Is It Wrong to Watch Movies, Cartoons, or Sci-Fi? 🤔
Of course not.
We enjoy movies even though they're fictional. We appreciate cartoons
even though the characters aren't real. We watch science fiction knowing
today's imagination often becomes tomorrow's technology.
That made me think about another question:
Why is AI-assisted development treated so differently?
I'm fond of reading to keep abreast of what's happening in software and
technology.
Lately, I came across a discussion that made me realize I needed to
write a sequel to a post I published back in April, Defending Vibe
Coding: Why Syntax Might Not Be the Bottleneck
Anymore.
In that article, I argued that AI is shifting the bottleneck away from
syntax and toward system design, validation, and execution clarity.
This time, I'd like to look at why that idea still meets so much
resistance.
That discussion also helped me understand some of the reactions I
receive whenever I post or share my projects.
Nevertheless, I'm still on my vibes. 🙃
So, let's talk about it.
Every generation of engineers believes the next generation's tools make
the craft too easy.
When automatic transmissions became common, no one insisted every driver
master a manual gearbox first.
When voice-to-text arrived, we didn't demand that everyone become an
expert speller before speaking into their phones.
Most programmers today have never written a compiler, an operating
system, or a network stack from scratch. Yet we don't question whether
they're programmers.
So why is AI-assisted development treated differently?
The point isn't that fundamentals are worthless. Far from it. The point
is that the definition of a "fundamental" evolves as technology evolves.
Programming has never been about typing the greatest number of
characters. It has always been about solving problems.
Today, programming is shifting from writing every instruction manually
to designing systems, evaluating solutions, testing assumptions, and
taking responsibility for the final product.
The keyboard is becoming less important than judgment.
AI doesn't remove accountability. If an AI introduces a bug, the
responsibility is still mine. If I can't explain my architecture, defend
my decisions, or verify my software, then I haven't done my job as an
engineer.
But if I understand the system, direct its design, validate its
behavior, and stand behind every release, then whether some of the
implementation came from AI becomes a secondary question.
Every technological shift has been uncomfortable. The challenge isn't to
reject new tools or forget the old lessons. It's to carry forward the
discipline, curiosity, and responsibility that define good engineering
while embracing new capabilities.
The future won't belong to developers who refuse AI, nor to those who
blindly trust it.
It will belong to those who know how to think.
Top comments (3)
"Every Generation Thinks the Next One Has It Easy" - when it comes to software devs, the last "pre AI" generation might realize they had it easier than the next generation, which sees part of their work 'evaporate' as a result if AI ...
So, the adage might have held for a long time, but I feel we have a trend break now ...
The labor of previous developers is the exact foundation current developers build upon. Modern software exists only because generations before us solved low-level problems so we wouldn't have to.
It feels like a trend break because the abstraction layer shifted so fast from typing syntax to system design, but the core dynamic hasn't changed. The work hasn't evaporated; it migrated upward to system integrity, validation, and execution.
If each era didn't make the next layer possible, then every step from assembly to high-level frameworks was a flaw. But I'll stick to the better side of the story.
I just began to improve syntax lately 😅😉
I think a particular generation did a great job for this heavy shift we're experiencing. They didn't make development too easy; they succeeded at making layers of complexity disappear.
Remember the typewriter to Keyboard shift 🤷
"The work hasn't evaporated" - well, not yet, and for sure it's not gonna disappear in the short or middle term - but I do feel that the "AI shift" cuts deeper and is more fundamentally different than the previous, more gradual and evolutionary developments ...