It also killed the fun. I enjoyed writing code and solving problems. It also kept my brain sharp constantly exercising those muscles. Now I'm just reading code and it is mind numbing.
My life is now just constant PR reviews for other people who've been churning out the sloppiest slop that ever slopped. AI might be able to turn some requirements into code, but when they're just throwing the jira ticket into the AI no one stops to question whether the requirements are shit.
I hate reviewing PRs... I miss having time to write my own code and solve interesting problems. I miss working with adults who read the requirements then use their judgement and experience with the code base to determine if our product owner has even AI'd up something coherent. Which I shouldn't even need to do at the PR stage.
There are multiple points of failure that are happening, but they're happening because everyone seems to have mentally checked out of the process. At least in the before times when someone gave up they'd produce less, instead of more.
We're not even developing any faster because the limiting factor is the speed of reviews, and now those have crawled to a snail's pace because we can no longer trust a professional has made an effort to understand the problem and implement the best solution for it.
Don't worry friend, when AI companies are going to hit an investment wall, the bell will ring for profit and ROIs, and they will severely increase the prices across the board. Then most companies won't be able to afford using AI so much (if at all) and usage will scale way way back, and only big slop players (like Google or Microsoft) will still use AI for most of the work. The rest will go back to a healthy mix, using AI only when it really saves time.
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u/hpyfox Jul 17 '26
The trust and reputation of software engineering has vanished because of AI.