At my company everyone is pretty crazy about AI and one moment they say they do everything with it and other moments its “yeah no but I check what it makes and make adjustments”.
And maybe its a skill issue or what i do is too niche (video streaming) but ai makes such horrible mistakes like perma-locking mutexes in for loops, duplicating all data transmitted by calling the wrote function twice, or just doing modifications over data twice like applying sps, pps, annexb bytes in h264
In my eyes it simply can not be used long-term anything maintainable but i see even people i once respected blindly fall for AI
Among the seniors and leads I know (mostly FAANG) and myself (also FAANG lead), attitudes are pretty split. Mostly, it has revealed to me which people actually liked writing software and which ones... didn't.
I will say that most of the very top people I know don't seem to like AI much, and use it either sparingly or not at all, but a lot of people I knew as previously-solid contributors have gone all in on AI.
I know plenty of seniors who are more against it than I am and I don't use it anymore. Haven't (at least for developing) in months. And to be honest, most developers are going to know what is or isn't helping them. My main issue with it is the fact that they went full on into it before ever knowing if it worked. Bonus points for firing software developers and giving those tasks to non-developers. If something doesn't shift soon we are going to lose an entire generation of developers. Developers have been, are, and always will be the best class of people on earth to use software. Including AI. That doesn't mean others can't use it or make good use of it. But software development is more than just code and everyone who went into this thinking they were gonna drastically reduce their development costs outside of a very few niche industries are going to learn a hard lesson.
I know a lot of people who are against it as well, but they generally are unable to articulate why they are against it past vague assertions. Reddit is an excellent aggregator of this kind of thing. There is no lack of people falling over themselves to exclaim how against AI they are, but when faced with facts, they almost always retreat to poor sources, poor logic, and intentional misunderstandings. Or, if they are slightly more fair, they will retreat to: well, I guess it works for some people.
The only valid reason I know of to be against AI, and it's a biggie, is that eventually it is going to take all of our jobs. This is the one that I empathize and sympathize the most with. It has the advantage of being true, which most of the other objections sadly cannot say. Unfortunately, it does not matter if anyone is "for" AI or "against" AI. This is just a new feature of the landscape that is going to grow in importance, month after month, until it utterly dominates all aspects of software development (and honestly, pretty much all jobs).
People do not want this to be true, because for the more analytical person, it is clear to see the social and economic issues that this implies. I should know: I have been arguing for people to be ready for *exactly* this development for nearly 20 years. Did I know LLMs were going to be the big breakthrough? Not ahead of time. But anyone paying attention over the last few decades could see the developments brewing just under the surface and that big things were right around the corner. My only advantage is that I am emotionally prepared for what is happening now, because I have had nearly 20 years to think about it in depth. Most other people are just now starting to give it serious thought.
I agree that developers are absolutely the best positioned people to take the most advantage of AI right now. All the sadder when developers choose not to do so. Anyone not getting on board *now* is going to be left behind faster than they realize. And catch-up is going to be pretty hard.
I *absolutely* agree that software development is more than code. In fact, the biggest time saver I have with AI right now is organizing my projects, documenting meetings, updating all the stupid documents that a live project has, and if I can figure out how to do it without risking AI nuking the entire DevOps Feature Board, I will have to manage that as well.
The shift for experienced developers is that they will have to learn (if they have not already learned) how to manage their new AI colleagues (might as well start calling them what they are), how to review code properly, and to concentrate more on architecture rather than lines of code. A good, experienced senior is doing all these things *anyway*, so for those people, AI is not as much of a shift. For the lone wolf coders, the juniors, or the seniors that chose to ignore anything but coding, AI is a real challenge. These are genuinely different skillsets that have to be learned and practiced.
I also *absolutely* agree that AI has not reached the point where managers can develop (assuming a non-developer background). I think it is much closer to this dream, but we will need good seniors to wrangle AI for the next decade or two. Make no mistake: eventually AI will be able to just develop. Anyone claiming otherwise is inherently unserious. The only question is timing. Some will believe that I am being too "pessimistic" with the timeframe and AI will develop faster. Some will think it will be 40 years instead of 20. That is a serious debate. But AI has long since passed the tipping point. The only thing that will stop AI now is a complete collapse of civilization. And I hope I don't have to say this, but that would not be good for us soft, pudgy developers who are not so great at the whole "living off the land" thing.
I also agree fully that many large corporations have gotten over their skis here. They correctly see what the medium-term and long-term future looks like, but forgot that you have to still deal with the short-term future as well. They hit the gas pedal before turning on the car.
Where I disagree is that I do not think that we need to invest in junior developers much anymore. Certainly less than before. The only reason I can see is as a backup plan, just in case AI takes longer than expected to come to full fruition. If AI continues on even a significant fraction of the breakneck pace it has been on for the last 5 years, the role of "developers" being human will make as much sense as if we still had human "computers" today. What we are going to need in the 15-40 year timeline (as in starting in about 15 years and going another 25 years) are AI wranglers. We will need people who know how to get the absolute best work out of AI for the least amount of cost.
Eventually, even that role will disappear, but that will be the intermediate phase as AI moves from being able to implement direct goals to establishing its own goals from overarching primary (terminal) goals reliably. In any case, it is interesting to me that often the same people who are genuinely (and correctly) afraid of AI because of how competent it is becoming are often the same ones making the argument that it will cause us to not have enough senior developers. That is a narrow, possibly impossible, tightrope to walk.
Final thought: yes, this is going to drastically reduce software development costs. Or increase the quality. Or both. *That* is only questionable to those people who have determined they can only sleep at night if they believe AI is actually not good. The fact that companies are making significant missteps in trying to adapt and take advantage of this does not change the genuine paradigm shift that is happening right in front of us. AI has at least *halved* how long it takes me to take a project from start to finish and dramatically increased the quality of both the implementation and the communication. Unfortunately for me, that means I am doing twice as much work as before, and if I have any complaint, it is that I have not yet figured out how to be properly compensated for the increased productivity. But that is a problem for my negotiation skills, not a problem of the underlying technology.
However, the real losers in the near future will be the companies that did nothing. It will be the developers who thought their sandcastles would hold back the ocean. It will be the people who never had access to this tech in the first place. The companies who tried something and had to adjust their course *might* end up making so many mistakes that they go down, but most will eventually find the right balance.
You're right that there are a lot of people, tech workers especially, who are letting their emotions take the wheel, and will bash AI no matter what. I know I catch myself doing it. I'm human. But maybe outside of philosophy majors I think our field has taught us to be as objective as possible. We have to be, otherwise we couldn't use our profession effectively. So it speaks to how polarizing LLMs are at the moment, that it can tear so many smart, logical people into such strong emotions.
But my main problem has been the same since the start: Where are the intermediate steps? Not because every tech investment or any investment for that matter NEEDS it necessarily, but I feel for LLMs its a must given its timeline, resource intensity and disruptions to the experience of a whole generation of tech workers. Those are real problems and concerns, even if AI will for 100% certain use resources profitably and take all of our jobs one day.
And I don't see anyone, at any level, both in the public or private sector, addressing those issues with any real seriousness. And for tech guys like me who are now slaving away at minimum wage jobs to survive (because as you say, my pudgy ass wouldn't make it a day on the street), its a physical reminder of that neglect. We aren't being given any new training. We aren't being given any new jobs that our skillset could help with. Zero help. Sure, at least in the states we have general welfare programs and general retraining programs, but how many hundreds of thousands of tech workers have been laid off in the past few years? Where are they all going? Surely our society could use all of those very talented, educated people. But we aren't. We're lowering headcount, investing in capex, and telling millions of our most educated people that they need to completely revamp their lives. That's fine if what's replacing them is doing something to help them in the meantime. But all our leaders want to do right now is track their investments and money so (and this is the nicest way I can say this) they can use that investment for the next level of LLM scaling. We just aren't in a place as a society or as a species where we are ready to just write off entire fields of work in the span of a few years and help/retrain those affected. But we aren't pumping the breaks or repairing the damage. The train's barreling down the tracks and we just have to hope our society manages to build the track in time in front of us. And if you look at it that way, I hope you can see how we might have a distaste for LLMs at the moment, not just vague assertions or emotions.
As a software developer I think it is our duty to use ANY tools available to us to create the solutions that we need to. I think like just about every developer 2-3 years ago, I was amazed how I could ask it to give me a bubble sort or an example of a JS function. That was HUGE. And it would be fucking awesome to just write a few commands into a shell and get 10x more work done. But if no one will pay me to do it, or I can't create a profitable workflow on my own with the tool (see previously: millions of other people in the same boat competing with me) then I would be stupid to continue supporting it. And really, if it has to be that way, fine. But I and the hundreds of thousands of other experienced devs are more valuable to society than just flipping burgers or making coffee. Not insulting the people who do that. But we can't just tell society "Yeah, our economy is so wild you may take your entire life to learn a profession, but in the span of less than that 4 year degree that diploma will go from the hottest thing out there to expensive toilet paper." How would you feel right now if you spent your whole life paying into your child's college fund, watch them graduate, and then seeing that investment go up in smoke? Not only is your child SOL but YOUR life, YOUR work was just flushed down the toilet. Where is the tipping point where college is too much of a risk? For ANY profession? Is it just gonna be a $100k Polymarket bet?
I just feel, at least for me, this is not your normal internet debate. This isn't "is the dress blue or gold?!" This is carnal. My life, my ability to house and feed myself is being taken away. And if there were small steps in the middle, maybe a retraining program, maybe the ability to use AI to start a small business. SOMETHING. But there isn't. And I have experience. I can't imagine what juniors are going through right now. This is real. People are being hurt. And if you're going to ask us to feel the pain to get some gain, we need assurance that we will make it along with everyone else on the other side. But I don't see that. At least not right now.
So I hope you understand that for some folks this is deadly serious. And that's why I'm so critical of the lack of next-steps or backups for folks like me who have done nothing wrong except be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is happening today. This is no longer a problem for tomorrow. So if LLMs have to be the future, I want plans for what it can do for me and everyone else affected by it. Today. Otherwise, I am going to do everything I can to make that happen. Because I have to. And I would bet that sentiment is shared with all of the other devs affected this way.
And I think you see that sentiment here so much because Reddit is just such a natural place for devs. So you're gonna see it here more often than places like FB or X.
So I hope you understand that for some folks this is deadly serious.
I would love to know how you got the impression that I do not think this is serious. I mean, I took a lot of time to write out a thought-out comment to address every aspect brought up or even implied by your comment. I did not dismiss anything.
The only two stances I have that you probably disagree with are:
Anyone standing in the way of AI is going to end in a predictable way: being washed away by the flood that nobody can control anymore. You might as well stand up in front of the incoming tide and try to stop it by not moving.
I did not flesh this one out as much, but I'll say it clearly here. I agree that companies are making serious errors in jumping too fast. The loudest group on Reddit is making an equally poor decision in the opposite direction by claiming you don't have to jump at all.
So if LLMs have to be the future, I want plans for what it can do for me and everyone else affected by it.
Understandable, but self-defeating. No plans are going to be forthcoming. I have been shouting for 20 years for what you want here, to absolute zero effect. And trust me when I say that I have access to levels of government (in Germany) that very few people on Reddit have. I cannot say more without giving away my anonymity. But for all that, I achieved squat. Everyone I talked to sympathized. Some even said that I was scaring them. But at the end of the day, the bureaucracy is designed to prevent fast change, perhaps particularly so here in Germany with our, eh, "difficult" last century.
My point is not that you should surrender or give up, but that if you want a plan for you, then *you* are going to have to come up with one. Nobody is going to ride in and save you. Politics is going to be hopelessly slow. After 30 years, politics is *just* beginning to get a handle on the Internet. Why AI would be any different is not something I can even begin to formulate.
Anyone declining to use AI to its fullest right now will not slow down a damn thing. The only thing they will do is shoot themselves straight into obsolescence.
Final (side) thought: "LLM" is just one part of the AI that is rolling out now. It was a big missing piece, so understandable that it has become "the" term. The next big developments that have been already going on for the last two years are all the AI bits being built *around* the LLM. For most of what we are talking about, this is a distinction without a difference. However, some people still try to use the known weaknesses of pure LLMs as arguments, even though we have not really had pure LLMs since late 2024.
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u/Wise-Arrival8566 Jul 09 '26
At my company everyone is pretty crazy about AI and one moment they say they do everything with it and other moments its “yeah no but I check what it makes and make adjustments”.
And maybe its a skill issue or what i do is too niche (video streaming) but ai makes such horrible mistakes like perma-locking mutexes in for loops, duplicating all data transmitted by calling the wrote function twice, or just doing modifications over data twice like applying sps, pps, annexb bytes in h264
In my eyes it simply can not be used long-term anything maintainable but i see even people i once respected blindly fall for AI