Comment by beambot
4 days ago
You don't use any AI - drafting documentation, write boilerplate code, transcribing meetings, simplifying team communications, searching product documentation, alternative to Google or StackOverflow, creating presentations, as a brainstorming partner? I would consider all of these "work".
If you say AI does 0% of your work, I'd say you're either a genius, behind the curve or being disingenuous.
LLM does 0% of my work, don't know what to tell you. LLMs are like 3 years old, I learned to do everything I know without LLMs, how is that hard to believe? How do you think all the software you use everyday, including this site itself, was written? 99.99% of it without any LLMs at all.
Do I use LLMs as an alternative to Googling? Absolutely. That doesn't mean AI is doing my job. Google and Stack Overflow also do 0% of my job. It's great as a reference tool. But if you're going to be that pedantic, we've got to count any help I receive from any human or tool as doing some % of my job. Do I count the open source software I build on? Do I count Slack as doing some % of my job since I don't have to go into the office and interface with everyone face-to-face? Does Ford get some of the credit for building the vehicle that gets me to the office?
Have I used a meeting transcription tool? Occasionally, yeah. That doesn't mean it does any part of my work. My job was never to transcribe meetings. Do I use it to brainstorm? No, I've found it's fairly useless for that. Do I use it to create presentations? No, I just write my slides the old fashioned way.
How can AI search into documentation, if the documentation is a thousands of obsolete and contradicting Jira tickets, few outdated Confluence pages with mail attachments and handful of excel files on SharePoint?
Supposedly there is a way to get an AI to do exactly this, we have it slated as an "intern project". Which feels ironic in itself. Using an intern to figure out how to get an AI to rectify our Jira and train on our confluence to help us and our users
Using AI to distill all of that sprawling and contradicting documentation is a great use case.
Grounding it in the reality of the current implementation for the extra cherry on top.
With the necessary MCP servers.
Good luck to receive security clearance for that. Even Cursor is not allowed, though everyone is using it with private account.
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Is that so hard to believe? My work uses proprietary language. Something like ABAP for SAP [1]. AI has ingested lot of documentation available on the internet. But it cannot tell the difference between versions. So, AI code often has correct but deprecated functions.
And don't get me started on the "time savings" for boiler plate documentation. It messes up every time.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABAP
You should be able to get around that by copying what the context7 MCP does. Essentially pre-prompt the AI with the correct, modern, syntax.
Very few people where I work are using genAI for any of those things at all.
> If you say AI does 0% of your work, I'd say you're either a genius, behind the curve or being disingenuous
AI was doing 0% of my work 10 years ago too, why should I be any less effective without it now?
You think I'm behind the curve because I'm not buying into the AI craze?
Ok. What's so important about being on the curve anyways, exactly? My boss won't pay me a single cent more for using AI, so why should I care?
We used to do all our math on slide rules. They're just as effective as they always were.
But when you're being graded on a curve, standing still can still mean falling behind.
Which isn't to say that AI is definitively ahead of the curve; I think we're a bit early for that. But as actual answers to your actual questions - it's important because if everyone else gets ahead of you, your boss will STOP paying you
(and if you're "good at AI", you can at least make bank until the bubble bursts)
Are you saying everyone who isn't barely starting their career is a genius? In the current state of things I'd gladly take mediocre work from a human over slop from an AI.
Seriously this. Doing code reviews on LLM created code is so frustrating. If the code was submitted by a junior engineer I could get on zoom with them and educate them, which would make them a better team mate, advance their career goals, and make the world slightly better. With AI created code the review process is a series of tiny struggles to dig up out of the hole the LLM created and get back to baseline code quality, and it'll probably be the same Sisyphean struggle with the next PR.
I had to review code that couldn't even do a straightforward map, filter, and reduce properly. But with management pushing hard for AI use, I feel powerless to push back against it.
Ha! Not just "the next PR", in my experience about 30% of the time you tell it "hey this slop you gave me is horribly broken because <reason>", and it says "you're absolutely right! I totally 100% understand the problem now, and I'll totally 100% fix that for you right now!", and then proceeds to deliver exactly the same broken slop it game me before.
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There is a reason why maintainers of OSS tools reject AI slop PRs: https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/15/curl_creator_mulls_ni...
You have prompt skill issue.
The only study currently trying to measure productivity of experienced devs using LLMs showed they suffer a 19% decline in productivity.
https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o...
Since that study demonstrated that experienced developers currently suffer a decline in their productivity when using LLMs, it's perfectly likely that less experienced/junior developers who normally will struggle with syntax or simple tasks like organizing their code are the ones experiencing the boost of productivity from LLMs.
Thus, it seems the devs benefitting the most from LLMs are the ones with the skill issue/more junior/early in their career.
Which group do you belong to?
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> You don't use any AI - drafting documentation, write boilerplate code, transcribing meetings, simplifying team communications, searching product documentation, alternative to Google or StackOverflow, creating presentations, as a brainstorming partner? I would consider all of these "work". If you say AI does 0% of your work, I'd say you're either a genius, behind the curve or being disingenuous.
There are reasons that seasoned OSS developers reject AI PRs: https://news.itsfoss.com/curl-ai-slop/ (like the creator of curl). Additionally, the only study to date currently measuring the impact on LLMs on experienced developers found a modest 19% decline in productivity when using an LLM for their daily work.
https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o...
Now we can ponder behind the reasons that the study showed experienced developers get a decrease of productivity, and you anecdotally experience a boost of "productivity", but why think about things when we can ask an LLM?
- experienced developers -> measured decrease of productivity
- you -> perceived increase of productivity
Here is what ChatGPT-5 thinks about the potential reason (AI slop below):
"Why You Might Feel More Productive
If senior developers are seeing a decline in productivity, but you are experiencing the opposite, it stands to reason that you are more junior. Here are some reasons why LLMs might help junior developers like you to feel more productive:
Lower Barrier to Entry
- LLMs help fill in gaps in knowledge—syntax, APIs, patterns—so you can move faster without constantly Googling or reading docs.
- Confidence Boost You get instant feedback, suggestions, and explanations. That can make you feel more capable and reduce hesitation.
- Acceleration of Learning You’re not just coding—you’re learning as you go. LLMs act like a tutor, speeding up your understanding of concepts and best practices.
- More Output, Less Friction You might be producing more code, solving more problems, and feeling that momentum—especially if you are just starting your coding journey."