Complaining about emerging technology is not new. Generations before me have done so with technology that we love and frankly can't miss: books, television, the calculator, and the home computer. You name it and the older generation would have complained about it at the time. Justified or not, I am sure their arguments at the time were valid.
This webpage is no different. I am complaining about a new technology that has taken the world by storm: A.I. (Artificial intelligence)
Since the release of GPT in 2022, I have been witnessing a steady decline in software development competency. Programmers who I respected deeply have demoted themselves to prompt engineers (read: QAs) without even realizing it. Once great minds are now quality assurance for A.I. generated code. How pathetic.
A lack of competency is of course not a concern to the business folk. The more they can automate, the better. The more they can save on expenses, the better. The quality of life is of no concern to them. Desperate people will take on any job, regardless of quality, to survive. Businesses that thrive on the enshitification of society are foaming out of the mouth. Cheaper labor, more profit, higher ups get paid more, ... What a dream for them.
In the meanwhile, common people are subject to the bare minimum. They are given crumbs - despite doing a majority of the labor. Just enough to survive and not revolt.
The proliferation of A.I. has an impact on me in this way. I cannot compete with a computer; just like professional chess players can't compete with the best chess engines. Today's A.I. might not yet pose a problem for my job security, however A.I. is in its worst state today. It will only improve if allowed to.
What saddens me as well about all of this is how many people are volunteering to be robbed of a future. Unless, and I hope I will see it in my lifetime, the implementation of UBI becomes widespread.
Take junior developers for example. Junior developers are a vital work force in software development. You are allowed, even encouraged, to learn on the job and hone your problem solving skills with real life projects. With this way of learning, junior developers are expected to ease into projects by first taking on mundane tasks. Writing boilerplate, devising unit tests, writing documentation, and so on. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these tasks are all being delegated to A.I.
You will often hear the argument that this frees junior developers up to focus on more challenging tasks, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, there probably are instances where this occurs, but I doubt they are frequent. Junior developers are being phased out in favor of automations through A.I.
You had better been born a senior software developer if you want to work in this industry. How sad. Why would someone trained in business hire junior developers when there's A.I. that can do their work in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the cost? Why would you hire junior developers when senior developers can review the generated code? Seniors were going to review the junior developer's code anyway.
A.I. is available 24/7 while humans are not. They have needs. Humans must sleep, eat, have a place to live, must be able to socialize, aren't efficient with their time, and so on. Try and defend the fallibility of humans to business folk. Yeah; good luck!
Sure, you say, let the junior developers use A.I. as a crutch. Do you really think this approach leads to skilled developers? No! This leads to skilled prompt engineers.
Hayao Miyazaki upon being shown an A.I. demo said: "[...] I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself. [...] I feel like we are nearing to the end of the times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves..."
All developers alike, seasoned or new, who use A.I. are actively "vibe coding" their way out of a job and out of future jobs. I hope more people will see it this way, but alas, I suspect many don't actually like thinking about problems - they're just doing their job to survive. I respect it, but fuck you.
This is not about competing. Who am I to care really that people are using A.I.? Creative thought is unique. Rarely do people align in their creative endeavours. When they do, it's considered a miracle. When A.I. automates creative processes, creativity perishes. The fast inverse square root algorithm is famous because it is ingenious. (Though with a relatively significant margin of error.) A.I. does not invent such algorithms because it does not generate creatively. Yet...
Those who say that A.I. will never be good enough to replace programmers is delusional. It is of great benefit to business that A.I. prospers. For this reason alone, A.I. will continue to grow in capital and improve in its capabilities. No matter the cost.
I will continue to fight against the use of A.I. even if that means that my existence on this planet is numbered. The day I have to use A.I. to survive is the day I take my own life.
16 AUG 2025