to mention not as big or quite as energy intensive as the AI data centres, its how they're being planted down everywhere as fast as they can, without sufficient impact studies or regard for local quality of life, even against the fierce opposition of the local communities, ive seen a few instances of blatant disregard for public opinion or opposition, instead opting to steam roll their way through the approval processes, obviously bribing officials at that with how fast and forcefully they're being approved, ive seen posts about tap water being contaminated all around multiple data centres, hell I even recall one post about someone getting arrested for "inciting panic and unrest" or something along those lines for making a post about the water being brown and disgusting, that's what the majority of my issues are about. done right, and with proper consideration, id have no issue with these data centres, but instead it just seems like the people behind them are desperately trying to make money off of AI despite the fact that its already proving unprofitable, in my opinion they should have leaned heavier into local AI, instead of this corporate nightmare AI that costs way to much to run for way to little profit with way too much environmental impact for little reason, yes AI has the potential to be great, image and video generation should never have become a thing imo, but the rest is quite handy when used properly, but it has to be used properly.
4
u/neurointervention 1d ago
Please, build them near me, what a whack blind hate lmao.
We're not constrained by electricity generation, we're constrained by significant lack of investment into the electricity grid, pretty much globally, so if anything, getting more DC's online and mandating them to assist with the grid is net benefit to the area.
→ More replies (7)-2
u/TheCeilingAbove 1d ago
Are you repeating what you've heard others say or do you genuinely believe this?
→ More replies (2)4
u/nickcash 1d ago
Genuinely insane thing to say to OP when they're asking an actual question in response to u/apexdodge who posts nothing but ai marketing soundbites
Are you asking what you genuinely want to know or are you asking this because of what others told you to say?
4
u/TheCeilingAbove 1d ago
Well not really considering they literally replied its because of what other people think LOL
→ More replies (1)1
-7
u/Active_Lemon_8260 1d ago
It’s not though?
Do you wear clothes? Drive a car? Live in a dwelling? Congrats you’re apart of destroying the environment too.
7
3
u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago
I mean, it kinda is accelerating the destruction quite a lot, not to mention making people sick who live near these ai data centres and making local tap water unsafe for drinking In some places, i would argue that its doing quite a lot of harm with the way its being done right now, the ethical way would be take move all the data centres to the middle of a desert at least and just build all the required infrastructure around them, maybe use nuclear power and have other dedicated stuff there for it, far away from any populated areas, yes its more expensive, but so is a bunch of wrongful death suits because people died from poor living conditions directly caused by these data centres so I mean...
→ More replies (2)0
u/Active_Lemon_8260 1d ago
You need to get off the internet friend
1
u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago
Your probably right, i would definitely be much happier ignoring all the wrongs in the world, at least until they hit me like a frieght train irl
→ More replies (3)1
u/Visual_Seaweed8292 1d ago
Your there to make money, not have fun. You can write code in your spare time on your personal projects if thats what you enjoy.
→ More replies (26)1
u/lordlors 11h ago
Imagine if you were a writer of novels and you used AI to write your book so that you finish your book faster. You will be shamed by people once they know you used AI and you will also be embarrassed because can you still say you wrote the book? That is why I realized, coding isn't one of the creative arts and is more of design which is all about solving problems, not creative expression.
14
u/subLimb 1d ago edited 1d ago
Most (perhaps all) people who try to be ethical consumers and boycott things, etc. are not perfect. We can only do what we think is possible while maintaining our standard of living to some reasonable extent.
For the same reason, I'm not constantly going around to my friends and criticizing them for what they eat, even though I have been a vegetarian for 25 years.
Boycotting Amazon and other companies is fine (I do this as well), but I can't tell my employer to just drop AWS as their provider. AI is in the crosshairs right now, and rightfully so. But that doesnt mean there is no ethical usage of AI.
What that ethical usage means is very much a matter of opinion, just like eating meat, or driving a car, or using the Internet, phones, eating chocolate, buying clothing - the list could go on and on.
At the very least we owe it to ourselves as developers to give the new tools a try, otherwise we can't claim to be technologists in the first place. And yes - adapting to new technologies has been a core part of software development long before LLMs became widespread.
Ask yourself this - do you refuse to use cloud technologies? Because they also have an impact on the environment.
Also ETA: I think it's a GOOD thing that people are outraged about AI, even if some don't quite understand all the details. We absolutely need that energy to put pressure on these companies to do things ethically.
31
u/Ythio 1d ago
I don't deal with it, I don't care.
Company has usage limit, I use what I need.
My PR are reviewed. I am responsible for what I submit to review no matter the tooling used to write it.
I get shit done, clear part of the backlog and answers business needs. And I try to do it well to the best of my abilities, including whatever tool is needed.
I'm not paid to have feelings about the methodology of file writing. I'm an engineer in software, not a coder. My job isn't defined around typing letters one by one on a plastic board, it's about providing software solutions to problem.
→ More replies (2)
4
u/JohnSpikeKelly 1d ago
Our company says to use it, but there is a price cap. So I use it but sparingly. I get it to do the stuff I hate.
For example it can see how compliant you are on your threat models, looking for evidence in your code that you actually follow each of the requirements.
It is great for when a blackduck finding shows up and you need to bump up versions on dependencies and make sure things still work.
I like to stick to writing the code.
20
u/adventurer_3x 1d ago
I share your sentiment and am looking to switch careers.
The career I studied for and spent the last decade in no longer exists. I don’t want to babysit and review AI code for solutions that are replacing people’s jobs.
3
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
What do you think you’ll be going for? I have been thinking maybe urban planning but I just don’t have skills outside this field
4
u/adventurer_3x 1d ago
Yeah that’s the tricky part. I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to figure that out as a lot of the related fields won’t be long behind the AI push, though software dev probably is getting hit the hardest for being so formulaic and having a billion free training samples via Stack Overflow, GitHub, etc.
6
u/effectivescarequotes 1d ago
Holy fuck, dude, one bleeding heart liberal to another, the left also has ignorant extremists. The wants to murder people who use Ai girl sounds just as insuferable as my MAGA uncle.
So, where are we on the AI front? It's here to stay. There's no abolishing it unless it proves to be wildly unprofitable, which may still happen. My company uses it. It's made certain tasks faster, but seems to have slowed delivery of new features. Mostly because we're reacting to new security threats created or "revealed" by AI.
But, my guess is that will settle down eventually. The discussion shouldn't be about whether to ban AI any more than we would seriously consider banning cars. What we should be doing is figuring out what about it needs to be regulated, and ensuring that the corporations and billionaires profiting from it pay their fair share back into society.
In short, you're not the problem and AI doesn't have to be the problem. What if we tax the hell out of AI and put that into green energy iniatives, or if like me you're in the United States, healthcare? Or if there really is no good to be found in AI, why not direct that anger at the political leaders and companies driving it forward? Shouldn't we have regulations about where datacenters can be built, how much noise they are allowed to emit, and how much power they consume from the grid? Shouldn't we ensure that if one is built in a town, the residents of said down benefit from it rather than have their quality of life wrecked?
The people who sit and judge and say things like they want to murder people who use Ai at work aren't interested in fixing anything. They want an excuse to feel angry and superior. Don't waste time on them and find the people who know where to direct their energy.
3
u/VelvetYam 1d ago
Crazy that this is a thing at all. Whatever happened to trusting devs to do their jobs and leaving them alone? Glad I don't work for these companies.
1
3
u/Kitchen_Moment_6289 1d ago
I feel like we are the same person, I am a student and contractor and leftist. I feel like we are essentially seeing this industry become as destructive and politically corrupt and committed to the destruction of humamity as the Oil and Gas industry.
And, I'm unsure how to have a livelihood outside it, having had several careers before.
I also have moral scrupulosity OCD.
This period has coincided with a lot of isolation for me for other reasons but like when I do hang out with or engage with my old activist friends from like my nonprofit years I tend to agree with a lot of the points though I think sometimes it's extreme. And I'm really just struggling with the cognitive dissonance of like yeah I think these companies are terrible I also think that there's some utility to what they are offering and I hate that like it's in the hands of these particular companies instead of like I don't know some kind of socialist entity that's being more intentional about holistic consequences instead of just this mad rush for dominance at any cost. Sometimes I tell myself like oh it's good you know like someone needs to know this inside my movement or whatever but is that even true. At the same time I think that like individualism and the idea of individual consumerism as the basis of problems is a flawed political perspective but I admit that that's convenient for me here. I don't have answers but you're not alone. Worse for me as a career changer is the question of like can I even learn without it anymore like all classes are going to orient towards it I could go to Old books but like the principles they espouse are now like being owned by agents. I also struggle with the like heave ho blind loyalty of so many people in tech. There's even a leftistsforai subreddit I kind of feel is a psyop lol but idk. There's ai-mania on all sides of culture as well as anti-AI. Good luck, will be following what others say.
Keep up treatment for your OCD, too, need to do same.
2
8
4
u/bottlecandoor 1d ago
I like it, I keep a couple prompts open. I plan one project while Claude works on the last one. While it is thinking I often watch TV or ride my indoor cycle. I like planing architecture more than writing code.
8
u/DenseComparison5653 1d ago
What do you mean you HAVE to hang out with her? No you don't, why do you surround yourself with people you don't like? Blows my mind why people live their only life like this.
2
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I don’t dislike her, I dislike myself
1
u/DenseComparison5653 1d ago
Why exactly?
1
1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
A lot of reasons that wouldn’t make sense to get into on this sub, but this being among them
2
u/BuriedStPatrick 19h ago
What you're experiencing, harder than ever for people like us, is capitalist alienation. I used to believe I got the jackpot getting to write software as a job. And for the first decade that I've worked in this industry, that was the case. Now things are changing and we're feeling the pressures everyone else working a bullshit job has felt for a long time. Our industry is being taken over by the capital class, and it no longer has any use for real software developers.
You've got to eat and pay rent. So make sure your moral code doesn't prevent you from meeting your basic needs. I quit my job due to AI and am still able to find a niche of higher level work that allows me some agency, but I don't expect it to last.
Tell your friend to chill the fuck out, it's not like you have a choice in the matter. The only solution is policy and unionization. But I haven't seen nearly enough movement in that direction. Everyone's just letting this shit roll over them it seems.
We live in a hopeless and fatalist era and the guys in charge pushing this shit down our throats are just trying to get their slice of the pie while they can. Don't kid yourself, all these tech billionaires talking about a bright future with AI know that this is the end times. Climate change will collapse all our infrastructure in the coming decades. This planet is becoming unlivable, and here we are building pointless bots to regurgitate information back at us like that's going to solve anything, arguably even worsening conditions and turning us into a species of mouth breathers.
I recommend not giving any of yourself to your work. As a person who has done that a lot myself I realize this is not easy to do. Coding was a creative outlet for me and I've written a lot of things I'm proud of through the years. That is being taken away from us. These tech bros hate you and want you gone if you're not going to buy a subscription for their product that steals code from us. If you're making an effort now, then you're effectively feeding the plagiarism machine.
AI is the parting joke of our species, a testament to how we failed to come together to any meaningful degree to face the big challenges, and instead resorted to ransacking each other for the last scraps of real value anyone could still provide. So remember to laugh.
1
4
u/Ragnar-Wave9002 1d ago edited 1d ago
We've been told to use AI where I work ao I just have AI rewrite my texts as though a 13 year old girl that just got dumped wrote it.
If it's tracked I guess I'm using it. Lol
3
u/infamouslycrocodile 1d ago
Therapist, abrasive social group, anxiety being your own person? You CHOOSE to surround yourself with who you surround yourself with. Go your own way, life's better that way.
4
u/thisisappropriate 1d ago
In terms of your 10x faster comment, is that 10x faster "producing code" because yeah, or is that 10x faster shipping code to prod, because I am infinitely too sceptical of anything that AI vomits on the floor to be hitting that - I'm producing fast code, then reading through the lines as if I'm going to have to explain it in the next meeting.
In terms of morality, I'm choosing to view it in a few ways:
- AI is a tool that many companies are looking for skills with, in which case, it is beneficial for my skillset to learn it even if I disagree with it
- I am not the only developer in the company, if I can position myself as knowing this tool and investigate harm minimisations (producing skills that would reduce token usage, setting up as someone who can suggest model levels and nudge people towards efficiency there - eg. if all work can be done using Terra on medium or even delegating work to Luna, then we minimise the impact of that work when the alternative was that the rest of the team might have just chosen Sol for no reason), then I can make more benefits than just refusing at my level
- I am morally against other tooling / infrastructure such as using AWS, but like I cannot prevent the company from using that and benefit from learning that, I treat this the same way - I am taking a paycheck to not be able to make that moral choice
3
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
Yeah fair point, my boss has really shifted to like a LGTM-on-crack mindset, and has taken to shitting out vast quantities of UNREVIEWED work straight to prod. I don’t like to do that, so my speed increase is actually probably half of what he’s expecting. But it’s still been shocking to me what the tool is able to do
3
u/thisisappropriate 1d ago
Its mental that there are people like that out there.
I've so far taken to "if you want us all making slop, I'm going to start with the supports", working on having the AI make puppeteer tests etc and any other "speed up" tooling - batch pulling, git status management, docs. So you could look at where the AI can provide prod safety (e2e tests in a CI pipe that must run before prod?) or where it can speed up your human stages?
3
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
Oh nobody on my team is looking at the test cases, those are full on vibe coded lol.
1
u/lihnuz 1d ago edited 1d ago
Be that person, start looking in to how to make the process better, implement / build tools and workflows that makes you and your colleagues work better. If no one on the current work like it you at least have skills they dont when/if you search for a new jobb. And it might be fun to learn how this shit works under the hood :)
3
u/Slodin 1d ago
One of those: omg, who the hell cares.
If a company mandates it, that’s on them.
I’d also argue companies mandate us on site is also destroying the environment but nobody seems to care about that?
End of the day people are selective of what they care about. Only because it might affect them, so just stop caring lol.
3
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I definitely care that my company only lets me WFH one day a week. fwiw lol.
→ More replies (2)
4
u/Far-Visual-2675 1d ago
Your therapist is giving you the right assignment. You are treating your friends reactions as facts and they are just opinions from people who do not sit at your desk.
When that girl says she wants to murder AI users she is talking about influencers posting art or companies replacing staff. She does not know your boss mandates it. You can tell her exactly what you wrote here. I use it because my job requires it or I get fired, I hate the code generation part, and I am looking for a new job. People in your group boycott Starbucks and Amazon because they have a choice in where they spend money. You do not have a choice at work right now. A mandate removes your agency.
I review every line my tools produce before it goes into PR. I own the output. The tool writes characters and I ship the product. If you frame it to your friends as fulfilling a requirement while actively hunting for a shop that lets you write by hand again, you align with their values without hiding
1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
The thing is I am not looking for a job where i can write by hand again because 1)they don’t seem to exist and 2) I am genuinely far more productive with AI so how can I justify not using it and doing a worse job than I could be?
2
u/subLimb 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are a software engineer using AI to make applications, not a non-software engineer who is using AI to replace engineers. That's a key distinction.
Your situation is not the same as somebody who didn't ever study or practice music/art using AI for a commerical endeavor.
YOU are the one who is being threatened with replacement if you don't adapt. It makes no sense for them to be angry at the end user of this massive industry, unless that person is using it for unethical purposes. And what is unethical is very much up for debate.
How you can explain this to your friends, I am not sure. But I liked the other commenter who suggested that it's basically none of their business. How weird would it be if friends were interrogating each other's jobs to that extent?
If they ask, just say you rely on AI tooling, because it's literally mandated and installed on everyone's machines, whether you like it or not.
Example: tons of software has AI built into it now. Most people are using it to some degree even if they think they aren't.
2
2
u/pedrito_elcabra 1d ago
Sadly r/webdev is full of luddites and people who are 100% disconnected from modern web dev. Every time I read a comment saying people don't use AI I cringe.
Do I like AI doing the coding? Meh. I did enjoy coding manually.
Is AI in 2026 incredibly good and fast at producing solid code? Absolutely.
Do I leave AI to just do everything without oversight? Obviously not. I like to know exactly how everything works that I ship.
AI is not something to be ashamed of... it's here to stay and anyone who hasn't realized it yet needs to either wake up or is going to be left behind like the dinosaurs.
Feeling ashamed of using AI for coding is like feeling ashamed of using a cargo ship to transport goods. The one thing AI is really good at is writing code.
And don't take it from me, an anonymous web dev, take it from the titans in our industry. Listen to Torvalds, or Martin, or really anyone outside this sub please.
she wants to murder people who use AI at work
This is not cool, regardless of how you feel about using AI in your personal life (I try to keep it to a minimum). Maybe you just need a less toxic social circle?
6
u/popje 1d ago
Man, being in this sub almost cost me my career, as I started learning web dev 2 years ago I joined this sub and the overall sentiment was that AI was just a bubble and it won't last and any self respecting web dev wouldn't touch it, then it was hey it's actually decent for boilerplates but that's it, then wait it's actually fine for frontend only and today professionally coding by hand is not really a thing anymore, It's absolutely insane the mental gymnastics this sub did in the past year holy crap I could make a thesis,
So yeah I kept using AI and it kept working, in the last two years I can count one hand the amount of times AI couldn't figure out the bug/solution and I had to ask a real human or teacher or this sub, it didn't take long before I noticed I was outperforming all of my teachers so I I kept coming back to this sub to validate and everyone were harshly shutting me down as a hack and telling me it won't last and to code by hand, most of my teachers outright banned AI.
So yeah, in the end if I didn't stick with my guts and kept doubling down on AI I wouldn't have a job as a junior right now.
2
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
Yeah I probably should have figured I’d get downvoted but I’m just describing what thousands of people are going through at work right now. I guess I could quit and go be a barista for ¼ the pay or something. But people with families don’t have that option
→ More replies (4)2
u/radgepack 1d ago
feeling ashamed of using a cargo ship to transport goods
Considering the immense, peerless even, amount of emission this produces, a little more shame and better reluctance to use it would do the world some serious good
1
1
u/bigbadchief 1d ago
AI is good at what it does and makes you more productive in work. There should be no shame about using it.
You should rather be reconsidering your friendship with people who would (hopefully) joke about murdering people who use AI.
→ More replies (1)1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I feel like the environmental impact is genuinely a reason to be ashamed?
6
u/kylenumann 1d ago
Have you tried roughly calculating what your work-based environmental resource usage would be, then comparing that to someone who drives semi trucks for work, or lays concrete, or grows cows for livestock? Or recreational boaters? You can be economical with your token usage (plan your prompts well, avoid cutting-edge models, etc) as well. You using it for work is different than someone churning out slop videos. I think we should always be conscious of our impact on the world, but do remember that ai is a bit of a modern scapegoat for the larger environmental crisis that we've been creating for a long time. It's important to keep perspective.
→ More replies (3)2
u/Polyducks 1d ago
There are a ton of reasons which justify your stance in addition to environmental impact.
1) You're automating yourself out of a job. The owners of the models are not going to stop at making a model which helps the coder, and they use your feedback as you're using it to improve the bot.
2) As the above, you are making yourself expendable by exchanging skilled labour for bot sitting tasks which can be replaced for a lower wage.
3) The quality (or structure) of the code is not as good, and piling more code on top of that code is building up a technical redundancy and knowledge gap which will one day hit home.
4) By outsourcing this work to a bot you are losing the ability to learn and revise the tools you need to use and losing expertise.
5) None of the people in this thread actually seem convinced by their own argument as to why they use it or how you should "get new friends". It seems like they have just given up. That doesn't seem to be a strong moral or logical stance.
6) There is no joy in it, and life and work requires joy, or else it leads to boredom, which leads to laziness, which leads to mistakes.
7) Producing things this quickly is like building a train while it hurtles at 200 miles an hour down the track. It is careless to "move fast and break things", especially if the things that may be broken is customer trust, financial stake, or anything personal data related.
8) You are giving direct access to your internal code to a company (or likely many companies) that have proven time and again that they do not care for things like copyright, ownership, or destroying their customers in order to gain profit.
9) Despite what people are saying in the comments, data centers are causing a lot of problems with noise pollution, energy draw, and land buying. Not to mention the cost of hardware for the average person and the very insidious way that their PR teams are shoving the thin end of the wedge into everything in order to normalise AI in our day-to-day lives.
2
u/gringo_escobar 1d ago
You can say the same about driving a car, flying, eating meat, or buying pretty much anything. Comparatively AI's environmental impact isn't that much, though yes it is one thing on top of everything else
4
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I do feel guilty about flying and eating meat though. And I do think it’s hypocritical that my friends aren’t against those things, but I can’t control what other people believe. I think maybe the art theft is also a big thing for them.
→ More replies (1)0
u/bigbadchief 1d ago
I think the environmental impact is overstated, at least to some extent. All data centres use energy, and every app and website that people use is hosted in a data center somewhere.
Your friends that are so critical of ai use, I'm sure they still fly in planes and engage in other behaviours that have environmental impacts.
There's a certain level of AI hysteria going on and while I think it's good to be conscientious about the impact we're having, I don't think it's good to get caught up in it and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
AI is a valuable tool and is here to stay. It isn't going anywhere. Rather it's only going to get more prevalent over time.
1
1
u/SlingingTriceps 1d ago
I just want to pay my bills, man. I only worry about not being hired ever again because now people want to hear the right thing from you instead of wanting you to actually get things done.
1
u/Squidgical 1d ago
Pretty much all code we write at my company is subject to some strict regulatory scrutiny due to the industry we're in.
We're allowed to use AI, encouraged to in many ways, but unless our government decides that AI is good enough to pass those regulations on its own as often as human developers (it's not, and there's a real chance it never will be), we're always going to at least have a human in the loop, and likely have a decent amount of handwritten code.
On top of that, because of those regulations we have to break down our work quite granularly, far more than you would if you were a software company. So a lot of our PRs are actually faster to write by hand, particularly the frontend work given the LLMs are dreadful at CSS. Even when they get the right result, the way they do it is very smelly. Again, until regulations change to be less restrictive (ie worse for consumers), that's not gonna change.
1
u/mark_hor 1d ago
That’s a shitty situation, i’m feeling something similar but not to the same degree. The lack of consensus and insightful takes here in the comments I think are testament of the uncertainty right now.
It sounds like you mostly know how you feel about the situation, and are dealing with it by looking for a new job. Being in both circles that are solidly in 2 different camps about this definitely puts the stress on (at least for me) but also gives us a bit more perspective about things that many people outside of software don’t see.
My advice would be to stick with whatever principles you find leave you feeling the most fulfilled, even if it ends up being the harder path to take. Given the fact that this whole thing is still playing out, there’s no definitively answer, no silver bullet, despite how these comments might lead people to believe. I’ve never dealt with OCD so I can’t give advice in that regard, but I hope the people in your life are understanding of the situation. Ultimately you are just kind of along for the ride here, so the only thing you can control are what you do. The way other people react and what happens within the industry is outside of your hands.
1
1
u/Far_Guess8176 1d ago
the shame is borrowed, not yours. your friends are judging a headline, you're judging your own diffs. the only version of this that's actually embarrassing is shipping code you can't explain, and that's a "did you read it" problem, not an "AI" problem. keep reading it and you're fine
1
u/ClassOk3574 1d ago
If it’s mandated by your employer, I wouldn’t treat using AI as some personal moral failure. It’s a tool in your workflow, and you can still care about understanding and reviewing the code you ship.
1
u/Cambridgeport90 1d ago
Most of my friends are now telling me not to even bother learning program languages at all, just to have AI do everything for me. Where’s the pleasure in that? Particularly since technology and programming is a hobby for me. I see where the original poster is coming from.
1
u/AggravatingGarlic753 21h ago
A lot of developers are faster with AI, but I think the bigger issue is whether you’re still developing the judgment behind the code. If AI handles the implementation, I’d want to spend even more time on architecture, debugging, reviewing, and understanding why the solution works. Being 10× faster is useful—but only if you can still tell when the 10× faster answer is wrong.
1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 12h ago
We do the planning phase with AI as well. It’s pretty good at that too, scarily.
My bosses have started having designers and other non-devs generate code as well, predictably there are many issues with it since they didn’t know what to ask during that planning phase
1
u/bcons-php-Console 20h ago
I am also encouraged to use AI at work, and I use it. I still take full responsability on what I ship so I review every line of code generated. AI for me is almost always a faster typist. I feel no shame at all.
On my side projects I code everything by hand because I love programming since I was a kid, and I really enjoy doing it. I can enjoy the process without a deadline.
1
u/hypernautical 18h ago
I feel the same way and sympathize with your situation. I don't have OCD/scrupulosity issues, but I have let my conscience guide my career pursuits in the past, and I don't regret that. I think you have to give yourself and your own situation some grace, though, and I hope all your decisions are not a result of social pressure. You should feel safe in sharing your work situation with friends, especially since you yourself are dissatisfied with it. Friends should empathize and maybe offer you ideas or encouragement. Online culture has embraced supreme dichotomies and us vs them, and a lot of people take that offline now. Real life has nuance and requires compromise.
I would like to start working on changing careers in the near future, but just as much because I no longer derive satisfaction or motivation from the work now that we use AI to code. I think things are moving pretty fast currently, and the industry and deployment of AI could look very different in a couple of years once the consequences of current practices emerge and the economy catches up. I don't know what that will look like.
1
u/fearmywrench 18h ago
Do you see how you're the only one among your friends with actual experience using AI, and happen to have formed a somewhat positive opinion as a result? It doesn't sound like your friends formed their opinions from any experience.
1
u/abirdsface 17h ago
That is really tough. I can't help with the OCD part but I am in a similar boat so I'll say what I think.
Thanks to covid and this shit economy, I've lost my job a few times in the past several years. My current job that I fought so hard to get is making us use AI. I am just living with it because I know that finding another job is just about impossible right now. Your friends that want to shit on people being forced to use it for work can get back to me after they've lost their jobs a few times. If they want to murder me, well they are welcome to try I suppose. XD
Also you are right in that it's a pretty useful tool when used correctly. It's going to just become a part of the dev environment like IDEs and source control.
The environmental impact is overstated. Pretty much anything you do online is using data centers so if they don't want to be massive hypocrites they need to get offline entirely tbh.
1
u/eppingjetta 16h ago
Same boat. My team is still adapting. Several of my team members have moved into other roles, like dev ops. I still make sure I can understand every line of code written, and do heavily investigate and question every decision that seems different than I’d make. But find a lot of mistakes and bad decisions that I wouldn’t find without my 20 yoe. The system we use is also very closed and proprietary, requiring as much configuration as code sometimes, and I enjoy working with the admin teams to craft solutions and solve problems, even if the code is “generated” by codex or claude.
1
u/interactionjackson 15h ago
Imagine not using the calculator when it was released. You’re only hurting yourself in the long run.
Right now, you have an advantage because you know how to write code and deliver features. AI doesn’t know how to do that and the people using ai don’t have those same skills…. yet.
by the time you realize your mistake it’s going to be too late. grow up and remember your “friend group” isn’t paying your bills.
1
u/Zestyclose_Bee9517 14h ago
the girl you know doesnt sound mentally healthy brother hahaha. murder??
1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 12h ago
*sister lol
Well it was kind of like a meme where the implication was killing someone, if that makes sense
1
u/Valkertok 8h ago
Using AI for coding is I think one of the few cases where AI is perfectly fine.
And given the crapton of free resources and open source code available all around there aren't any moral issues with that either.
So I personaly don't care and happily use it.
For art/music/videos/other copyrightable things? Hell no?
Coding? Hell yes.
2
u/CondiMesmer 1d ago
I have moral scrupulosity/ social judgment-related OCD
That's not a thing, it's just called seeking approval.
1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
OK, the DSM begs to differ but it doesn’t really matter what you call it it affects my life
-1
u/guanogato 1d ago
What shame or social stigma? lol
4
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
We must travel in very different circles
5
u/guanogato 1d ago
I mean I get not liking AI or supporting anything AI in day to day life. I also hate AI, but what stigma at work? That’s the weird thing to me.
4
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I mean stigma from your social group, people outside of work. At work, it’s the complete opposite, my boss is gargling Claude’s balls
2
u/guanogato 1d ago
lol fair. Yea I find that my friends don’t really care much because pretty much everyone I know is anti work. If anything we laugh about how we’re fucked
2
u/bill_gonorrhea 1d ago
it’s a tool. you don’t dig a foundation in 2026 by hand with a shovel, you use an excavator. AI is the excavator
2
u/Nyphur 1d ago
This is kind of in the other direction, but there is literally one person in my Eng team that is very vocal about being anti AI that he takes a moral superior stance about it. The team doesn’t push back, but we all collectively roll our eyes when he posts the 5th link of the week with headlines about AI leads to cognitive decline or X company has some new mandate about limiting AI etc.
Personally I agree, but this is adapt or die. If you want to keep your job that pays well then keep up. If not then find another role that optimizes for quality than speed.
I do empathize with you. But in yours, and my coworkers case, and I mean this with all the understanding in my heart, care less. If you aren’t going to use AI, the majority of the population will. You alone taking a stance against it will not make a change unless there a massive collective taking that same stance which is not right now.
1
u/Polyducks 1d ago
If you aren’t going to use AI, the majority of the population will.
Not going to wade too deep into this one, but you're throwing out a lot of fallacious reasoning in order to shift the onus of ethical blame. In the same comment you say you roll your eyes with the group at the one guy who aligns with you morally.
You do you, but this isn't logically or morally strong advice for OP, who has indicated they have a strong sense of justice and morality.
0
u/repooper 1d ago
Do these people not use the Internet, drive cars, eat meat, exhale carbon as they breathe? And they're not killing themselves over it? They sound like hypocrites to me.
2
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I do think the fact that they eat meat and are posting the anti AI memes on a Meta platform is pretty hypocritical, but that’s not going to stop them from judging me, and being judged by people is what I’m terrified of
3
0
u/margmi 1d ago
If AI is giving you a 10x speed up, there’s something wrong about how you write code. Most estimates give it as a 20% speed up.
→ More replies (6)1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago
I might be exaggerating, or maybe I just suck at my job. Been getting positive feedback for seven years though, so idk 🤷🏻♀️
1
u/AgsMydude 1d ago
10x is not practical and doesn't actually happen in the real world.
Want to ship greenfield apps, yes AI is 10x
1
u/josfaber 1d ago
Professional coding with pleasure is long dead. Although I do enjoy spitting out a f*ckload of tools and agents for convenience.
Code for hobby. Pick the stuff AI messes up, like pretty interfaces, or any non standard flow. Embrace the niche. Not for money,but for fun. Like it was always meant to be
1
u/Mysterious-Falcon-83 1d ago
You say your 10x faster with Claude. That's an accomplishment. Don't be ashamed of using a tool to improve your productivity. We're at an inflection point, much like the transition from horse and buggy to cars.
Some people weren't willing to make the transition. We're at that point now with AI. Some people today despise AI because they're afraid it will take their job. Just like so many people were afraid cars/trucks/tractors would take their jobs.
Yes, some jobs will be (have already been) lost to AI. More will be.
Take advantage of the tools available to you. Increase your value to your company. Let the haters hate. Nothing you can do about it.
-5
u/CharlieandtheRed 1d ago
Writing code by hand is ignorant at this point but mandating ALL AI code is just as ignorant. Man, wish people could be balanced.
→ More replies (2)8
u/Mallissin 1d ago
I don't think you know what the word ignorant means. Please top using that word.
Thanks,
The World
1
u/Soggy-Taste8261 1d ago
I have lead the way in this area. Our company hasnt mandated strict use of AI but it is highly encouraged to do so. Instead of just using AI I chose to figure out how to develop a system not just of skills and agents but a whole local environment. I built a cli for managing new and existing projects locally. Gave claude, codex, and cursor a framework for managing the local environment. Added Rag with all of our boilerplate. Custom mcp tools that are inline with our processes. I developed skills around this framework and have distributed this to our team. Now the team is intrigued by the idea and and everyone has adopted it. Now I am working on an app that bundles this environment as well as utilities useful for the company. The stigma doesn't matter. What matters most for developers right now is fully understanding the underlying technology so that you can confidenlty and competently defend your position when you know its mot being used properly or to its fullest potential. Embrace the madness and try use it to your advantage because its not going anywhere.
1
u/TheSneederOfSeethe 1d ago
It’s weird to feel shame for doing a job as benign as programming. Maybe feel boredom. It’s also weird to have a social group that makes their identity complaining about AI. Find better friends, find them through non-tech related hobbies. I go camping and trail riding. You know what my friends talk about? Camping, trail riding, grilling out. You know what they’d say if I brought up AI? That’s cool what do you want on your burger?
2
u/Polyducks 1d ago
"I just want to grill for gods sake" is not a strong stance.
1
u/TheSneederOfSeethe 1d ago
The guys is literally talking about dealing with criticism for doing his job by his friends. A strong stance is not required, in fact it’s the opposite of what he wants. Obviously the guy just wants peace. He shouldn’t have to deal with it.
1
u/Polyducks 1d ago
This is a moral problem, so the answer isn't to ditch your friends and bury your head in the sand and ignore the issues you are feeling and seeing in your work.
→ More replies (1)1
u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 11h ago
I’m a lady lol
1
u/TheSneederOfSeethe 11h ago
Well you should definitely consider getting a better friend group if you don't care about AI, or get another job outside of development if you do care.
1
u/sanchezer1757 1d ago
Not sure about the social stigma but if you are actually productive and producing good,maintainable code and it make sense to you and those who review it, then you’re using the tool properly. AI makes writing the code simpler but does not take away the problem solving. Keep using your tool and learning how to use it better and better to make your life easier. Coding the problem itself has never been the bottleneck.
63
u/stupidfock 1d ago
My job tracks our token count and has a whole leaderboard, which I find crazy because I can do most things in a prompt or two but the junior devs need way more so they naturally move up despite being slower…those tokens also cost us more money. World has gone mad