The Dark Side of Using AI for Programming

If you're using AI tools or considering using them for software development, be careful of some common traps you may fall into...

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[shallbee.]

Using AI as a coding assistant in last 2 years made me a lot better developer than I've ever been in the last 15 years. It allowed me to learn patterns and approaches that I would never come up by myself.
The key is not to use it as a "one click tool" but rather have an ongoing dialogue with it, discuss the approaches, analyze your own ideas, iteratively improve the solutions.

[kingsleykevinchebabah]

Thank you for sharing this. I had this discussion with my students. Use AI to do stuffs you already know faster but not to do new things because you will learn nothing.

[Ashley-sdxn]

The problem is companies ONLY care about output. At my company everyone was required to set an annual goal to use AI as much as possible for writing code. They monitor the AI tool usage and expect 100% adoption. This is at a FAANG adjacent company.

[pkcomments]

My experience writing unit tests for existing code was the same. Initially it was all good for smaller code, but when the code started to get complex, unit test suggestions became wild and at some point I was not able to understand my own unit tests. I ended up removing generated code and writing all by myself. I still ended up taking help from AI tools, but as a developer it is always necessary to understand what code you are writing.

[henrykhosasih]

AI is like autopilot on a plane. It helps navigate, handles tasks, and even lands in some cases. A human pilot remains essential to oversee operations, make key decisions, and step in when necessary.

[magdcs]

When you have time you can explore and learn. With deadlines and too much on your plate, you do what you have to. Most higher ups are just looking for results.

[markblum]

100% agree. I also hear a lot of developers say, "well it's really great for writing unit tests! I paste it my class and it pops out unit tests for me, saves so much time!!" This is SUPER concerning to me. Unit tests are an opportunity for me to check myself, I write tests to test what I think should be happening actually does happen. I've caught numerous times where I implemented something wrong or was able to think of an edge case while writing tests that I didnt cover in the implementation. After I have working tests I have high confidence in what I wrote because I really sat and thought about my tests.

[TragicGFuel]

I use AI for discovery more than anything.

Asking, in natural terms, whether X library/framework provides a way to do Y thing and getting a nice list of things which I can then cross reference with the actual docs.

What's horrifying though, is the sheer amount of times the first or the first few responses included a deprecated method.

[eXit-ubermensch]

Hard times create strong programmers. Easy Ai makes weak programmers. Weak programmers create hard times.

[broadway]

Thank you so much for posting this. I felt alone in having the same opinion and trying to explain the pros and cons of using AI to others. I'm trying to raise awareness and the importance of continuing to use the "why" approach, not just the "how". It's a rare time when I'm not optimistic about this.

[christopher]

i appreciate this video so much. i have come to the same conclusion recently after working on a personal project for a while and really relying on a major ai site to help me write some code. it will work sometimes but it often leaves stuff out like specific bits of functionality or logic and if i need to come back and debug something i have a harder time going over it and finding the potential problem areas because i didnt write the code myself. i didnt have to think through it.

[Rajmanov]

i belive this aplies for Jr developers, and 0% for senior devs

[vitalyl]

AI is making me way more productive, without any quality degradation. You just have to know how to use it properly.

[enricosaccheggiani]

Wonderful. I've always really enjoyed your content on aws, you couldn't make a more interesting video.
I am an old programmer, sometimes i don't remember the correct syntax in C++ and Ai helps me, only in this case. I am always the master and AI is used only to obtain the right syntax of the command .
Thank you very much.

[compassft]

This is true not just with ai and coding but for a lot of other activities for which we are now used to use a PC or mobile phone...think just to GPS navigators.. and think when autonomous cars will be commonly used...

[steftrando]

This channel is a gift. Shorter than 5 minutes. Right on point.

[JovenAlbarida]

Thank you for sharing this I totally agree, with your comparison

[RogerThat]

I agree. I think AI is good if you use it as a coworker friend that you can ask to look at your code, but not write it for you. It is great at giving ideas of different approaches etc. Used that way then you do learn a lot. But if you ask it to write for you w/o thought it can be a mess quickly.

[jaiberdiaz]

I use both, to understand the lastest update on any framework i read docs and ai to optimize time, eventually give me a curious solutions even i compere my solution with ai gave me before in order to choose the best features, resources management, memory safety, ect.

[mathiasdolag]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. This may lead to a huge problem in the future with lots of inefficient software. Don't know what to Do against this one the best case when the "time is money" paradigma is there