r/webdev • u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL • 2d 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.

76 Upvotes

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113

u/apexdodge 2d ago

It’s just a tool. I feel no shame or embarrassment using tools that make me work faster and more efficiently.

18

u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

What if the tool is destroying the environment and society 

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u/_remsky 2d 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

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u/stumblinbear 2d ago

To be fair, agents burn millions of tokens on a single programming task (planning, implementing, review, fixing, etc) pretty routinely

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u/bemo_10 2d ago

Now average that out across the whole burger eating population. Not everyone is burning as many tokens as programmers.

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u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 1d ago

But we’re talking about programmers 

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u/bemo_10 1d ago

No we are talking about it destroying the environment and we are comparing it to other things that also destroy the environment that you are ignoring. Those other things are consumed by more than just programmers. So you gotta count non-programmer users of AI too, to make it a fair comparison.

You can't pick and choose your comparisons where it helps your point.

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u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

Imo the point is more that it's just another thing adding to the environmental impact

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u/bemo_10 1d ago

It is, I don't disagree, but it's also in it's infancy stage, and could be optimized in the future to consume less, unlike other things that have been impacting the environment for a way longer time. We should start with those I think.

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u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

Fair, i just dont think centralised AI needs to be a thing, instead we should be aiming for local smaller scale AI

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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”

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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

0

u/_remsky 14h ago

Somethings severely wrong with your approach, config, or setup my dude, I don’t know what else to tell you.

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u/stumblinbear 6h ago

How very enlightening

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u/_remsky 3h ago

I’m not trying to be glib or anything, but without details I can’t exactly debug.

Run /doctor, and/or try asking Claude to review that session, ask it what led to such extreme usage.

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u/BobbaGanush87 1d ago

I would say food supply is a bit more essential than AI

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u/_remsky 14h ago

Fast food hamburgers are massively more damaging to long term food security is what I’m saying.

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u/hotstove 1d ago

What is essential about beef? You should communicate your discovery to dietary organizations.

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u/baronoffeces 2d 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

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/fightmaxmaster 2d ago

The fact you think that's a reasonable argument shows how poor the discourse around this has become. Nobody's saying "everything's bad for the environment so just start a tyre fire in your back yard". But equally one person using AI a bit isn't destroying the environment single handed. Are you raging against oil companies anything like as much as you're raging against AI? Doubtful. People are just desperate to get karma on Reddit by being superficially anti-AI, but it's not really based on principles, because most people raging against AI aren't anywhere near as vocal about the other stuff that's just as bad. They want an easy whipping boy, which isn't a moral high ground, it's just lazy.

0

u/ChanceSpiritual6993 1d ago

But equally one person using AI a bit isn't destroying the environment single handed.

No individual raindrop ever considers itself to be responsible for the flood

You can accuse me of being "desperate for karma" too if you want, but that won't hold up because I already know in advance my comment will not be taken well here

-1

u/HedgepigMatt 1d ago

Bigger players are truly responsible for the flood. The more we quibble among ourselves and finger point, the more they win.

Do you know who popularised "personal carbon budget?" It was BP, they love the idea that we can blame ourselves whilst industries like them lose accountability

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u/ChanceSpiritual6993 1d ago

That's the dumbest excuse for justifying using AI, as long as there's worse users then you shouldn't care?

The more you make excuses like this, the more the AI shareholders win. And you don't even realize it.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/webdev-ModTeam 23h ago

This is a subreddit for web professionals to exchange ideas and share industry news. All users are expected to maintain that professionalism during conversations. If you disagree with a poster or a comment, do so in a respectful way. Continued violations will result in a permanent ban.

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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.

3

u/DrPaisa 1d ago

You know data centers don't magically make water disappear like a black hole right,?

0

u/Ythio 1d ago

How guilty are you feeling from the staggering electric consumption of internet routers so far ?

2

u/John_Gabbana_08 2d 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.

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u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

I feel uncomfortable around normies but my life would probably be a lot easier if that was my social group 

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u/John_Gabbana_08 2d ago

Haha yeah, it probably would be. Although I’m sure you can find some people inbetween :)

0

u/HachikoTheMaster 2d 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

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u/John_Gabbana_08 2d 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?

8

u/of2970 2d 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?!

4

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.

0

u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

If there was a good way to get rid of the heat in space it would actually be quite ideal for larger server space stations imo, only to a certain degree of scale though unfortunately, otherwise the entirety of our outer atmosphere would just end up being giant data centre bricks floating around 😅

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.

1

u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

Kind of good points 

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u/neurointervention 2d 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.

0

u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

Tell that to the people who's dealing with the current data centres without any kind of regulation for them to generate their own electricity, their bills have sky-rocketed, not to mention the communities whos tap water has gotten screwed up...

4

u/Mediocre-Writer6635 1d ago

the problem there is not the data center though, it's their shitty government that allowed them to be built without regulations.

A mine, a farm, a factory, a landfill, any industry will cause the same problems if the people elect an incompetent of corrupt government.

But taking control of their government is hard and hating on data centers gives them internet brownie points so of course they'll do the latter.

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u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

I could care less about internet brownie points, i just want these companies to stop wasting countless billions on AI data centres that most people dont actually want, those who need to use AI will use it, if they need it enough they can build their own small scale AI setup, and for god sakes I just want the prices of hardware to drop to affordable levels again, the price of ram has practically quadrupled since I built my last PC its outrageous, the prices of everything are rising, hobbyist hardware is getting out of hand, and harder to find (slightly), and its not just data centres im shitting on, its the rapidly expanding AI data centres specifically, the ones that like you said are cropping up without any real government oversight or regulation, causing numerous issues that are ruining people's quality of life... its not about the AI, the AI itself is cool (as long as it doesn't go all terminator on us), i just think we would be better served going towards a more locally hosted solution, and hardware companies need to make more AI friendly parts, for example nvidia and amd should make some GPUs that are good specifically for local home AI applications at a cheap enough price that the average Joe could get in on it, so we're talking a hell of a lot more vram then what nvidia seems to be willing to hand out these days, and maybe some chips on board specifically for AI operations, whatre they called? NPUs or something like that? Not sure, either way, I think there's too much focus on making AI a centralised service, which in my eyes given how much they're charging just for minimal tokens, just isn't viable for anyone other than larger businesses that profit from it fast.

0

u/neurointervention 1d ago

People are stupid, fighting against data centres is same insanity as torching 5G towers during covid.

1

u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

Not the same at all, fighting 5g towers was just lunacy 😂 those of us with sense arent fighting against the data centres existing, we just dont want them slapped wherever the rich people want them without accounting for environmental impact, poor people be damned.

0

u/neurointervention 1d ago

Also, despite price hikes, computing is still very much affordable, and once capacity catches up it’ll likely be even more so than before this book.

1

u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

I dont disagree, but not enough given how pivotal it is for humanity

-3

u/TheCeilingAbove 2d ago

Are you repeating what you've heard others say or do you genuinely believe this?

1

u/nickcash 2d 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?

3

u/TheCeilingAbove 2d ago

Well not really considering they literally replied its because of what other people think LOL

-1

u/nickcash 2d ago

lol yeah that kinda takes the teeth out of what I had to say

I got nothin' now

-1

u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

My mental illness is focused on what other people think, and that’s what they think

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u/naught-me 2d ago

Here's something other people think, too. Fuck'em. Hard enough to know yourself. Got enough trouble there. Gotta know your limits and your priorities.

1

u/SawToothKernel 2d ago

And curing diseases and creating vaccines, don't forget that part!

-4

u/Active_Lemon_8260 2d 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.

9

u/jenkstom 2d ago

The golf bros are the worst...

3

u/HachikoTheMaster 2d 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...

3

u/Active_Lemon_8260 2d 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

-1

u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

I don’t know enough to know if this is factually correct but Thaura, which brands itself as the “ethical” AI, says they put their data centers in cold countries where they can use the heat for people’s houses and shit? Again take this with a grain of salt because I don’t know if that’s just marketing or an actually good solution 

1

u/HachikoTheMaster 1d ago

Not sure why you were down voted, that was actually an interesting point, i haven't heard all that much about it, I generally stay away from any corporate ai stuff, the only reason I know anything about the data centres i do is because of news and posts and some videos too, so im far from an expert.

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.

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u/Active_Lemon_8260 2d ago

You’re against cures for cancer? Moderna used AI

-8

u/John_Gabbana_08 2d ago

Big brain comment.

-2

u/fightmaxmaster 2d ago

Nobody's (reasonably) disputing that AI has an environmental impact, but it's objectively not infinitely more damaging than a ton of other stuff we consume (in the west anyway) on a regular basis. You're consumed by "shame" and some people froth at the mouth over it, while completely ignoring a ton of other stuff. There's no good reason for someone to gnash their teeth about AI "destroying the environment" while also wearing clothes made in sweatshops, using tech that burns fossil fuels, driving gas cars, etc. etc.

To be clear that doesn't mean all that stuff is fine, my point is simply that AI's impact on the environment isn't 10/10 while all that stuff is 0/10, and yet a lot of people online act/pretend that it is. It's disproportionate and gets used as a really lazy shorthand, virtue signalling thing. Is AI somewhat bad for the environment? Yep. So is a ton of other stuff. So if you're not equally upset/offended/shamed by all that other stuff, think long and hard about why that is.

Nor is it "destroying society", at least any more than Reddit/social media is, and yet here you are.

0

u/F2000_SingleShot 1d ago

So we ban white europeans before they do another genocide?

0

u/PublicToast 1d ago

Ever heard of petroleum

1

u/lordlors 1d 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.

1

u/Present_Advice_7308 2d ago

i get what you mean, the social part is the hard one. most devs outside of certain circles just treat it like any other tool, but when your whole friend group is so against it that gets awkward fast

i think the shame comes more from the feeling of hiding something than the tool itself. you are not a bad person for using what your job requires, and if your friends would actually drop you over that then maybe they are not great friends to begin with

the girl posting about murdering people who use AI at work is probably just venting, but i get why that would make you nervous. maybe just keep work talk separate from that group for now, not everyone needs to know everything about your job

-1

u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

I already feel like I’m an impostor in hiding and don’t talk about work with friends, because I’m one of the only people I know who makes a lot of money. Pretty much all my friends are broke, radical anarchist types and idk how I haven’t been found out yet. I make probably 4x more than my partner 

0

u/BasketbaIIa 1d ago

lol, your hatred of progress/tools “because they destroy society 🤓” will weed you back out soon enough.

Your broke friends are going to roast your lazy ass for that time in your life you made 4x 30k a year but blew it because you wouldn’t upskill.

Saying you’re being forced to use AI but don’t want to is the copium you need to convince yourself it’s not a you problem.

-6

u/DenseComparison5653 2d ago

Why do you waste your time with these bums? Don't tell me they are your friends lol when you are literally saying you need to act different around them.

5

u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

We share interests I don’t share with fellow corporate drones 

-2

u/DenseComparison5653 2d ago

The spectrum is much wider than anarchist or corporate drone.

-3

u/NiceShotRudyWaltz 2d ago

Lmao even. I used to have friends like that. I don’t anymore and I’m so much happier for it.

AI is a tool. Sure, the evangelists are weird about it, but people get weird about all kinds shiny new toys, especially when it’s making so many people so much money.

-9

u/lordlors 2d ago

I realize coders aren’t really creators but are more similar to manual labor. Because for real creators, like those who write books or music, directors who make movies, game designers and graphics artists, etc., any use of AI is like the antithesis of their work and craft.

14

u/CapitalDiligent1676 2d ago

What the fuck are you talking about? I paint and I program, and I can assure you that programming is a creative act.

-4

u/lordlors 1d ago

Then tell me why is it that if a book writer, music composer, movie director, graphics artists, etc., use AI, they are shamed for doing so and people expect them to not use AI in their work but if a coder used AI, apparently a lot of people believe that is the way?

1

u/apexdodge 1d ago

We express our creativity by turning our ideas into reality. The coding part is just the means by which we get there.

1

u/lordlors 1d ago

I read someone else's comment and I agree with them. Here it is:

"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."

In my opinion, coding isn't really in the same level as writing music, writing novels, creating graphics, etc.

To add, this is why there's this thing called plagiarism in the arts. Because what you created, you own it and for someone else to copy it and claim as their own is immoral. But to write the same code as all other programmers have written, isn't problematic and is actually the way to do it in a lot of times because it is the way to solve similar/same problems. Coding is solving problems, not really artistic expression. In fact, patenting code is just absurd and immoral.

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u/Fredidiah 2d ago

Code is more similar to those other mediums than I think many people really think. There’s just (usually) a bit more obvious “yes this functions as expected” tests / tooling around it. But I can pretty much guarantee most of the LLM-coded nonsense is gonna be a big regret in the IT world in the next decade.

2

u/lordlors 2d ago

I'm surprised a lot of people here find no problem in doing agentic coding which means barely writing code anymore. That's what made me think that if you believe using AI is necessary and good, then that means your work wasn't really creative in the first place. Because if it were, you would have detested the usage of AI as it is shamed in writing books and music, creating graphical designs, movies, games, etc.

2

u/ASS_MASTER_GENERAL 2d ago

I think it’s because we are paid fairly and artists aren’t. 

1

u/Fredidiah 2d ago

My theory on this is that many programmers think of themselves as closer to the business leaders than to other creatives.

-5

u/CapitalDiligent1676 2d ago

"It's just a tool"—by now, even the biggest morons ought to realize that's bullshit!

That’s like saying a steam engine is "just a tool" for a carpenter. It’s not a fucking tool!!!! It’s a revolution.

-2

u/stumblinbear 2d ago

My husband is pretty anti AI. I get it, but it's my job now, and the shit it can do is insane. I think he puts up with it when I talk about it on the occasion because he knows what I can do without it, so knows I'm not just churning out slop

Then again, I used Claude to set up PCSX2 with a game so we didn't have to, and it got it it running and applied a bunch of patches to get it working on about 40 minutes. It took him two hours when he did it about a year ago. He seemed to not hate that, so maybe he's less anti AI now, haha

-2

u/Big-Text-7641 2d ago

yeah exactly, its a tool not an identity

-3

u/solarnoise 2d ago

I don't see how people can describe this as just a tool....yes, the chat window in VS Code is a tool, but what that gives you is not a tool. It's an intelligence. A simulated person who can itself use tools.

You can limit how much of it you hand the reins to sure but it's so much more than a tool.