Thank you for writing this. It's a really important issue that feels drowned out. Personally, I switched off Copilot auto-completion and instead will occasionally trigger it on demand with a shortcut, as I found that it was constantly disrupting my ability to concentrate. And I try to use LLMs as a tool for reference and for scaffolding only - I'm trying to keep myself responsible for the hard stuff in my work, but the temptation to just let the AI do its thing is there. I do worry about the effects of even this level of AI use on myself, and for the effect of AI on all software developers, particularly those just starting out. Honestly, I think it just means that people that can actually do the hard mental work themselves, without AI, will become much more rare and in-demand.
I have a lot to say about the word of Ai software development but I didn't think of this one. It does highlight a major advantage we have that ai doesn't at least yet. Over 40 years of development has made me what I am because I learned new things, made mistakes and learned from them and even changed what i think and how i do things. Experience is an amazing teacher. AI is trained once and is essentialy hard coded. Even if you correct something is does it doesn't learn unless you spend the time to turn that experience into a prompt snippet that you include with all the other things you send to the ai to remind it how you want things done. Our neural networks adapt as we grow. AI needs to be patched to get around its default behavior and this needs to be done on every prompt. What a waste of time and electricity. One of these days the ai service providers will want to start recuperating their investment, their cost and think about making a profit. That when the price will go up, we will need to reconsider how and when we use ai economically, and we will desperately want back all those skills that we gave up on for convenience, for speef, and perhaps to be on the ai band wagon....
Quite necessary and a perfect timming Addy: we, as developers and Engineering leadership trying continuously to build and deliver quality code to solve and grab opportunities are carried by Alt+Tab Programming nowadays and need to read and share this thoughts more and more to not be overwhelmed and not forget what make us developers at the bottom of our souls. Thanks for sharing!
This is super weird. I was on HK News to post on this topic and found the article. Thanks for the additional knowledge. For a moment, I thought I was going crazy writing about this issue I was experiencing. As a shameful plug, here is my post on it: https://lancecourse.com/blog/ai-the-new-sugar-and-the-doom-of-mindkind-1745563474
I think this is a super important conversation that the industry and society in general are not talking enough about. I personally think we’re on the last mile for the human monopoly on skilled labor. In a couple of years, AI will be cheaper and much more competent than any human being in any skill that doesn’t require motor skills. It will be just like autonomous cars: it will be irresponsible to let humans do it instead of the machines. Driving will be much more strict of course. I’m a professional software engineer with 15 years of experience. I’ve had a fair share of learning a technology and seeing it disappear. It’s daunting, but at least I know I could do something else. I’m betting on that as well once I can’t make a decent living as a software engineer anymore. The main problem is that I have no idea what I’ll be able to do to earn a decent living in the future. I hope to see more people talking about this topic.
I've used GitHub copilot since it was originally released too the end of 2024. At that time I realized instead of actually coding I just waited for copilot to show me some code. I realized I did not remember the functions and types which I used every day. I canceled my subscription and started to work as before, no AI at all. After 10+ years of experience I kinda started from scratch. So, as for me, I'm going to continue working without AI (or maybe sometimes). If my boss fires me because I don't want to use it, so, I'll find a new job. I made a decision.
Thank you Addy for such… wisdom. That's a word I rarely use when commenting tech newsletters. I feel like reading Stoicism advice precisely applied to my craft and now feel more resilient.
Thank you for writing this. It's a really important issue that feels drowned out. Personally, I switched off Copilot auto-completion and instead will occasionally trigger it on demand with a shortcut, as I found that it was constantly disrupting my ability to concentrate. And I try to use LLMs as a tool for reference and for scaffolding only - I'm trying to keep myself responsible for the hard stuff in my work, but the temptation to just let the AI do its thing is there. I do worry about the effects of even this level of AI use on myself, and for the effect of AI on all software developers, particularly those just starting out. Honestly, I think it just means that people that can actually do the hard mental work themselves, without AI, will become much more rare and in-demand.
I have a lot to say about the word of Ai software development but I didn't think of this one. It does highlight a major advantage we have that ai doesn't at least yet. Over 40 years of development has made me what I am because I learned new things, made mistakes and learned from them and even changed what i think and how i do things. Experience is an amazing teacher. AI is trained once and is essentialy hard coded. Even if you correct something is does it doesn't learn unless you spend the time to turn that experience into a prompt snippet that you include with all the other things you send to the ai to remind it how you want things done. Our neural networks adapt as we grow. AI needs to be patched to get around its default behavior and this needs to be done on every prompt. What a waste of time and electricity. One of these days the ai service providers will want to start recuperating their investment, their cost and think about making a profit. That when the price will go up, we will need to reconsider how and when we use ai economically, and we will desperately want back all those skills that we gave up on for convenience, for speef, and perhaps to be on the ai band wagon....
Well said! A number of times while reading, you reminded me of this classic paper called The Ironies of Automation: https://ckrybus.com/static/papers/Bainbridge_1983_Automatica.pdf
Quite necessary and a perfect timming Addy: we, as developers and Engineering leadership trying continuously to build and deliver quality code to solve and grab opportunities are carried by Alt+Tab Programming nowadays and need to read and share this thoughts more and more to not be overwhelmed and not forget what make us developers at the bottom of our souls. Thanks for sharing!
This is super weird. I was on HK News to post on this topic and found the article. Thanks for the additional knowledge. For a moment, I thought I was going crazy writing about this issue I was experiencing. As a shameful plug, here is my post on it: https://lancecourse.com/blog/ai-the-new-sugar-and-the-doom-of-mindkind-1745563474
Such a good read as always. Thank you!
literally wow
#addy-makes-you-win
Great advice all around as always.
Thanks for the kind words!
I think this is a super important conversation that the industry and society in general are not talking enough about. I personally think we’re on the last mile for the human monopoly on skilled labor. In a couple of years, AI will be cheaper and much more competent than any human being in any skill that doesn’t require motor skills. It will be just like autonomous cars: it will be irresponsible to let humans do it instead of the machines. Driving will be much more strict of course. I’m a professional software engineer with 15 years of experience. I’ve had a fair share of learning a technology and seeing it disappear. It’s daunting, but at least I know I could do something else. I’m betting on that as well once I can’t make a decent living as a software engineer anymore. The main problem is that I have no idea what I’ll be able to do to earn a decent living in the future. I hope to see more people talking about this topic.
Well said. Good job.
Applicable to every professional and knowledge domain.
I've used GitHub copilot since it was originally released too the end of 2024. At that time I realized instead of actually coding I just waited for copilot to show me some code. I realized I did not remember the functions and types which I used every day. I canceled my subscription and started to work as before, no AI at all. After 10+ years of experience I kinda started from scratch. So, as for me, I'm going to continue working without AI (or maybe sometimes). If my boss fires me because I don't want to use it, so, I'll find a new job. I made a decision.
Great article, if you ever want to share these insights at Devoxx Belgium (6 - 10th of October '25) let me know :) -Stephan
Thanks, it's helpful.
Really good advice overall.
Thank you Addy for such… wisdom. That's a word I rarely use when commenting tech newsletters. I feel like reading Stoicism advice precisely applied to my craft and now feel more resilient.