Comment by bonoboTP
6 hours ago
I find that it really is effective when you iterate and plan and review, but the problem is more psychological on the human side. It's just too easily available to take the lazy option and just let it do the thing, postpone the thorough reviewing and you end up in a similar situation as tech debt. In an ideal world with no deadline pressure and infinite discipline, AI can be used in productive ways for sure. But when you actually write the code, there is more of a "do you do it or not" switch, and with AI it's a smooth ramp, you can be just a bit less involved or just a bit more. And I end up feeling like I'm not fully involved, I'm halfway working and my whole mind isn't tuned into it properly. I'm not sure how to express it. Also, now several months in, I just don't get the same feeling of accomplishment from the little wins. It's too automatic, doesn't feel earned.
I discovered something about myself a few years ago... I have to simmer in my work and let my head get wrapped around it.
My visual for this is a capybara soaking
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/capybaras-take...
I am very visual and spatial. The first investment I make in my home or even visiting somewhere for more than 3-4 days where I will need to work without coworking is buying a whiteboard.
So now I'm here with all these tools trying to use a remarkable tablet to draw and show the AI what I'm thinking. It's just not fulfilling. Cleaning toilets isn't either. Lots of jobs have felt like a full on race to software factory and it's clear we're going there with AI and the "cognitive debt" from half (or less) activated brains driving the code generation is going to be massive.
I can't comment on cleaning toilets as a job (luckily I don't have to do that), but cleaning at home does provide a sense of accomplishment similar to solving a coding task elegantly and cleanly, while uninvolved AI-assisted coding is more like up and down voting or liking posts in algo feeds. Not fully like that of course, but it's a step towards that kind of "I like this part, I don't like that part" feedback-giving that can leave me depleted/drained. Coding before AI was more like when you feel one with the machine, like when you drive your car on autopilot, and with AI it's like sitting in the passenger seat like a driving instructor saying how to go about the driving. You do t quite know what it will answer, maybe it will push back on your idea when unnecessary and then I have to expend effort in arguing in text in a chatbox with a machine, or it goes forward too easily without asking clarifying questions or pushing back when what I ask collides with previous things. Many programmers get depleted in meetings and in language-based argumentation and charge up with the more puzzlesolving-like flow state, but this AI wrangling is often more like team meetings.
"It's just too easily available to take the lazy option and just let it do the thing"
This seems to me to be one of the key problems for AI usage in general. Students have this problem where it can be incredibly helpful in actually learning but late at night with the assignment due early tomorrow the temptation is just too strong to have it do the thing.
Somehow I find that interacting with AI doesn't make me feel the same way as diving through Wikipedia rabbit holes. With AI it feels more like, it starts saying how there is indeed an answer to some science question I was unsure about, about some phenomenon or about how some technology works, and it starts explaining it but I feel disinterested in actually reading it's answer. I see it's general shape and I feel satisfied in the existence of the answer. It may be the glazing sycophancy too, but it seems that I get the "satisfaction" from just getting the answer, while with Wikipedia I only got it once I dug up the info that I needed. And the AI answer is ephemeral, while the Wikipedia page is there for everyone, it's a thing, even if it can change.
Same with AI images. It feels good for 2 seconds to see what I asked for and I'm immediately disinterested. Same way, I've generated many Suno songs, but I don't care about them after a few listens.