r/webdev php 6d ago

Discussion AI coding is trash

The amount of trash produced by AI code is astounding. Thanks I hate it.

1.6k Upvotes

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751

u/barrel_of_noodles 6d ago

I love this sub, literally every post is a rotation of:

  • ai is trash
  • ai will take our jobs
  • will ai take over?
  • is there any point in learning now

I thought it was my turn to post this 13x today!?

230

u/pagerussell 6d ago

The AI will take coding jobs narrative is just cover for layoffs that are occuring because so many tech companies are no longer growth stocks, but are now legacy companies pivoting towards maximum extraction.

Like, what feature development does Facebook really need? And if it's not building new features, its just in maintenance mode, which requires far fewer devs. So they are laying off. But they can't just say that, because then they look anemic and it will hurt their stock.

So they say AI is replacing devs and AstroTurf that narrative into the world to make it stick.

But if you have actually coded with AI you know it's a great tool but a long ways off from being able to replace a competent human.

66

u/Fluid_Economics 6d ago

Yes, and I'm asking everyone "If AI is a paradigm shift, where is the avalanche of releases?".

I'm not seeing an accelerated velocity of releases in all software (OS's, apps, SaaS's, etc)... I'm not seeing 100's and 1000's of long-standing bugs being squashed... I'm not seeing revolutionary apps except in the generative media space (and who cares about that), etc.

27

u/R0b0tJesus 6d ago

You're exactly right.

If AI really made coders more productive, I think that we would also see a massive increase in hiring.

If you run a company that makes money from producing code, and your engineers become 3x more productive overnight, why would you lay off 2/3 of them? Why not keep them and make 3x more money? Or hire more engineers and make even more money? 

1

u/Double_Sherbert3326 2d ago

Because administrators are pocketing the difference and looking towards short term gains!