Someone on Mastodon was saying that whether you consider AI coding an advantage completely depends on whether you think of prompting the AI and verifying its output as “work.” If that’s work to you, the AI offers no benefit. If it’s not, then you may think you’ve freed up a bunch of time and energy.

The problem for me, then, is that I enjoy writing code. I do not enjoy telling other people what to do or reviewing their code. So AI is a valueless proposition to me because I like my job and am good at it.

“In principle, I am a fan of following the law. In practice, following the law would prevent me from doing whatever I want with no consequences, which is my right as a rich person in America”

I use whatever line completion is built into JetBrains out of the box. Other than that, no AI whatsoever.

Only about 10% of my time at work is actually spent writing code. At least double that time is spent reading code, and the rest is documentation, coordination, and communication work that depends on precise understanding of the code I’m responsible for. If I let AI write code, maybe (doubtfully) that would save a little time out of the 10%, but it would cost me dearly in the other two categories. The code I write by hand is minimal, clear, and easy to understand, and I understand it better because I wrote it myself. I understand all the code around it, too.

If you ask me, AI code generation is based entirely on non-programmers’ incorrect understanding of what programming is.