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Part of the answer to this conundrum might be the "lightswitch effect": Lightswitches are ubiquitous and easy to use, so you stop thinking about them, take them completely for granted and miss the bigger picture that even 150 years ago, this would have been considered not a small technical miracle!

LLMs seem to fall squarely into that category - the threshold to using them is incredibly low because you can "just talk to them" and they give back meaningful answers loaded with the sum total of human knowledge from the interwebs.

Agreed, but with one caveat: That is the book detailling the history of future science!

"Cosmos" by Carl Sagan - that book was a life changer for me and has been with me ever since.

If I may ask: In what areas have you found the most acceleration in productivity? For me as an enthusiastic amateur programmer (whose enthusiasm is, arguably, greater than my technical abilities) the only reliable and sustainable way to use AI in building software is to treat it like an exceptionally knowledgeable (though not perfect!), infinitely patient tutor that guides me through programming problems I run into. The minute I relinquish control and let it just write code for me I am doomed because AI cannot fix its own mistakes in anything of medium complexity or above - and then I have to dig down and try to understand code I haven't written which is, in my opinion, worse than having had to write it myself in the first place.

I wouldn't consider myself an SWE, just an amateur programmer, so this is an honest question: In your opinion, is there such a case where the usage of AI in software engineering has either sped up the dev time or improved product reliability (or even both)?

I started using LLMs in 2022, quickly turned away because the things obivously made up stuff I am a certified expert it. Back to Stack Overflow. Came around to LLMs in late 2025 again as they rolled it out in my workplace and quickly succumbed to them becoming my all-knowing, (almost) flawless, infinitely patient teacher - that was the last time I opened Stack Overflow. AI never tells me I'm dumb for asking a question, never passive-aggressively shoves genuine questions aside. And AI can just be as critical in dissecting my flawed approaches to problems as SO could be (which is good!) but without the toxicity.

Seems like the need for a support group depends on whether the recent advent of LLMs in your specific workplace has led you to become a Centaur ("I'm now a 10x SWE") or a Reverse Centaur ("this is rapidly sucking the joy this job once held for me"). So, yes, there is very definitely a need for this as there are definitely people seeing themselves cast as the latter.

Seems to me that both music and language fall into the same category of "patterns whose consumption will trigger a highly subjective experience (pleasurable or repulsive)". AIs as pattern matching machines can do this pretty well by now. Coding, however, is a separate category, one where cold, hard logic reigns supreme. Code is not consumed to illicit a subjective response but to work, fullfil its job - which might explain the gap between these two.

"...when a claim passes through five AI agents, how should trust propagate from one step to the next? I spent months trying to solve it."

Maybe I am naive here, but wouldn't a sane person try to turn a rational eye on the problem stated therein and - maybe -think "what if there is a way to avoid chaining of AI agents at all?".

The waterfall graph in the middle of this article is worth looking this up.

tl;dr Instead of solving textbook-style hard problems, "find the easiest problem whose solution would be useful".

"The company said the most likely explanation is that one of its transport partners sold the vehicle without removing K Group branding, despite contractual obligations requiring decals to be removed before resale."

I say this was done intentionally - the Iranian Revolutionary Guards surely can put that extra income from advertisement during a highly televised event to good use.

"He's not wrong. He's rarely wrong, which is the annoying thing about Gareth."

Hopefully it will fare better in its ecological and economical impact than the Assuan dam - which, I will never tire to say, has to put almost its entire electricity output to the production of fertilizers that no longer deposit naturally along the Nile's banks because of the dam(n).

This is a stunning idea and execution! I am glad I clicked on that link and spent a couple of minutes on it. Serious kudos, good Sir/Ma'am/[respectful appellation of your choosing].

Not sure if I fully qualify as a dev but I, for one, are rather confident in conversation. But with code, there is only two modes: Either I am the biggest idiot whoever disgraced Earth's surface or I am the absolute titanic Übergod for whom no problem is too hard to solve. There is nothing in between which is pretty vexing.

Pretty sure their strategy is "hype it up, stuff it down EVERYONE's throat, once everyone is hooked and the tool is indispensable, make them pay for it. And rachet up the prices every quarter".

You're most welcome, Good Sir/Ma'am/[respectful appellation of your choosing]! ;)

I apologize, I did not mean to rain on your parade - maybe I am a kind of "half empty" person.

Please, keep your enthusiasm up! In a world full of cynics (me included), it's refreshing to see people throwing themselves into their projects with zest and passion.

You mention two very specific aspects of AI producing code:

- "It hyper-focuses on the current task and couldn't care less if its changes break other parts of the system." - "Long context = instant brain damage"

This is why I quickly discovered that I had to turn AI into a knowledgable, patient tutor rather than let it code for me. I am thoroughly at the helm for all decisions big and small - I don't let AI touch the code anymore.

"Now I'm thinking - once it does happen - what will I spend my time dooing? Espeically, with AI?"

Not "once" - the word you are looking for is "if". And a pretty big if at that...

I would really like to know how people work on anything more complicated than a single page website without using an IDE/Editor any more - in my experience, AI is just not up to the task of managing multi-file projects without me having a very sharp eye on what it does.

AI is really good at the implementation of small, stand-alone pieces of software. Within this very limited scope your concept holds: Humans may focus on what to build instead of how.

Anything more complicated than that and AI is easily overwhelmed with even the implementation part, trapping itself in endless cycles of contradictory code changes.

So, no, I don't think this is what is going to happen.

If this wasn't some moderately clever ploy, it would make a good "Dilbert" plot, actually...

So very true. A bit saddening to realize that the old story "from dishwasher to millionaire" is still so pervasive despite the odds having changed considerably against us in the meantime... I guess some dreams are just too beautiful to forget.

This is a surprisingly fascinating read that I recommend to others: Going from structuring HTML documents with tables to floats and back again resonated oddly with me.

Without wanting to spoiler, let me whet your appetite for this very interesting article by quoting this: "you’re unimaginably more likely to become homeless than to win at the game of capitalism"

Go figure.

The main thesis of this - well worth the read btw! - article very much reminds me of a throw-away line from the (otherwise forgetable) movie adaption of "Limitless": "[NZT-48/AI] works on what it's there." If you are smart AND crave cognitive engagement, you will use AI to sharpen your skills and expand your horizon, outpacing others.

This is the first time I have been exposed to the term "humanitarian engineering". IMHO this is what we need more of - genuine science and engineering solving the "little" problems, like your pillbox that reminds you to take your meds with it being charged simply by being shaken when handled. Brilliant!

This is the first in-depth description of how serious a problem the massive upscaling of Bitcoin miners is and the humungous amounts of power those rigs draw. I consider this a worthwhile read as until now I had always imagined that Bitcoin mining at scale was mostly done in basements, so the actual impact on communities was not present in my mind.