It's literally changing your brain when you don't use it like you used to. So, yeah. It is.
AI is making me dumb
151–160 of 328 posts
Re: AI is making me dumb
#152[flagged]
"such profanity" is 3 "god damns" to you?
Re: AI is making me dumb
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm constantly fighting a feeling on the back of my neck that I need to look over everything it has done and supplement/alter it with my own code. On the flip side, I'm working on stuff FAR more challenging than I would ever be able to do on my own. My brain is melting because I can barely keep up with learning how to figure out if I'm even doing what I'm trying to do. AI might be making me a worse coder, but I don…
> My brain is melting because I can barely keep up with learning how to figure out if I'm even doing what I'm trying to do. This is not a good thing. You should understand what your code does. Writing code nobody can understand is not a flex.
> You should understand what your code does.
It is not hard to understand what a line of code does...
It is hard to keep up with solving the problem I'm trying to solve...
Re: AI is making me dumb
#154I find that a good way to battle this is to realize its not either the dev or the AI that should be coding at a given time. People needs to transform their workflow so the codes alongside themselves.
I am try to be coding at all times on complex issues while I am offloading a boring, non architecture, boiler plate heavye etc. task to it in the background in a git worktree.
I ask it to work in small iterations and commit every step of the way. After my coding session is done I can go back and review it's code.
Re: AI is making me dumb
#155[flagged]
The author said “god damn” once or twice whereas you just amended your comment to add a sentence containing “shit”. Not sure I understand your logic.
Re: AI is making me dumb
#156Re: AI is making me dumb
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, Claude only knows how to spew code. Every problem you want it to solve, it translates into "more code" rather than "less code". You have to very closely code review everything it does, otherwise your codebase is going to just grow and grow, and asymptotically approach 100% debt. I code review everything that Claude produces, and I'd estimate about 90-95% of the time, my reaction is WOW it works but…
Same. Luckily I enjoy the process of refactoring and deleting code is nearly arousing, so I get the initial dopamine rush of wow this works, followed by the dopamine rush of "wow now this is cleaner and works so much better". Keeps me in touch with the codebase too.
Pruning code is to software engineers what cancelling plans is to introverts :)
I think I need to work up a Claude skill named marie-kondo, so that when it breathlessly presents its triumphant solution, I can go “yes, but does it spark joy?” And have it go into an aggressive refactor loop with me.
Re: AI is making me dumb
#158it’s crazy, we’re at a point where I commit code I haven’t seen, reviewed by another AI, followed up to by another AI and it’s just kind of scary.
This thing will explode in our faces sooner or later. Also makes me feel like an imposter rather than an engineer.
Maybe that’s actually what I have become.
Re: AI is making me dumb
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, Claude only knows how to spew code. Every problem you want it to solve, it translates into "more code" rather than "less code". You have to very closely code review everything it does, otherwise your codebase is going to just grow and grow, and asymptotically approach 100% debt. I code review everything that Claude produces, and I'd estimate about 90-95% of the time, my reaction is WOW it works but…
Same. Luckily I enjoy the process of refactoring and deleting code is nearly arousing, so I get the initial dopamine rush of wow this works, followed by the dopamine rush of "wow now this is cleaner and works so much better". Keeps me in touch with the codebase too.
I question any dev who doesn't get aroused by deleting code.
I just removed an entire graphql endpoint - 500 lines of front and back-end code. I may need to be hosed down.
Re: AI is making me dumb
#160I can't relate that much to this. Every time I use AI to write code, I'm constantly fighting a feeling on the back of my neck that I need to look over everything it has done and supplement/alter it with my own code. That ick feeling counteracts the dopamine hit of having a working app after a few minutes of vibe coding, and I don't think that's going anywhere anytime soon. That said, I have experience. I could absolu…
I'm using a local model. The code gen is never fast beyond the first few context. As the context grows, it slows down. It's basically it's own self limiting process. When it starts doing things, the threshold of lethargy lowers and triggers me to 'do it myself'; especially, I've developed the understanding of knowledge where it starts doing stupid things and that's valuable.
There must be an epistemic problem with just how fast these SOTA models run. I don't think it's just that my local model is dumber, I think it's more that the speed of token gen trains my brain with different expectations. There's no way it'll just generate hundreds of files by itself. When it can via a opencode loop with thought files, letting it run for a day is the only way you get that.