Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple I was about to toot on my timeline, but actually this is a good springboard.
I've reviewed like 3 or 4 community PRs this week and the common thread is that you get very verbose explanations for what the PR does at first, but the followup is weak.
Also, these code changes always seem to contain a whole load of extra code that didn't need to exist, almost like the AI didn't quite understand what was going on..
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@Purple I was about to toot on my timeline, but actually this is a good springboard.
I've reviewed like 3 or 4 community PRs this week and the common thread is that you get very verbose explanations for what the PR does at first, but the followup is weak.
Also, these code changes always seem to contain a whole load of extra code that didn't need to exist, almost like the AI didn't quite understand what was going on..
I think AI is incredibly weak at actually understanding problems with any moderate degree of complexity.
People forget it's a language model that is just very advanced at predicting what would be a likely, or seemingly sensible answer to a prompt. It's kinda inherent to it's design, they try to overcome it by having it write it's own prompt ("thinking mode") but even then it still just doesn't grasp the full idea
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple I struggle to even ask about work with my ex colleagues because they all seem to have bought into the company's two feet all in dive into AI, and it feels like we're living in separate realities.
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@Purple I struggle to even ask about work with my ex colleagues because they all seem to have bought into the company's two feet all in dive into AI, and it feels like we're living in separate realities.
@swift I sometimes end up talking to them about it, and they seem to be aware AI is sometimes wrong... But yet they keep using it for literally everything.
It's almost like an addict who knows the addiction might be hurting them, but can't stop using.
I can see the damage it's doing to the long term maintainability of our environment and platform too
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple working together with people who actually enjoy programming is a luxury
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple One of the biggest things the AI stuff has taught me is that so many programmers just... don't actually want to program.
I never would have expected that, but it's like the whole game industry here (for example) just doesn't actually want to make games. They want to HAVE MADE games, but absolutely despise the process. And I just don't get it. I LOVE the process of making things!
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@Purple One of the biggest things the AI stuff has taught me is that so many programmers just... don't actually want to program.
I never would have expected that, but it's like the whole game industry here (for example) just doesn't actually want to make games. They want to HAVE MADE games, but absolutely despise the process. And I just don't get it. I LOVE the process of making things!
To be honest the making process sometimes frustrates me, but I don't see how you could be proud of what you have made if it's just hastily thrown together by a chatbot!
I'm proud of the things I've made, because I've put my own brain to use to create something I had in mind. I thought it worked this way for others too, but like you say I think we might be in the minority here
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple Yeah, sounds familiar sadly. One day one of my colleagues can write perfect high quality code and the next day I am looking at a PR and the WTF/min is incredibly high and I know what happened... When confronted in the way if "I am not really sure why you wrote it like this, normally you have a very different style" they admit they used AI that day cause they were lazy...
And it's often very obviously weird stuff... Like for example we always program Python with typing and suddenly there is no typing anywhere to be found. Recently I even got a PR where >everything< was done using getattr meta-programming instead of typed property access and that >should< be something you almost never need to use and wonder when reading even once.
I really like my colleagues and normally they can make wonderful stuff, but when things like this happen... I don't know, they just given up or something?
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To be honest the making process sometimes frustrates me, but I don't see how you could be proud of what you have made if it's just hastily thrown together by a chatbot!
I'm proud of the things I've made, because I've put my own brain to use to create something I had in mind. I thought it worked this way for others too, but like you say I think we might be in the minority here
@Purple Oh yeah, definitely has those frustrating moments, but honestly the solving something after that is just so great!
Then I see someone bragging about their 30k loc vibe coded chatbot output that they've never read and just... I can't comprehend what they're celebrating.
On the bright side, seeing that makes me all the more proud of doing the cool things myself, since I've seen the alternative :3
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple I was lucky to be in a project where this effect was somewhat subdued.
Outside of that context:
I just got started scrolling through the docs to configure something specific, only for someone else to pose a question to a chatbot, which of course made something up.
A senior colleague was trying to get a camera drone to launch, I open the manual online, he started talking into his phone (guess who got the right answer, though the LLM nonsense was tried first).
There’s more. -
Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
I have seen this for processes...
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@Purple I was lucky to be in a project where this effect was somewhat subdued.
Outside of that context:
I just got started scrolling through the docs to configure something specific, only for someone else to pose a question to a chatbot, which of course made something up.
A senior colleague was trying to get a camera drone to launch, I open the manual online, he started talking into his phone (guess who got the right answer, though the LLM nonsense was tried first).
There’s more.@Purple so yeah, you are not alone.
I used to think my (now previous) employer mostly had a staff that actually somewhat cared about the craft. I am not so sure anymore.
On the contrary, I more and more get questioned on or have to justify my decision to avoid these tools wherever I can (sure, being able to do so is a privilege, depending on current pressure at wherever one works to feed and house themselves). -
Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple it's also happening to senior academics!
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@Purple it's also happening to senior academics!
@pounce We will definitely experience the consequences of this in 5-10 years from now
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple
yes and I got fired shortly after probably because I was not "productive" enough compared to them -
Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple at large, i see this as capitalism digging its own grave, unfortunately at the expense of individuals.
what's a good argument against "we all should use ai to solve problems of a business faster" given that garbage throwaway code has silently been acceptaed across the board?
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@Purple at large, i see this as capitalism digging its own grave, unfortunately at the expense of individuals.
what's a good argument against "we all should use ai to solve problems of a business faster" given that garbage throwaway code has silently been acceptaed across the board?
The frustrating part is, in order to be able to convince someone they need to have a deep understanding of what output the AI is producing.
To the lazy or unsuspecting eye its output looks superb and perfect. But only if you have a reasonably deep understanding of the engineering challenge you've asked it to solve, you will understand it's more often garbage than not.
I don't see a way to win this battle, other than finding a company that doesn't fall for AI and keeps producing high quality services, even though they may take a little longer to build than competitors. Eventually others will start to collapse under the technical debt
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To be honest the making process sometimes frustrates me, but I don't see how you could be proud of what you have made if it's just hastily thrown together by a chatbot!
I'm proud of the things I've made, because I've put my own brain to use to create something I had in mind. I thought it worked this way for others too, but like you say I think we might be in the minority here
@Purple @kitcat To say nothing of when you've faced a problem, figured out a fix, and can *actually explain why that fix is correct*, and *apply the same reasoning in other situations*. Not just the same fix, but the same *reasoning*.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned like that, but actually having figured something out brings me joy. Even if it is stuff that lots of other people know. Learning how the pieces fit together to bring the result I get out of the thing I made.
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Is anyone else experience this thing where your fellow senior engineers seem to be lobotomised by AI?
I've had 4 different senior engineers in the last week come up with absolutely insane changes or code, that they were instructed to do by AI. Things that if you used your brain for a few minutes you should realise just don't work.
They also rarely can explain why they make these changes or what the code actually does.
I feel like I'm absolutely going insane, and it also makes me not able to trust anyones answers or analysis' because I /know/ there is a high chance they should asked AI and wrote it off as their own.
I think the effect AI has had on our industry's knowledge is really significant, and it's honestly very scary.
@Purple yea i know a teamlead who just had to fire one guy like that, who wouldn't stop trying to push broken ai slop despite it being very obvious. it's legit a cult that breaks people's brains -
@Purple @kitcat To say nothing of when you've faced a problem, figured out a fix, and can *actually explain why that fix is correct*, and *apply the same reasoning in other situations*. Not just the same fix, but the same *reasoning*.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned like that, but actually having figured something out brings me joy. Even if it is stuff that lots of other people know. Learning how the pieces fit together to bring the result I get out of the thing I made.
