You can hardly get online these days without hearing some AI booster talk about how AI coding is going to replace human programmers. AI code is absolutely up to production quality! Also, you’re all…
Have you used AI to code? You don't say "hey, write this file" and then commit it as "AI Bot 123 aibot@company.com".
You start writing a method and get auto-completes that are sometimes helpful. Or you ask the bot to write out an algorithm. Or to copy something and modify it 30 times.
You're not exactly keeping track of everything the bots did.
I'll admit I skimmed most of that train wreak of an article - I think it's pretty generous saying that it had a point. It's mostly recounts of people complaining about AI. But if they hid something in there about it being remarkably useful in cases but not writing entire applications or features then I guess I'm on board?
Well, sometimes I think the web is flooded with advertising an spam praising AI. For these companies, it makes perfect sense because billions of dollars has been spent at these companies and they are trying to cash in before the tides might turn.
But do you know what is puzzling (and you do have a point here)? Many posts that defend AI do not engage in logical argumentation but they argue beside the point, appeal to emotions or short-circuited argumentation that "new" always equals "better", or claiming that AI is useful for coding as long as the code is not complex (compare that to the objection that mathematics is simple as long it is not complex, which is a red herring and a laughable argument). So, many thanks for you pointing out the above points and giving in few words a bunch of examples which underline that one has to think carefully about this topic!
The problem is that you really only see two sorts of articles.
AI is going to replace developers in 5 years!
AI sucks because it makes mistakes!
I actually see a lot more of the latter response on social media to the point where I'm developing a visceral response to the phrase "AI slop".
Both stances are patently ridiculous though. AI cannot replace developers and it doesn't need to be perfect to be useful. It turns out that it is a remarkably useful tool if you understand its limitations and use it in a reasonable way.
No, it's a car that breaks down once you go faster than 60km/h. It's extremely useful if you know what you're doing and use it only for tasks that it's good at.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Another useless AI hater. You people are even worse than the AI fanboy techbros!
AI is a wonderful tool for those who know how to use it. It has increased my productivity by at least 30% and it can do all the mundane and boring coding while I focus on the interesting aspects!
Just because there's a percent sign doesn't mean it's statistics, smartass. If I finish 4 tickets in the time I usually take to finish 3 tickets, then that's a roughly 30% efficiency increase. That's not statistics, it' s just plain old elementary school algebra!
But don't bother replying. I realize now that this post is occupied by human dregs that will be out of a job within the next 5 years because they refuse to interact with AI at all.
This is the point that the "AI will do it all" crowd is missing. Current AI doesn't innovate. Full stop. It copies.
The need for new code written by folks who understand what they're writing isn't gone, and won't go away.
Whether those folks can be AI is an open question.
Whether we can ever create an AI that can actually innovate is an interesting open question, with little meaningful evidence in either direction, today.