Pros and cons of AI

[Dani]

Two part question:

• Is AI making programmers lazy or more productive?
• Do you trust AI to write production code? (Hint: I do not.)

[Reverend Jim]

I think, properly used, AI is making ua more productive. In my own experience I have saved hours of tinkering trying to get something to work when ChatGPT gave me the six or so lines of code, with comments and detailed explanation, in order to accompliah what I wanted.

I've used the "grains of sand" analogy before. WxPython controls are documented such that every method and property is sort of documented, but not in such a way that clarifies anything or lets you know how to actually do something useful. In many cases inherited methods and properties are not included with each control. In many cases the only way to get aomething useful is to use something like vscode with breakpoints and examine the methods and properties with intellisense. ChatGPT can, in many cases, cut through the crap and present something useful.

I don't trust AI to generate production code. I test everything myself.

[tinstaafl]

I think it depends. First of all you need oop and single responsibility functions. To trust AI you must keep it simple. Now if the programmer has the training and experience, using an AI to do the rough draft for some functions can save time. But to blindly trust AI with an inexperienced and/or poorly trained programmer is asking for disaster.

[Dani]

But that’s the thing though. Scrolling through my Facebook feed tonight, I keep getting ads for AI apps that tout that you enter a simple prompt about what you want to build, and an entire app that works perfectly, UI and all, is all built for you within minutes.

I think that is very attractive to people that don’t know any better. Undoubtedly, if any portion of it works at all, it will be severely lacking in security features, decent coding practices, etc.

I feel like this is almost akin to the next coding bootcamps that released doe-eyed newbies who thought (aka were told in exchange for $20,000) they had the skill set to create something production ready.

[trcooke]

AI is an accelerant for already existing behaviours. Good developers will become more productive, and poor developers will produce rot at a faster rate. It also extends beyond the technology industry, medical research will be accelerated but so will cyber crime.