Developers feel useless because AI automates coding tasks
25 posts across 8 communities in the last 30 days; 28% from r/cscareerquestions.
“Exactly! I develop software professionally since 2004 and never use AI !! If I can do it why others can't ???? Because of laziness and stupidity ! [re: I guess I'll live with my parents forever]”
“this is some stupid shit and it's wild how short sighted this subreddit is. the problem in this scenario is that this company hired a developer without enough of a token budget to support their job. people in this thread who are saying this is like expecting developers to…”
“Huh? You presented zero arguments. You didn't explain why the take is "hyperbolic". And you pretentiously posted a link about how the writing is AI assisted without addressing any of the underlying arguments in the writing. As if using AI to write is a bad thing.Your comment is…”
Several developers express feeling demoralized by the increasing automation of software development processes, with AI handling much of the coding and design work. They worry about their role diminishing as code becomes commoditized and architectural/design skills become more important.
SOURCES (60)
“Oh I’m just waiting for redundancy then returning to construction. [re: If you think AI is destroying our profession, why are you still developers? What gives you hope?]”
“Exactly! I develop software professionally since 2004 and never use AI !! If I can do it why others can't ???? Because of laziness and stupidity ! [re: I guess I'll live with my parents forever]”
“Software dev and you go to an office building to sit in front of a PC all day ? omg...why ? Stop doing it. [re: My feedback on 6 months full AI development]”
“"Just let AI write all the code" is actually reasonable if (and probably only if) almost all code of the project was generated straight from the prompt and never get checked (but it's function still might).It's like asking AI to generate HTML pages, then just eyeball it to see if the result fits the spec, all without reading the actual code underneath.Is it ideal and good quality? Hell no, your HTML page maybe 50MB large and comes with some extra tags that's not even in the W3C spec. But... if y”
“I’m calling you out as a bot [re: Devs, if you don’t code aren’t you worried about losing your skills set?]”
“Good luck. I'm an old code monkey who doesn't code professionally anymore, and have pondered that exact question many times over the last 20 years. I've had lots of ideas, but none of them are workable without lots of capitol and a big roll-out. As a consolation prize, I'll give you one I never used. I call it "walk me" The premise is that the user specifies how long of a walk they want, and the start/end points (if they aren't the same point) and the app gives them”
“Yea, thought so :) Im an architect with 12yoe buddy, rarely write code anymore. Cope harder. [re: For the folks cheering on AI taking over coding in the next few years]”
“Why would we undo technological advancements? That makes no sense. People can still hand code if they find it fun just like people do other stuff for fun that is no longer needed.”
“I'm seeing worse than this. Literal 'architects' who have to pause after any given question. I know they are typing it into AI. Makes tech due diligence really interesting...”
That first bit is Linus Torvalds' stupid take that people are parroting
“this is some stupid shit and it's wild how short sighted this subreddit is. the problem in this scenario is that this company hired a developer without enough of a token budget to support their job. people in this thread who are saying this is like expecting developers to program assembly are misguided. this is like expecting a developer to fix the bug without internet, or a laptop. I say this as a developer with over 20 YoE who could fix this problem in the code, but certainly does not want”
“If only there wasn’t $25 trillion heavily invested in convincing us all that no one really needs to code / generally know things anymore & we should all use their LLM for any knowledge we need”
Until Fable learns soldering in SMD components/making PCBA mods.
“Huh? You presented zero arguments. You didn't explain why the take is "hyperbolic". And you pretentiously posted a link about how the writing is AI assisted without addressing any of the underlying arguments in the writing. As if using AI to write is a bad thing.Your comment is a waste of time.ps. Not to mention the fact that you seem to be unaware of the fact that it's theoretically impossible to discern human writing from LLM writing unless there is an explicit signature in the writing.”
“no but you have 0 value than. what are you being paid for? Do you think companies will pay you another 2-3 years for just being useless meat proxy?”
“Now that every idea can just be created with a single prompt, I feel like I'm just a Shepherd for a bunch of AI agent, I'm not agains AI or the vide coding community, but for someone that stated building for the fun of it I don't see why should I continue doing so. I have a few project that I had fun building and the technical Arch in me was down for any challenge, now I can just write a paragraph and I have a running app, before I had to build self host and manage. now it's all”
“Yep it's an absolute joke. I've been coding since long before AI, it feels like the field has been rugpulled not only economically but also enjoyment-wise. I never signed up for a tryhard career complete with target schools and nepo snobs. I never signed up to, if I make it to industry eventually, just accept changes from Claude all day and expend no mental energy. It all sucks the love for it out of my soul if I focus on it too much.”
“no such thing as 'too complex' when AI exists. there's no longer an excuse to not dig in and learn a little bit, even if it doesn't make sense at first.”
“We desperately need some personal responsibility for the software you distribute.If you think that AI can do it all, fine, but you should spend some time in jail when the code you didn't read wreaks havoc.”
“Wrong code missing code wrong commands unusable options and so on …: maybe paid versions better ,”
“We are talking about a hypothetical future where coding AIs are good enough, cheap enough and ubiquitous enough that not just expert programmers, but everybody is capable of vibe coding exactly what they need, to the point they actually reach for coding AIs and not the app store with ready-made apps. That future is still far away, at least 5 years, probably closer to 10-15. In that hypothetical future, most of the problems you're talking about would be solved, or else we wouldn't have that futur”
“Because it’s not going to replace us. It’s just the next level of transformation of our work. The same people who don’t like the right code today are the same people who won’t want to write code tomorrow. We aren’t gonna be replaced by a bunch of MBAs who suddenly can write code.”
“I predict that Codeberg will soon realize that they have no choice but to loosen and allow AI generated code.There is no point in being on the extreme end around banning all code generated by AI.Regardless, there is AI generated code in many repositories on Codeberg anyway.”
“It means companies would stop demand mindlessly devs to use an AI. It also means more devs will be needed to fix and maintain existing crap. The thing is if it works companies don't give a shit about code quality. It's only when the SW starts to fail and companies start to loose money.”
“If a feature has zero adoption and you put zero effort into developing it and you just need to test it... maybe just test it? You're never going to win an argument where you and your CEO just have a different opinion, but if you have evidence then at least you have something to point to.”
“Man, I think that code is still the artifact that we produce as developers. Code is the truth. I don't find it difficult or super time consuming to just... read the code, either. I've highlighted quite a few issues with LLM/Agent output from just glancing at the code.I'll let you know how it goes... My new VP of engineering is a 'no looking at code' type of guy and is ripping 10K LOC PRs / Docs / plans against our 25 year old codebase and I would not say that they're 'good' PRs.Maybe I'm complet”
“I’m old enough to remember in the good ‘ol DOS days there was software to create your own games. A friend of mine had it, we were so excited after installing the package, we ran the software, selected “create new game” - we stared at the screen for 10 minutes before quitting and continuing our Space Quest journey.”
“Token usage as a measure of performance is probably on par with lines of code written as a performance indicator. Both are stupid.”
“With advances in AI, code has become so much cheaper, and the barrier to entry has fallen considerably You just said it yourself. It's the barrier to entry that's fallen. The barrier to advance is still there, and if anything it's risen. The average Joe with a $20 subscription can build something. It will likely be a total slop, but it doesn't really matter. I'm no longer competing just with people who know how to build things. I'm competing for attention with a bunch of”
“Not really what I said, is it? I don't tell AI "fix it". I use it to navigate a codebase and then figure out where the changes I want fit.”
“I don't have a choice. Work makes us use it and tracks our tokens and makes sure certain specific skills have been run. I don't think we're the only ones”
“What stands out is that this wasn’t really “AI gave me a business idea.” You already understood the niche because you were part of it, and AI just removed the implementation barrier. I think that’s a much stronger starting point than trying to force a product into a market you don’t understand. The fact that you cared about the UI, the feel of the game and the missing features probably mattered just as much as the actual code. Also interesting that the niche looked small from the outside but sti”
“I have been reflecting a bit on what makes coding fulfilling to me, and it is a kind of depressing realization. When I first started learning the code, I enjoyed the feeling of taking all these pieces, fitting them together, and watching them work. In other words, I enjoyed making features with my own hands. It felt good and I wanted to make that work as a career. But now, you no longer do that. Most code is now AI-generated. I tried that route for a bit, but I was doing nothing more than writin”
“Doesn't matter what you do. Point is everyone has to rehearse and become competent in skills that are now pointless. Like practicing hand arithmetic 5 years after everyone has a calculator where to get a job as an accountant requires you be top percentile at hand arithmetic.”
“Ability doesn’t necessarily mean leverage. When industrialization came along, it allowed a single skilled worker to produce as much as hundreds of manual workers. The end result obviously is not the worker being irreplaceable and highly paid. The rarity of your skillset is more important than the power of it, although obviously you want both. Also software development is not dying off anytime soon. Although I would reconsider my career if I were a CS major in the bottom 20%”
“I want to go back to the days of having to look up API calls, getting the syntax wrong, having to write comments, having to write unit tests, then porting the whole thing when they change the API and doing that for 100 different APIs and then have to rewrite the whole thing line by line to use the newest framework out there. No. Thank. You.”
“What's worries me is the actual IP, people is proud of reverse engineering using AI, adding stuff and telling everyone they build something new and different, obscure times are coming, economic collapse is coming too”
“I've figured out a workflow that's pretty fun and still leverages AI to make me faster. Obviously it's not as fast as one shotting everything but I've seen the codebases of one shotted work. They're garbage and worse - no one knows how they work so they just keep getting worse. Basically I use the AI to brainstorm, make changes to the spec. THen I have it write tests (only tests). And I build the implementation myself. It's kind of like pair programming. Anything trivial,”
“No, they said programmers wouldn't be writing the code, which is true in anthropic (and many places) already. They did say they would continue to need programmers to guide and manage the AI for some time.”
“This is exactly how I feel, and I have been trying to think how to articulate it.I love programming, and have loved it ever since I read the first page of my BASIC programming book 35 years ago and learned how to write a PRINT statement. I remember running into my parent's room as an 8 year old, telling them I knew how to make the computer print something. It was so exciting.I have never lost that excitement, but my love is not just about programming. It is about technology in general. I love th”
When you automate the process, manual work becomes more valuable.
“That capital is freed up by cheaper software. the software will not be chearper in my mind. Software today is even a mostly filled space where data access is the most important thing. like you can't compete with spotify, even if you could make better software with 0 dev costs you wont compete.”
“this is like saying the cotton gin was useless because it spurred cotton production immensely due to how efficient it made the business”
Now you know how mathematicians felt when calculators were invented
“You remind me of those guys, a few times ago who were saying : What’s the joy of lifting some rocks, getting them in another place in a few moments when a task like that would have normally taken a week? The sense of accomplishment and ownership has completely vanished with the wheel. ;)”
And tooling that is not related directly to business code
“Code reviews have already been automated. When I create a PR at work I'll instantly get 20 comments from copilot and a big green button that basically just lets copilot fix my mistakes. My colleagues then just press approve because noone enjoys competing with AI when it comes to reviews.”
“That makes no sense. If anything, they'd want more developers to keep buying tokens. It's not like the next generation will be able to code better than engineers pre-AI without using tools.”
“Or software, or web design, or any creative field, really. And the reason is that most of the arguments claiming it will happen fail to account for how the average normie actually thinks. There is far more to creating a useful game/program/app/website/etc than simply knowing the syntax. Even if normies were handed some magical AI tool that could create virtually anything they described, it would matter far less than people assume because most of them would not even know what to ask for. They mig”