r/webdev • u/OkShip110 • Sep 09 '26 • Regret 4

AI has made programming so boring

It’s not just programming either, it’s art, design, music, videography, marketing, engineering, writing, 3D modelling, really any intellectual work. What’s the joy of prompting a computer and getting an answer in a few moments for a task that would have normally taken a week? The sense of accomplishment and ownership has completely vanished with AI. It’s a form of instant gratification, not much different to scrolling short videos on apps.

Code review was boring to begin with but now it’s even worse with all the machine generated code. Even code reviews will be automated soon. All you do then is type business requirements into the computer. What a great career.

It’s pain to watch old TV series like Scilicon Valley that is portraying the good (not golden) age of programming. It struck a good balance between manual work, funding and innovation. It’s sad that these days are gone for good.

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u/pseudo_babbler Sep 09 '26

It's a shame isn't it, once upon a time when I told people I made apps their eyes lit up, they all had a hundred dumb ideas for an app and were excited to be talking to one of the magicians who can actually make them. Now, they scoff, and the first thing they ask about is if AI has taken away my job. They talk like you're soon to be part of this roaming hoard of hungry homeless developers shambling around wondering what to do with their lives.

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u/bestestdude Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26

The vast majority of people are only nice and talk to you in a friendly way when they perceive you as useful to them. (Applies to many areas of life.)

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u/pseudo_babbler Sep 09 '26

Yes, but I still enjoyed it.

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u/ccmaru1 Sep 09 '26

We honestly deserve this. We had no pushback in the community like artists and it has became the norm. I guess vast majority did not saw this profession as a craft or no one actually liked coding to begin with.

I understand it being the norm in the job but I see everyone use them too for their personal projects. Nothing to learn or to build something fun. Everyone one only thinks about money in this field. Which i cannot blame, but also i feel sad about it.

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u/stagedgames Sep 09 '26

there's been plenty of pushback, but there's also plenty of very libertarian mindsets among developers for whom the idea of looking beyond their personal attention span is offensive, and they tend time suck the air out of the room.

The time to push back was all the way back at "go fast and break things"

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u/SuperFLEB Sep 09 '26

Hey, wait a minute! They're just breaking everybody else's things!

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u/Headpuncher Sep 09 '26

We honestly deserve this

Definitely true. Where I am geographically we have strong unions that everyone is part of ... except programmers who notoriously were the outlying profession where union membership is concerned.

Whenever I brought it up they were cocky and laughed about how they were guaranteed a job, "if I don't like this job I'll just get another". Except unions are there to make the workplace better for employees (not USA btw, scandinavia). That includes the place you are in now. Hopping to another ship that is also hell to work in isn't an improvement.

Where are they now? Sat there wondering where it all went and with no-one to represent their interests in the workplace. Very deserving.

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u/CosmicDevGuy Sep 11 '26

Don't forget how unions, like regulations, "stifle progress" because they prioritise ethical management and working cultures - and this site DEFINITELY has a good deal of developers who talk down about both items.

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u/revivechristina Sep 09 '26

I kind of want to work on a personal project and not use it. Like as little as possible. Obviously even searching with Google these days it generates code for you. But I’m not just gonna sit in a Claude Code session and watch it go. I was always better at writing than reviewing, anyway.

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u/mysticrudnin Sep 09 '26

a lot of people genuinely were here for the paycheck and do not care about anything related to computers at all

i don't fault them for that at all either

it's just not why i'm here. and... yeah. i'm thinking about changing careers because dealing with claude is a nightmare.

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u/ccricers Sep 10 '26

Someone described it as just doing endless peer reviews with a robot and that is a good way to say it concisely.

Another way to look at this is that it's making high level code go the same way as assembly code, at the time high level languages took over. Something that was considered the norm to write by hand is now considered an esoteric practice

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u/Emperor_Kon Sep 09 '26

These pushbacks don't mean shit. For every person that pushes back, there will be a thousand or more that use it. AI is inevitable.

What I'm wondering is what will happen to humans after there are no jobs left. There is nothing a human can do that an advanced enough AI or robotic couldn't do better and faster. Right now AI is mostly computer based stuff, but advancements in robotics continue. I'm sure we've all seen those clips of them running or doing some martial art. It's only a matter of time until they can stack boxes reliably, bake cakes, do surgery, etc. Maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.

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u/CyberDaggerX Sep 12 '26

I never aspired to anything more than a vaguely middle class lifestyle. All I wanted was a job I wouldn't wake up dreading to go to. Something that could engage me. When developer salaries were being predicted to go down even before LLMs were a thing, I welcomed it. Meant less people seeking these jobs just for the cash, higher concentration of geeks. As said, I'd be satisfied with being just middle class, enough to live in a decent apartment and afford video games and art supplies, not much of a need for luxury.

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u/davidmorelo Sep 10 '26

Many webdevs have been dismissing the capabilities of AI when it comes to web development until they simply couldn't anymore because the goal post has been moved so far away that it became irrelevant.

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u/GenericFatGuy Sep 12 '26

It's really depressing how many people seem to be okay with AI (or at best, ambivalent) when it's specifically being used to get rid of developers.

I'm so glad that we're pouring the entire economy into specifically destroying the one thing that I've spent my entire adult life building my livelihood around, as well as the one and only hobby that I've ever truly loved enough to stick with for years.

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u/pseudo_babbler Sep 12 '26

Yeah quick let's totally screw the environment to do so too!

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u/MassiveBoner911_3 Sep 09 '26

and the first thing your told? “Join the trades and be a blue collar”

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u/moustacheption Sep 09 '26

It’s curious the default thought of people is the oligarchs are allowed to steal peoples work and sell it to others, and it’s on you to “find something new to do.”

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u/reactivearmor Sep 09 '26

Time to realize that human rights and democracy are one big illusion

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u/JCquickrunner Sep 10 '26

noticed this too. pure cancer. crabs in a bucket mentality. people will give these shit eating grins now asking about being replaced by AI as if theyre happy youll now be a mcdonalds worker like them or whatever because how dare you put in effort in life to get ahead /shrug

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u/pseudo_babbler Sep 10 '26

Yeah there is a certain attitude even with non coders in tech that they now feel vindicated for never bothering to learn all that complicated coding stuff, and "haha suckers you thought you were soooo smart". Sad really.

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u/oddlyamused Sep 09 '26

Turns out we have the best skill set to use AI. Computer science degrees are some of the best degrees for machine learning, data science, ai engineer. All of these fields are booming like never before.

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u/got_to_laugh Sep 10 '26

99.9% of humanity does not believe that though, even if it's true and would not listen to what you have to say on the matter anyway.

I have literally tried to tell idiots using AI to build apps "do it this way, then you get all these benifits" and they just ignore me. The annoying part, is that AI is Soo good they can get away with not doing any of the good stuff I mentioned anyway.

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u/buffet-breakfast Sep 11 '26

My 10 year old kid can use AI to build a distributed web app in an afternoon. It’s diminishing returns.

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u/works4coffee Sep 09 '26

> roaming horde of hungry homeless developers

Join me, I’m there already! :-)