Binary Software

”[…] I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself. […] I feel like we are nearing the end of the times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves…”

— Hayao Miyazaki upon being shown an A.I. demo

My arguments:

• AI erodes creativity
• Developers are vibe coding their way out of a job.
• AI-augmented development creates the illusion of competence.

Complaining about emerging technologies is not new. Generations before me have done it with technologies that we love and frankly can’t miss: books, television, the calculator, and the computer. You name it, and it will have been a source of frustration for the older generations. Justified or not, I am sure there was sound reason to their arguments.

Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, I have been witnessing a rapid decline in software development competency. Programmers who I respected deeply for their problem-solving creativity have voluntarily demoted themselves to prompt engineers. They no longer write code. They review AI output. Sometimes they only review what the user sees.

The lack of competency has not yet been a concern for the business folk. The more they can reduce labor costs, the better. Businesses that thrive on the enshitifaction of society are foaming out of the mouth. Cheaper labor, more profit, more bonuses, all on the backs of the working class.

Meanwhile, people are fighting for the crumbs. Blame it on immigration, blame it on race, blame it on religion. Anything but blame it on the 1%, who are the cause of this societal degradation.

I’ve spent my life learning computer science. Teaching, studying, and contributing. I can’t help but feel guilty for contributing to the decline. I was never a fan of AI’s promises. It all felt very optimistic. The same is true for space exploration. Sure, we’re in the early stages, and it’s all amicable between nations. But who is to say that’s always going to be the case?

Should we ever build a base on Mars, the moon, or anywhere that’s not Earth, those space settlers will eventually become independent. They will grow out of Earthly habits, customs, traditions, and languages. We will have created our own extraterrestrial life.

The main risk I see with AI, should it ever improve beyond its current state, is that it will become a tool to impoverish, control, and oppress the working class. It will be used to automate jobs, replace workers, and create a new class of super-rich elites.

Junior software developers are the ones who AI will most affect. You had better been an expert in the field many lives over. I ask: How is that fair?

When ChatGPT first launched, I, too, bit into the hype. In all my blissful ignorance, I was excited. I developed code using ChatGPT. And then I stopped and thought to myself: “I’m not solving issues. The reward of fixing a bug, which ChatGPT tracked and fixed for me, didn’t feel the same anymore.”

It soon enough turned programming into a prompt-driven chore. The excitement that once inspired me to learn programming was gone.

To generalize, I believe developers who rely on AI to augment their development are less likely to stop and think about the problem they’re solving. Their understanding of issues is just enough to explain it to an AI, but not enough to understand all the consequences of its solutions.

To stop and to think has become to stop and write a prompt.