Ask HN: Do you feel comfortable admitting that you use AI?

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It's really important to feel comfortable talking about your AI use as well as being accepting to others sharing how they are using the tool. Imagine if AI was an early calculator, an mathematicians were reluctant to share how they were using the new tool. Sharing and talking about your experiences with it are critical for all of us to learn how to be effective with it.

I am absolutely unapologetic about using AI.

There is a segment of people who have both legitimate concerns and misconceptions about AI. The legitimate concerns are crucial and certainly need to be addressed, some are existential. But if you're a person who refuses to AI, you are not long for a technology career.

As for their hangups and misconceptions, that’s their baggage to deal with. Just stay out of my way.

The shame isn't about AI. It's about ownership.

I run three companies and I've noticed the discomfort shows up when someone can't answer "what did YOU decide here?" If your AI drafted the code, the email, the strategy, that's where I feel like people have lost the plot. If you can't defend the decision behind it, that's where the wobble comes from.

It's the same thing when growing a company. You don't outsource every decision to each individual contributor. You need mission vision and values + strategic thinking coming from the leaders to lead the team. Same with agents.

The devs on my team who ship the most are the ones who treat AI like a very fast junior, they still own the diff. The ones who feel weird are usually the ones who shipped something they don't fully understand.

Disclosure: I'm building in the AI-assistant-for-founders space, so I talk to a lot of people about this. The pattern is consistent across roles, not just dev.