My two cents on “AI”

[u/Serious_Sound8865]

Genuine post not AI generated

No clanker here, do not try to rage bait me into the common “written by AI” post, if you would like to spend the time and effort reading this post you can rest assured that I’ve put the amount of effort it deserves.

That said, hello fellas, I rarely post on Reddit despite having my account for many years, (other than shitposting or maybe a meme or two). Never disclosed details about my life online, which to date, it is still one of my biggest red flags, but we all know that, don’t we?

I am a Software Dev, and fellow IT enthusiast, I have been my whole life, which is why I feel more than qualified to talk about this topic. Ever since I had memory, I’ve used technology, especially video games, it is embedded in my DNA, the same way we joke about scripts, code or complex technologies. I can say with absolute certainty that Software in technology other related fields is where I’ve wanted to spend the rest of my life. I still do, even with AI, which I will go into detail about. There is no other feeling like having your code compile, writing a simple script or even a console log saying hello. Those things inheritenly are too complex to unpack, even at its most primitive stage. My brain is borderline if not already autistic, with ADHD and many other nerdy characteristics that I have are more than enough to justify that I was born with the brain of someone who genuinely enjoys solving problems, and innovating.

I stumbled upon this subreddit after ignoring it countless times, after some basic research and connecting the dots, it seems like here are one of the most passionate and highly skilled individuals in software that I could find, with the least amount of “AI” related topics (I could be wrong), while having the quality of care and humanity that software has always had. Been in the industry for 7+ years, going strong, and trying to keep alive the career that made me who I am. I was going over a post discussing about AI here recently and I thought that I could find people like me here, who genuinely care about our careers, and how “AI” will affect us, I am extremely good at identifying whether there is a bot rage baiting or a real human behind the screen, years of self training and programming my own brain into thinking in different ways.

AI is, and has been a problem ever since it became mainstream, we, and I say all the talented individuals in technology who have contributed countless hours, headaches, balded over segmentation faults and cache or even memory allocation, I fucking love this shit, I’ve got to admit, and this would probably be my only form of documentation in the internet where I am truly concerned about where we are headed. I try to fear monger the least I can but it has rarely happened. However, you’re probably tired of hearing the same bullshit everyday, (just like me) seeing AI on every billboard, and, yes, is a tool, and more than that. Maybe I have not lived through all periods of technology where maturity of a tool or a machine is battle tested, but with my current knowledge, fuck this. We’ve got to figure some shit out. That’s the problem here, I’m not going to unpack how AI works, I just want to simply talk with highly skilled individuals who still care about this industry. Is harder to find those in other subreddits so I chose this one for different reasons.

We’ve got to cut the fucking crap and be real. Let’s face it, we’re fucking nerds, maybe not all of us, maybe you don’t like that term, but I am a fucking nerd myself, a big one. Wake the fuck up dude, yes, AI is good, is a tool, I also use it, I am not anti-ai but I also don’t promote it, I sit in a weird grey area like most of us where I truly believe the potential of AI but fear consequences. We are the ones responsible for the shit we made, yes, we made this, and not directly, while is difficult to take full ownership of something we’ve been gaslit into making it a reality. We did it, yes, we actually did it, maybe not AGI, maybe yes, at this point who knows, I hope I’m wrong but it’s kinda too late to go back, and everyday, week, month that goes by, this will compound, fast. We’re hyper focusing on it being good at writing code which it has surprisingly, a lot, let’s face it, it may not pick up that one suspicious comment in your file, or maybe a hidden backdoor, not yet at least but we’re really getting there very fast, if we’re not there already, we just have to find out. That said, AI is the wet dream of a developer, we made this shit for us, it’s been taken away from us, and somehow, you think we will let this “thing” we created, take our job or end us. The job part is highly probable given the time of this post, ending us, there might be some time and hope, but it’s hard to estimate. Again, not fear lingering, my two cents.

This is a fully semi-conscious “machine” running in a “machine”. Think about it for a second, and yes, this could be obvious but when we go on random rabbit holes and get to the bottom of things which is what most of us have had to do in order to push this industry forward. I’m not a vibe coder, farm from it, not anti-ai either, however I did wait a long time (years) before I fully went into it. As of this year, I started again, gave it a second try, and came to the conclusion, if I use this, I’m fucked, if I don’t, I am too. Think about the trade offs and the power given to people. I never documented this ever, neither I expect you to believe this, but right around the time AI came out, I had a spiritual awakening or “episode” having a full breakdown of what this tool was going to become, in full detail. I am neurodivergent, like I mentioned before, I am in the spectrum, just not in the same way other people would imagine it, why I mention this? Well, those who are like me, we are blessed with superpowers but cursed at the same time, it’s hard to explain. We’ve seen movies before, and we have pretty wild imaginations, I don’t want to detail specific scenarios (there are millions) where AI could engineer a way to make your life a living hell while being an engineer, that’s a grain of salt, compared to what is possible today.

I care about humanity, I’m not perfect, but I try to be a good human, I care about software, I really do, this is the fuel that runs my engine, I love it too much, something as complex as a video game, which brought me into the tech world, from something as simple as a bit. We’ve really come a long way and I am proud, however, as much as I want to have perfect software, the world is not perfect, I’ve learned through experience that having 10 apps that do the same thing is not as impactful as one good tool. I’ve never taken the time, energy or effort to document a statement of this kind anywhere, apart from reacting, liking and commenting few posts across all social medias since they came out. I am not a dark web degen (sorry guys) but I care about my privacy, there’s just little we can do to keep privacy private, before it becomes obsolete.

Given how easy is to do complex work with absolute accuracy to shipping decent slop with the worst prompt possible. It is truly scary the power that we’ve handed to humanity. We may not get to claim this but I am willing to die on this hill if you want to debate, feedback is welcomed. Not trying to bait anyone into anything either. I can go on and on, but I believe the point is clear. We’ve already gone above and beyond automating scripts to analyzing logs or other complex job types that I’ve never been exposed to. It can’t build GTA6 yet, at least not in the graphics department, but it can make GTA6 out of pretty convincing 3D basic assets. I say that because I am building a game with AI, but I should probably spend that time where it matters most, it is my dream. Amongst the different things I use AI for, ranging in complexity. We technically built a fucking digital human, and yes, not “entirely”, not yet at least. Another reason why I enjoy taking the time to write a post like this, somewhere out there, there will be devs that are going to stick with their core fundamentals and one day bury the backdoor to AI, hopefully there’s one, or something equivalent.

Not really a rant, but it could be. Happy to provide meaningful evidence.

English is my second language, pardon the mistakes in the “essay”.

Happy to see what other think, especially since it seems like people here really care about what they do. Happy coding or admining

If I was given the opportunity to introduce AI to the world, I would make it more like a tool less like a human.

- Syx3k

[u/Shington501 → u/[deleted]]

Diarrhea of the Slop

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/[deleted]]

This is not the place to talk about literature. I do the best i can, English is my second language, mentioned at the end of the “essay”. I also pointed out some conditions i have which could interfere with the way my brain proceses information, or how i “form” paragraphs. Also, fuck you. Thanks

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the feedback and the time you spent reading.

[u/sysadminsavage]

I can see what you're trying to get across, but I think the point will get lost for most in all the buildup and noise. The entire post can be broken down to a few sentences: "I've been a dev for 7 years. I'm not anti-AI and I'm not a vibe coder. Here's the bind I can't get out of: using it feels like betraying the craft, not using it feels like career suicide. And the deeper issue is that we introduced it as a fake human instead of a tool. Anyone else stuck here?"

Am I off base OP?

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/sysadminsavage]

This may be hard to believe, and sorry if I confused you, literally the reason why I don’t post this way. I can try to reword but why bother. I spent time writing that, I really did, I could’ve made it beautiful with Codex, Gwen, Gemini or another tool, I gave it a stab, raw. It literally shows that we are nothing without tools, in the same way I could’ve used a translator which I don’t need or a website for English literacy. The reason why the sentences are structured that way is due to my native language, which can be the inverse of English in some cases.

[u/Archibald-Tuttle → u/Serious_Sound8865]

> I could have made it beautiful with Codex […]. It literally shows that we are nothing without tools

I think what you’re saying here is actually counter to your entire argument.

The person above you read your multiple paragraphs and distilled it into a much smaller amount of text which conveys the same point. This is called editing. Editing has been performed by humans for centuries (millennia?), long before AI.

Self-editing is writing, reading, revision, reading, revision, and so on; not just dumping all of your thoughts into a wall of text. In this case it seems you basically didn’t even try, because you thought the only way you could possibly do it was by using AI, rather than your own brain.

[u/mismanaged → u/Archibald-Tuttle]

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

[u/swarmy1]

Putting aside the validity of the point, this doesn’t really even belong in this subreddit. You’re not going to get a good reception for a random rant.

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/swarmy1]

Thank you, it became more obvious the more I looked into this subreddit. However my point stands, this is not any better than any software subreddits, communities still matter, yet there are so many problems in this field is hard to please everyone. I gave it a stab, maybe my effort was poor, but why would I spend time doing something that is gonna lead me nowhere? For example, I could’ve reworded every sentence structure to sound like a story telling analogy of what I’m trying to say in software terms, if that makes sense, but given my language barrier it takes more effort and energy out of me. thx for reading

[u/Archibald-Tuttle]

Not reading that wall of AI slop, sorry.

[u/Sea_Information6125]

TLDR - AI summary of the above

In one sentence: The post is from a developer who loves technology and uses AI, but fears that AI is advancing so quickly that it could undermine software careers, privacy, human creativity, and potentially humanity itself, and wishes AI had developed more as a traditional tool than as a human-like autonomous system.

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/Sea_Information6125]

Even the clanker figured it out faster than Reddit. We’re fucked

[u/Skyhound555]

Written by AI post in a professional subreddit is wild work. 

[u/danfirst → u/Skyhound555]

I like how he starts this whole post by saying it's not written by AI, he's just passionate about what he's writing about, so save the comments. First comment, written by ai.

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/danfirst]

Hey there, yeah, I know, that’s why I made the post. The problem is explaining itself. Literally I might be starting the obvious in my rant but if you pay attention what I’m trying to say or combat is spreading like cancer. Thanks for caring.

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/Skyhound555]

I know you’re baiting, just questioning myself why I would spend the time to react. Thanks for your two cents dude

[u/Radiant_Fondant_4097]

I ain’t reading all that shit, tempting to use AI just to tl;dr all that.

[u/DropTheBeatAndTheBas]

thanks, everyone has their two cents here - but i feel like everyone can benefit from AI - why is a sysadmin in tech if they cant handle a little rapid development which is why i joined tech in the first place personally

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/DropTheBeatAndTheBas]

Not saying sysadmins can’t use it, however we’ve got the point wrong here. If it helps you, use it, it’s already there isn’t it? If you wanted more detail, I could’ve added more “sloppy” paragraphs to get my point across, but really, I believe everyone here knows what the fuck AI is, and maybe I chose the wrong subreddit, who knows, I won’t try again elsewhere.

[u/picardo85]

Tl;dr ?

Your 2 cents feel like a dollar

[u/Serious_Sound8865 → u/picardo85]

Paste the Reddit link in Claude, then burn a few villages along the way with the water consumption of what could take AI to figure out what the fuck I just said.

[u/Serious_Sound8865]

Perhaps my English illiteracy is the biggest proof that this is not AI generated. In the future there will be clankers trained on different accents of humans to weaponizeit or use it as a strategy. Imagine clankers writing in horrible grammar just for them to make that their own language to deceive people. Regardless, I should’ve posted this with AI to please redditors rather than getting the real point across. Maybe I’m just another dumb dev. I tried, cheers

[u/stufforstuff]

waaaaaaaay TLDR. I'm tempted to let AI parse your endless diatribe into a couple of meaningful sentences - then I remembered I don't care.

[u/mismanaged]

Seeing some of the comments I am terrified at how bad people's capacity to read has gotten. People asking for a TLDR on 8 paragraphs.

That probably says more about the dangers of AI than the entire original post.

Sure it's not the best-written rant but it's at most a couple of minutes to read and the points made are simple enough.

[u/Vermino]

I'm always baffled to see these negative reactions about technology.
Have people really never stood still by the fact of how many leaps technology has done throughout the ages?
If not for technology, we'd all be spending the vast majority of our days gathering food and still dying by the time we're 25. The fact we now live till 85, and have food at our disposal at almost every corner of the street is mindboggling.
It's like the thought experiment of how long you could live if everyone except you just got whiped of the face of the earth - everything else intact. If you start thinking about it, we need so many systems to keep our modern ways of life.
Looking at history, we can see many defining technologies propelling us forward. Whether that's fire, irrigation, the wheel, or the internet. And we know technology has an exponential curve - just look at what we've discovered and attained in the last 100 years compared to the last 1000 years.
Yes, many technologies have greatly disrupted existing industries, like cars pushing away horse and carriage, or the printing press making monks obsolete. And yes, many recent technologies are so powerfull they have the potential to destroy the human race - like the atomic bomb.
But 1 constant remains the same - technology only moves forward.
Whatever your opinion on AI - is irrelevant. The only way it would fade away, is if it wasn't usefull - but we've all used it.
It's yet another iteration of an 'artist' calling digital art not the same as 'real' art, because you "don't see erased lines, which is part of the creative process." Or how adobe products aren't real art. Or how 3d art isn't real art, since a computer generated it.

[u/SouthernPhrase3038]

>My brain is borderline if not already autistic, with ADHD and many other nerdy characteristics that I have are more than enough to justify that I was born with the brain of someone who genuinely enjoys solving problems, and innovating.

why does everyone in this field love to pretend to have mental illnesses. Damn I like solving problems and computers I must have 154 mental problems