AI is ruining software engineers

Published at 2024-10-27T22:16:08-06:00

I am still fairly new in the software engineering world. I graduated from University only a few years ago, but I already feel like the old man yelling at the clouds. There are two main reasons I feel like AI is ruining the up and coming developers.

No ability to think and problem solve

Nowadays, ChatGPT and Copilot and other AI helpers can do amazing things when it comes to helping developers. I admit, I use it at work. However, I mainly only use it to automatically do the code I am too lazy to write myself. It is basically a fancy autocomplete for me. And that is what copilot does really well. If you need to write the same line over and over again with minimal changes, hitting tab can do that very quickly for you. It has also shown it is really good at writing tests for my code. But there is a reliance on these AI assistants that is going too far. There are way to many college kids that can't complete a single assignment without getting help. Instead of learning, you can throw the question into these assistants and viola! you have an answer! When these developers are put in a situation where they can't use it, they either cheat and use it anyway, which can potentially cost companies millions of dollars if you end up accidently using licensed code, or you are completely unable to do anything. In the long term, this is going to be very detrimental to the coding industry.

There are pros

I don't think this is all bad though. These AI assistants are drastically lowering the barrier of entry, which is only a good thing. In the same way that python opened the door to non-developers to be able to be able to create software of all kinds. This is only a plus. More people are going to be able to pursure their dreams, or make their lives easier, or do whatever. The cons I was mentioning above are more for larger software projects that require the ability to think and architect and write good code.

AI development is not software engineering

I am an interviewer at my company. I am seeing a lot people who have very impressive AI experience. They have done some really cool things and solved complex problems with them. Almost everyone coming out of school has some AI experience, because why wouldn't they? It is what almost every company wants nowadays and it is an exciting piece of technology. The problem is, they spend so much time studying how to train models, that they no longer know basic object oriented patterns. When asked to organize some data into a class, people with impressive resumes struggle. And I mean can't do what a basic intro level CS class should be teaching. I'm honestly stunned. This is an extremely core value that you need to be a software engineer. These are two very different skills though. If you want me to do some AI stuff, I would be at an absolute loss. And if that is the road you want to take, that is absolutely fine! You just aren't going to have the skills to become a software engineer or design large software projects.

Wrapping up

I don't know, maybe I'm just a cynical, grumpy old man, but I am only saying what I have been seeing. Developers can't structure code anymore, and can't think for themselves. These are caused pretty directly from AI. Maybe this is just the direction the world is going in, and we will have to learn how to adapt.