Here are some reasons why just creating a prompt and submitting a task to an AI engine can be counterproductive:
- It outsources your own thinking to a machine. Instead of grappling with the problem yourself, you are delegating it to a what is little more than a sophisticated pattern matcher and replacer.
- The output will require careful checking and modification. The more code the AI engine spews out, the more work this will take. It is virtually guaranteed that there will be errors, or duplicate code that is not required, or other excess code that can be removed. In addition, quirks like inline styling or scripting may present itself, or the generation of additional files with code that could be added to existing files instead. All this will take up valuable time. It is always easier to write and debug your own code than trawl through, fix and reduce code generated by AI.
- It takes away the satisfaction and enjoyment you derive by doing the work yourself. Constantly reviewing code rather than writing it is a fundamental change of work role.
- AI, despite its abilities at writing code, cannot actually think for itself. It’s not a problem solver. Software development is chiefly about problem solving, with the writing of code being an extension of that. Humans are excellent at problem solving because they can see the whole picture (especially relevant for a large existing software application). They can identify the myriad tasks that are required to integrate new functionality into an application. AI – not so much. It requires a human to already have worked out the key elements necessary to solve a problem, then precise instructions to code what is required.
- Tasks given to AI actually take time. Even a simple task allocated to Microsoft CoPilot can take a while before it’s finished. Why not just spend a few minutes doing it yourself and moving it to review, rather than wasting time with AI? Once the task has been given to AI, you’ve still got to come back to it later for checking, when it could already have been done and dusted.
- Larger tasks require more prompting. Wasting time dialoguing with an AI engine would be better spent fixing the issue yourself.