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Devs gripe about having AI shoved down their throats (www.theregister.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by brianpeiris@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago

"We were still required to find some ways to use AI. The one corporate AI integration that was available to us was the Copilot plugin to Microsoft Teams. So everyone was required to use that at least once a week. The director of engineering checked our usage and nagged about it frequently in team meetings."

The managerial idiocy is astounding.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

It’s pretty easy to set up a cron job to fire off some sort of bullshit LLM request a handful of times a day during working hours. Just set it and forget it.

[-] brsrklf@jlai.lu 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Nothing tells that AI is a clever use of your ressources like enforcing a mandatory AI query quota for your employees, and having them struggle to find anything it's good at and failing.

[-] punrca@piefed.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

The software engineer acknowledged that AI tools can help improve productivity if used properly, but for programmers with relatively limited experience, he feels the harm is greater than the benefit. Most of the junior developers at the company, he explained, don't remember the syntax of the language they're using due to their overreliance on Cursor.

Good luck for the future developers I guess.

companies that've spent money on AI enterprise licenses need to show some sort of ROI to the bean-counters. Hence, mandates.

Can't wait for AI bubble to pop. If this continues, expect more incidents/outages due to AI generated slop code in the future.

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 3 points 2 weeks ago

Future developers will still have to learn the basics. Calculators existing doesn’t mean people aren’t taught basic maths, does it?

[-] scarabic@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

From what I see, the current is beginning to turn a little toward valuing senior devs more than ever, because they can deal with the downsides of AI. Junior devs, on the other hand, cannot, and their simpler coding work is also more easily replaced by AI. So we’ll see fewer junior dev jobs, but seniors might do fine. I’m not sure that’s good news for the profession as a whole, but its been an extremely long gold rush into software and online services so some correction probably won’t be the end of the trade.

Oh and yes senior devs are still hounded to use AI, because it will get them further, faster. And there are no more junior devs to help. In the hands of a skilled dev, AI tools can be powerful, and they can spare some toil, and help them find their feet in less familiar frameworks and in foreign codebases.

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 2 weeks ago

💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

A good developer learns the tools that are available and uses them appropriately. A bad developer refuses to learn new tools and will be replaced by someone who already did.

[-] aesthelete@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The problems in software still remain the same though:

(1) Bureaucracy

(2) Needless process

(3) Pointy headed managers

(4) Siloed teams

(5) Product people who have no idea what they want to build

(6) Shitty, poorly performing legacy code nobody wants to touch

Honestly, AI is just the latest thing that can boost your productivity at starting up some random app. But that was never the difficult part anyway.

[-] scarabic@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

We are pushing our product managers to communicate their requirements with live prototypes rather than PRDs and mockups. It forces them to actually think their ideas through, and even allows them to get some hallway feedback before even bothering an eng. This might help with #5. But I’ve never had sympathy for engineers who think all the process around them is net negative, because nothings ever stopped engineers from striking out on their own, without all that, and making great businesses. If your PM and VPs are bringing you down, go it alone. If you can’t pull that together into a paycheck then maybe it’s not all as useless as some say.

[-] aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

But I’ve never had sympathy for engineers who think all the process around them is net negative, because nothings ever stopped engineers from striking out on their own, without all that, and making great businesses.

Not all process is pointless, but needless process by definition is. There are also a shit ton of things that stop engineers from "striking out on their own".

If your PM and VPs are bringing you down, go it alone. If you can’t pull that together into a paycheck then maybe it’s not all as useless as some say.

The whole talk of "go[ing] it alone" kinda strikes me as "bootstrapping", libertarian non-sense.

I don't want to do marketing, sales, finance, legal, and product bullshit myself. That's why I'm an employee.

Two things can be true at the same time, for instance, a company can have a lot of bloated, needless process that stifles people and still pull in enough money to be able to pay for their employees to live a life.

With the amount of market concentration there is in every sector as far as the eye can see, nearly every software-producing company has a cash cow of some sort, and then has a bunch of complete money losers that are subsidized by that cash cow.

So, it's completely possible that the company overall fully sucks and hasn't developed anything new of value to someone in decades, but the legacy business keeps the miserable employees from the bread line.

To return to the point, AI doesn't solve any of this or even help with it.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago

This, so much this.

When I think about what limited my performance in the last year it was mostly:

  • Having to get 5 signatures before I am allowed the budget to install some FOSS software on my work PC that the corporation has already approved for use on work PCs
  • Spending 8 months working on a huge feature that was scrapped after 8 months of development
  • Being told that no, we cannot work on another large feature request (of which there are many in the pipeline) because our team said we can only fit that scrapped feature into this year and we are not allowed to replan based on the fact that the feature we were supposed to work on got scrapped by business

And then they tell us to return to office and use AI for increasing efficiency.

It's all an elaborate play performed by upper management to feign being in control and being busy with something. Nobody is actually interested in producing a product, they all just want to further their own position.

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Lead and senior dev/architect here - not forced to use AI, but I spend my PD (personal development) days and hackathons trying out all new things, as every good dev does, and anyone not trying out all the new AI tools is doing themselves a disservice. You will find out which ones are “AI slop”, which are just fancy stored procs or web apps, and which are actually useful for you and/or your job.

I agree that workplaces shouldn’t be mandating the use of AI, but that’s very rarely the case.

My team and I have implemented Agentic AI into the business in ways that will save literally thousands of man-hours a year, as well as drastically reduce support tickets, and give non-devs extremely powerful insights into real time analytics that they’ve never been able to have even with PowerBi/Kibana/AppInsights/etc.

The software engineer acknowledged that AI tools can help improve productivity if used properly, but for programmers with relatively limited experience, he feels the harm is greater than the benefit.

So it’s just like every other tool out there for developers and most other professions.

Honestly it’s getting to be like people blaming stackexchange for their code being shit and not working when all they did was copy/paste a solution from there.

“A poor tradesman blames his tools” as they say.

[-] el_abuelo@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago

Careful with views like that. They're not very popular here on Lemmy. Can't possibly promote responsible and reasonable use of new computer software.

AI bad.

[-] HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

As per usual, those pushing for AI the most are the ones who don't fucking use it.

Is AI good for printing out the syntax, or an example of a library you haven't used before?

Sure, sometimes yes. Sometimes no.

Should it be a requirement to be a regular part of software development?

No. AI hallucinates very often and is imitative in nature, not innovative.

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 points 2 weeks ago

And as per usual, those hating AI the most are the ones who don’t use it, don’t understand it, and/or hate it out of some misguided ideology.

Imitative is fine, great even in software development. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Programming languages/class libraries/etc all exist to give standard and functioning ways to do things the way they’re supposed to be done.

It’s funny that developers the world over absolutely loved and embraced tools like resharper, which was basically AI 0.5 for devs, yet now when AI is the evolution of that, everyone’s losing their mind.

Knowledge of AI tools absolutely will and should be a part of developer competencies that are evaluated during interviews in the near future, and that includes being able to explain why and when you would/would not use specific AI tools.

[-] HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

And as per usual, those hating AI the most are the ones who don’t use it, don’t understand it, and/or hate it out of some misguided ideology.

I'm a software engineer and I use AI on a regular basis.

This shit isn't fit to take on the vast majority of jobs dipshit CEOs or the pseudointellectuals who fondle their balls claim they can.

Imitative is fine, great even in software development.

Fine as a tool for software engineers to figure out complications with understanding code syntax or generating an example of some not so complicated code.

It is fucking unreliable for full software development, which is what these tech oligarchs are trying to put it in charge of.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Programming languages/class libraries/etc all exist to give standard and functioning ways to do things the way they’re supposed to be done.

And AI is shit at making full implementations of that, let alone objectively or even rationally testing itself. If it doesn't recognize an error in its own coding, why the hell would we trust it to recognize that error in testing?

It’s funny that developers the world over absolutely loved and embraced tools like resharper, which was basically AI 0.5 for devs, yet now when AI is the evolution of that, everyone’s losing their mind.

Because dumb fucks in power think AI is this magical tool that can do no wrong and do everything humans can do and better.

We are FAR AWAY from that being a reality for the reasons I already covered, and more.

Also, absolutely no company worth a damn has ever pushed anything from Resharper or AI to its millions of customers without human verification first. CEOS WANT TO ELIMINATE THAT HUMAN VERIFICATION! THATS A PROBLEM!

Knowledge of AI tools absolutely will and should be a part of developer competencies that are evaluated during interviews in the near future, and that includes being able to explain why and when you would/would not use specific AI tools.

Except, and I want you to pay close attention to this,

CEOS WANT TO TOTALLY ELIMINATE THE HUMAN FACTOR FROM SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENTIRELY

Not partially

Not kinda sorta

ENTIRELY

Because they simply fundamentally do not understand what AI is, nor it's restrictions.

And it's very clear, you don't either.

[-] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I’ll admit, some tools and automation are hugely improved with new ML smarts, but nothing feels dumber than hunting for problems to fit the boss’s pet solution.

[-] tyler@programming.dev 0 points 2 weeks ago

Like what?

[-] assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

claude performs acceptably at repetitive tasks when I have an existing pattern for it to follow. "Replicate PR 123, but to add support for object Bar instead of Foo". If I get some of this busy work in my queue I typically just have claude do it while I'm in a meeting.

I'd never let it do refactors or design work, but as a code generation tool that can use existing code as a template, it's useful. I wouldn't pay an arm and a leg for it, but burning $2 while I'm in a meeting to kill chore tasks is worth it to me.

[-] python@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

I've been refusing to use any AI tools at all and luckily my manager respects that, even if he uses AI for basically everything he does. If the company ever decides to mandate it I'll just have the AI write all my code and commit it with no checks. With the worker's rights here, it'll take several months to fire me anyways.

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au -2 points 2 weeks ago

I’ve been refusing to use and AI tools at all

Why? Do you refuse to use autocomplete in IDEs too? Do you refuse to use build and release tools? Why stop there - do you refuse to use computers at all? Just use pen and paper.

[-] crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

Don’t use auto complete, do use lsp, build and release tools are not at all in the same vein.

[-] python@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Because it's not fun. Coming up with algorithms and elegant code is the most fun part about programming for me, and debugging pages of sloppy code is the least fun. AI makes the parts I like less fun and increases the amount of sloppy bullshit code I have to debug.

[-] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

He also said the AI-generated code is often full of bugs. He cited one issue that occurred before his arrival that meant there was no session handling in his employer's application, so anybody could see the data of any organization using his company's software.

It’s only financial software, NBD.

[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago

Well to be fair, financial data should be public, it would stop so many crimes, so much corruption.

Maybe AI saw the problems that hidden financial data causes and just decided to do the world a favor!

[-] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

These scummy fucks even put it as a requirement in job descriptions these days

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

This is a red flag for corpo culture shenanigans. Dodge the bullet.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago

What even is the requirement? "Must be able to ask a chatbot to do stuff"?

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Then unionize! Nothing else will stop this.

[-] phil@lymme.dynv6.net 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago

And it won't be the rich that get hurt when the AI bubble bursts. It will be us.

this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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