I'm damn sure the answer is "no", but the devs at my workplace are all in on it in a way that's not as absurd on the surface as the "coding is a solved problem" kind of tech bros. There's an emphasis on the "human in the loop" that I think is far from sufficient; we used to have a human in the loop, it's called actually writing your fucking code!
As a sample, this is from a transcript of a recent discussion about AI with some devs on my team:
Me, a senior dev:
To be clear, I'm not saying not to forego the human in the loop. I'm pointing out that there is an inherent contradiction between using agent as our main means of writing code and actually being able to review all of its output -- be it before or after opening the PR. I'm worried that we'll end up in a position that we're expected to do something intractable, if not strictly speaking impossible.
New mid-level dev:
I just think we should still be responsible for reviewing all the output. Like how I see the before vs now is:
- Before: human plan -> human write -> human review
- Now: human plan -> claude write -> human review (+ claude review)
And in effect we're just as responsible for reviewing every line of the Al code as we were for reviewing every line of human code. Once that changes that's when the Al slop starts coming out So we should never end up posting a PR where we're like "hey guys claude wrote this so do the thing you do for claude PRs"
Team tech lead:
@AppetiteOfExcess, this is a problem across all dev teams in every industry. It's a huge issue. I think we need to lean on Al to speed up PRs, but how we do that is not well defined yet. I think it can help us get our head around a PR faster. Maybe we need to made an artifact for some PRs that give a breakdown of what is changing. Then we can grill Al once it understands the changes. That might speed things up a bit. The important thing is to really understand the code and the impact of the change.
@mid-level_dev I agree with you but I think the new process will be more like the following
- Humans (the whole team) plan by making highly defined stories
- Al makes an implementation and test plan
- Human reviews plan
- Al executes the plan with human oversight at certain steps
- Al does a review using /code-review (new context by default)
- PR is posted with change overview
- Human uses Al to understand the changes and review the code
I don't know how to push back on this while being taken at all seriously. It has me considering that maybe I'm in the wrong for rejecting a tool that is considered useful by all but a few stick in the mud devs, and that those devs will never have a shot at a job again unless they pull their heads out of their asses and join our modern "AI"-driven world.
Both of your coworkers' plans are to actually not review the code. They say Claude will do it. This guarantees you will get garbage and break things. They do actually have techbro misunderstandings of the reliability of these tools and perhaps a misunderstanding of how good they personally are at planning and documentation if they don't expect more iteration than one PR and review.
You should also expect the cost of tokens to skyrocket eventually, just as an operational thing.
But this brings up the real point: why is tech lead giving a shit about, "I think we need to lean on Al to speed up PRs"? Aside from that not actually being the usual outcome, it's also not their job to care about it. They are acting like C suite or management or a suck-up. "Speed up PRs" isn't a meaningful thing to anyone except the bean counters trying to create metrics of success to use to discipline labor and climb the ladder. Is team lead spending all their time on PRs? If their new job is reviewing Claude PRs (which they imply and then contradict), they'll be spending more time on that now, not less. They might do more PR reviews in less time but they'll either be reviewing for common inevitable mistakes (you cannot rely on Claude to do the review lmao) or just let garbage through and have to fix it later. Either way they're sacrificing dev time to do more review time, telling themselves it's faster but likely not tracking whether milestones are being met faster
But most importantly why are they doing managements' job. Y'alls job is to promise less to manager so you over deliver but make it sound like you're technical experts that are irreplaceable. Not sell the idea that writing and reviewing code has been automated and you gotta get your metrics up.
This bit has been baffling me as of late. Almost all software devs I know have bent over backwards to give businesses what they want. It wasnt even that long ago I was revelling in work from home and basically putting most of my day into MMOs. All ai did was enable the worst of us to bootlick harder in some shallow attempt to gain approval.
My colleagues used to mock me for leaving on time. Like its not even early i have worked my contracted hours and leave and you cant even do that??????? They continue to work 12 hour days and tell me their life feels hollow like yeah no shit
Could this behavior stem from the job market being total ass? People just trying to hold onto what they have.
No the job market could be perfect the behaviour would be the same. A lot of software devs have no concept of class consciousness or solidarity and they will absolutely fuck each other over for no good reason or to just look better than someone else.
In my circle all my colleagues are commie adjacent cos I got them all unionised so we back each other up but outside of that group its the hunger games. I guess the upside of this ai crap is a decent chunk of software devs now no longer think theyre immortal against the whims of capital so maybe it will change but Im not seeing that yet. All i see today is the wish to be the last man standing which isnt very useful
It's actually worse in the PMC STEM white collar jobs with low unemployment rates. They haven't been screwed over by management as much so they tend to believe the corpo propaganda. Plus a lot of them are the type to think Elon Musk is a smart "disrupter" or NFTs are a great investment.
I know several people at work currently who quote Elon. A solid half of the people i work with “invest” in crypto
lmao we gotta come up with our own scams to funnel these folks' money to people who need it
My tech lead was genuinely impressed with the flying tesla stunt from a few weeks ago.
I've been wanting to try and get a more "professional" job, but every time I talk to someone about it it sounds like hell.
I'm just gonna deal with the dumb mom and pop bullshit where I'm the only person in the company with any actual computer literacy and get to set all the standards.
Live2Work Work2Die coworkers are the worst.
This mindset is rampant at my employer. Devs are well compensated enough with salary and benefits that they see their benefit as being strictly aligned with the company's. Most of my coworkers seem to have gotten into software development as a way to make money, with little or no love of the craft. Those who do get into the process love the SDLC part of the craft much more than the coding part.