Fuck it, make it anyway

That is to say - I don't really love programming. I do it out of necessity. Before product managers got looked at as 'too much headcount in an org', I kind of think I would have liked that.

I like the outcomes. I like tools that I like to use. I like writing tools and software and systems that work for me.

I also like the outcomes for OTHER people. In my line of work, things working is really important - it costs money when things are not working - so I like building those systems that work but also have good tools to inspect when things go amiss or need to be changed.

I am like an engineer (I am not) who learned how to use R or Matlab - for the outcome not for the love of the game.

Another example may be cars. I am a competent mechanic. I have been employed as a mechanic. The reason I like cars is to drive them. At the end of the day every bolt that is stuck and every radiator I have to drop is excruciating and painful and I hate it, but the look on the customers face when they can get back in their car is priceless.

(If you read many of my other posts, you will perhaps see that I am a bit more pragmatically engaged with AI than you suggest.)

My frustration is a) people vastly overrate the LLM's ability to program (they really suck, but people act like they are actually good), and b) that delusion is likely to have a material impact on my ability to make a living, if not kill my career entirely. I don't care if non-programmers can make things, but I do care if the skill I spent my life developing becomes worthless overnight (as anyone would). And when the machine isn't even a competent replacement for me, that just adds insult to injury.

Who themselves can use AI to make even more radical art with far less effort, but refuse to do so because of some kind of... I don't know, a mental block? Perhaps we need better AI-accelerated artist tooling instead of one-shot garbage.

> Every programmer I know has basically gone insane over the last couple of years

Meanwhile, I feel more enabled than in my entire 35+ year career programming. But I also never got pushed into it, and don't have to deal with coworkers who use it badly because I'm solo currently. I do feel bad for people on teams for whom AI has caused much consternation.

> peer pressure is very real

Caving into peer pressure as a coder? Not something I have ever done, unfortunately. If you want to entirely reject AI assistance, then just own it and don't whine about it.

> even disregarding all the environmental

The environmental arguments are non-evidence-backed nonsense. Meanwhile, there's plenty of evidence that this whole idea comes from Chinese bot influence campaigns trying to politically polarize AI in the United States in order to slow us down so that they can surge ahead and economically win. And unfortunately, it's working. Case in point.

> It isn’t fun for me

I STILL don't understand this POV. Prior to AI, I had a massive backlog of ideas that I simply did not have the time or energy to work on. I now can, and have now built out a lot of those ideas (see my github). I'm chewing through that backlog like a chainsaw. Is all of the produced code perfect? No. Do I insist on lots more tests and controls to ensure it is as close to that as controls can get it? Yes. Has it yet to produce unfixable bugs? No.

> I use my interactive git branch switcher every single day

I love making those little tools too! And now I can make 10 of them in the time it used to take me to make 1 of them myself! Your tool is a neat idea! You still own that idea! And I can also rewrite it in Rust or Zig now with AI since I hate Go, and I don't think that's a bad thing!

> I’ve spent years learning how to make games, and it’s been hard, and now it feels like that might have been a waste of time

Your understanding and experience is not going away. In fact, it's needed to steer your AI accelerator.

> It also happens to be developed entirely without generative AI

That is a conscious choice made flying in the face of the evidence that it could have been built a lot faster with AI assistance and YOUR guidance. What's wrong with delivery speed, again?

> there are only really three paths open to me

This is a fallacy. Let's call it the false trichotomy fallacy. You have already resigned yourself to be unhappy about this since none of your options include "joy", so your brain automatically gathers evidence to support that belief... and you need to realize this, because it is dangerous. You now literally won't be able to perceive evidence TO ACTUALLY be happy about it- I call this "epistemic blindness", or we could just call it "doom framing". The key thing to understand is that you control the framing by choosing it, and that your chosen framings automatically and artificially limit your perceived options.

I can prove this to you- Think back to the first time you encountered AI work assistance. Was your feeling good, or bad? Has it ever switched? I'm going to guess that it started early and never switched. Why is that? Because you (or your brain, via its confirmation-bias-seeking) immediately decided to remember evidence supporting your initial feeling, and forget or ignore evidence against it!

But yes. If you must completely ignore AI to keep your sanity based on your own self-limited set of possible options (none of which result in happiness), then please, just go ahead and do so and just own it. Just don't whine about it, because that attitude (victimization via false self-perceived lack of agency and putting all blame on externalities) is toxic.