I wrote an essay about why I'm done using AI for coding, even if it costs me my job and career: https://brettcodes.com/im-done-using-ai/

[jake4480@c.im]

@brettcodes that was a great read, man. I've seen similar sentiments but this was eloquent as hell, and you definitely put in the work trying it out. I don't use any of it either and luckily haven't been forced to yet (luckily unlikely, where I work now). But in March I lost my job of 14 years to some kind of 'AI' solution that had its own team. So am I bitter and weirded out? A little. Anyway. Thanks for writing all this up.

[xan@xantronix.social]

@brettcodes I watched your video last night. It was a difficult video for me because, for a few months now, I had successfully managed to not think too much about the feelings I had to contend with on account of my ex-employer's impending AI mandate. I dodged the bullet but, beat for beat, I felt myself in your shoes as the way you related your career experiences felt very similar to my own.

I'm really happy to see you here on the ol' ActivityPub Information Superhighway.

[ingmar@norden.social]

@brettcodes Thank you for writing and sharing this. It’s good to hear that there are still some likeminded people. I would have never thought that something like this could happen to field that should be based on logic and rational thinking. It’s an absolute tragedy.

[xan@xantronix.social]

@brettcodes I feel my YouTube comment suggesting we should be in revolt over this is a little understated. The people behind these mandates and the overall industry mania need to be removed from their positions as the industry is systemically dismantled in its entirety.

[sunz@social.translunar.academy]

@brettcodes@mastodon.social thank you for sharing!

I’m currently drafting an internal document at work to put all the practical shortcomings of using AI for development first and center and your first-hand experience is extremely valuable, do you mind me citing this in my sources?

[simonrjones@mastodon.social]

@brettcodes that’s a really well written post and interesting to hear your experience using AI heavily for over a year. We are experimenting carefully with AI, I also fear what we’d lose if AI completely replaced coding. Trying to find a balance is a challenge.

[cyberquixote@infosec.exchange]

@javascript @brettcodes

We can, we just need to stop deciding to feed this one, if not entirely, at least with less enthusiasm, ffs

[brettcodes@mastodon.social]

@sunz please do, thanks!

[brettcodes@mastodon.social]

@xan yeah! it's really capitalism distilled: every business is frothing at the mouths for the idea of software being done faster while disregarding the negative impacts to their customers, team, environment, and society. The thing is though that software different than traditional manufacturing where adding more features/LoC does not necessarily mean more revenue. It's more abstract than that. But billions of dollars of marketing + capitalism + human nature are tough to fight against.

[arnapou@phpc.social]

@brettcodes I never coded with AI. 100% red flag from the start for me.

But in the same boat for
- no problem for my job & career (in any case, it has only deteriorated in 25 years)
- I never started this job to be a "machine pilot", I want to think, craft, by myself… (I never cared to dev faster)
- I like the journey more than the destination (I'm more interested in doing things well than the result itself, the result will naturally be better with a well thought out process).

[going_to_maine@mastodon.social]

@brettcodes Your experience sounds like the vibe bobsled sentiment laid out by Christine Lemmer-Webber here! https://dustycloud.org/blog/faulty-towers-vibe-sickness-and-the-vibe-bobsled/

[brettcodes@mastodon.social]

@going_to_maine this is fascinating, thank you so much for sharing!

[cpr320@frontrange.co]

@brettcodes At work, we use AI for coding, but our team decided that human review is important. And , while I see where you're coming from, it doesn't have to be as bad as you describe.

We use a mixed human-AI review. Partly questioning the AI ("how do you know that loop terminates?") and partially reading the code. And, also, reading the comments: if the comments/docstrings make sense, you're half-way there.

And when we're writing, we have the AI do a plan, then question it, and review the plan before letting it go. And then run an eyeball over the result.

So, I think we're not forgetting our code, and we have a process that produces decent quality code. And it really helps to have management buy-in and good tools.

One advantage is that I appreciate the damn machine remembering (mostly correctly) the details of thousands of library functions for me. I'm over 60, and remembering library details is harder than when you're 40. And I've been in the business long enough to be suspicious of most hallucinated, too-good-to-be-true API calls, so I don't get sidetracked too often.

So that's our 2026 situation. AI coding sucked in 2025, and who knows what 2027 will bring.

[brettcodes@mastodon.social]

@cpr320 I appreciate you sharing your experience, thanks. While I understand what you're saying, which is essentially only use it a little bit and more intentionally, there are too many other problems/harms of using AI, which therefore makes it not worth it for me.

[cpr320@frontrange.co]

@brettcodes I can see that. My experience tracks the first part of your essay. But i've never felt tempted to talk to the damn things when not coding.

The wider implications are severe, I guess...

[wesley@theatl.social]

@brettcodes You're not alone. We've been under mandates to have LLMs at my work and sometimes it feels amazing to push a button and then a whole feature gets built. It makes you feel like you can do anything in an instant and it doesn't cost all the mental anguish you have to go through when writing it yourself.

I find that I'm more personally detached from the quality of the output, but also I feel mentally removed from the actual inner workings of the code. I can still picture the code in my head and speak definitely about thing I wrote years ago, but I can't do the same for code shipped 2 weeks ago that was written by the LLM

I've been slowly rebelling and getting back to writing my own code, so that I actually have to think about what I'm doing rather than doing software development on autopilot

[tiotasram@kolektiva.social]

@weebull @brettcodes FWIW the ones using AI to chase productivity ate structurally doomed to fail. I wrote a bit about this:

https://cs.wellesley.edu/~pmwh/advice/aiProductivity.html

[caio@eu.social.br]

@brettcodes 15+ years of experience in software engineering here. I feel exactly the same.

[remi@phpc.social]

@brettcodes Thanks!

I also choose not to use AI at all.

It wants to do the 10% of my work I love (the remaining is tickets, meetings, waiting for infra...)

[thankfulmachine@oldbytes.space]

@brettcodes That must have been quite an arduous journey. Congratulations on your arrival.