The company I work for has recently adopted the “AI revolution”, and has declared that we are now an “AI First” company. Every time we do something we are expected to think about whether we need to use AI.
Forgive me for being blunt but I thought we were supposed to be a “Customer First” company.
This AI mandate has been imposed across the whole firm, including the use of AI tools for software development. The whole process of development has now been disrupted, with developers being asked to use AI agents to perform their regular coding tasks.
If it were just a “take it or leave it” suggestion I wouldn’t have much of an issue with it. However, it’s not. I am now looking for a role at another company, or in the worst case scenario, an exit from the industry altogether.
I really dislike the whole concept of “prompting” – asking an AI engine to write code. Especially when most of the time the coding tasks are relatively straightforward and only take a limited time to implement. The existing code base we work on is large and complex, and integrating a new feature usually requires modifying the code in many different places, with work to be done for both the user interface and back-end, along with the occasional update script or two to modify the underlying database.
A colleague recently wrote a two page spec for asking AI to make the required changes to add a new feature to the application. If I were doing the task I would have preferred to get working on the issue straight away, implementing all the changes myself and not spending my time working out how to instruct an AI engine to do it.
Software development is primarily about problem solving: identifying what needs changing in the code, then going ahead and doing it in a clear, efficient and logical manner. Writing instructions for AI just gets in the way. Plus it takes all the fun out of the role, which is really the key point.
During my time at the company I’ve acquired a reputation as rather a fast worker and my colleagues aren’t really working any quicker with AI. The output volume of work remains about the same.
Someone boasting about how AI makes them “10x” or “100x” faster isn’t going to convince me. In my mind, it would mean they have turned into a prompt monkey. Are they any happier or fulfilled in the job? Or do they end each day feeling ground down from having to check and correct all that code, hoping that the AI hasn’t missed out something critical?
AI prompting turns a code writer into a code reviewer. It’s a fundamental change of role. Some software developers don’t mind that but others do. Far from being universally welcomed, the fact is that AI mandates are wreaking havoc in today’s workplace.