DEV Community: carrey cullen

If you’re trusting AI more than yourself, you should probably get your brain checked.

carrey cullen — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:55:31 +0000

Any program is inevitably characterized by rigidity and inflexibility; regardless of how much data AI agents are trained on, this remains unchanged unless they possess self-awareness.

In recent years, AI has become the focal point of discussion. It has been portrayed as a god-like existence. Due to its ability to rapidly generate code, some fools assert—“AI will replace developers.”

Smart people just need to spot where the idiots are.

The notion that “AI will replace developers” commands significant online traffic; consequently, various bloggers engage in discussing it and even assert that AI will replace developers.

But is that really how it is?

Firstly, it must be acknowledged that, as developers, we are losing our creative authority.

I pursue programming because I intend to create functions that are comprehensible only to me, remaining private and solely under my control.

However, with the emergence of AI, I entrusted this private code, solely under my control, to artificial intelligence for evaluation.

I lost my creative authority, my confidence diminished, and I ceased to trust myself, placing my trust in AI instead.

That was exactly me last year.

However, I am no longer in that state this year, as I have pursued studies in cybersecurity.

Because this industry is so particular, I just can’t depend on AI, no matter how much I want to.

Whenever I ask it about cybersecurity, it always says, “Sorry, I can’t answer that question.”

This made me mad; people hate it when their tools don’t obey them.

I’ve stopped leaning on AI. I used to talk to it hundreds of times a day, and now I barely have a few dozen chats.

I have begun to reevaluate the creative authority that I lost in the past year.

Over the last year, I also lost the uniquely human ability to think for myself and to critique.

At present, how many developers rely on AI in the same way I formerly did?

I initially intended to write, “Who would be so foolish as to let AI audit their code?” Are you prepared to have your code filled with bugs that you cannot repair? AI will alter your code disastrously, causing it to lose your original creative intent.

Upon careful consideration, I recognized that I had once been that foolish person. I allowed AI to review my code, which is how I came to understand how disastrous such a process could become.

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Even with three years of backend development and one year in cybersecurity, my income remains zero.

carrey cullen — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:10:11 +0000

I once said: sticking with one thing and getting really good at it.

But I’ve never truly committed to one thing.

Three years in backend development, one year in cybersecurity.

From this description, it appears I’ve been in the field for four years.

In fact, I’ve only been in the field for one year.

Since I was 15, I’ve been completely obsessed with coding.

Yet at that time, I hadn’t started working in backend development or cybersecurity.

I mostly followed along and sometimes copied code.

I counted that time deliberately because it creates the impression of being mature.

Humans are prone to blindly following authority, ignoring the details.

That’s when the con artists took advantage of the situation.

I ought to have majored in philosophy; I really have a knack for it.

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What exactly is a profession? And what exactly is a developer?

carrey cullen — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:08:16 +0000

A profession: sticking with one thing and getting really good at it

Only when professions are no longer imbued with nobility can individuals truly be human

Only when professions are no longer viewed through a filter can people simply be themselves

We’re all just living in vain, and life is always empty

What makes a profession is simply sticking at it

So-called great ideals are nothing more than class rigidity and self-deception

Refrain from considering matters beyond the next two hours

Even a 60-year-old hobo can become a developer

As long as she has the determination to persist

If only there’s a chance

People are all essentially the same, without any real differences

Experience and education serve only to create differences in people’s modes of thought

What people call “being different” is simply making different choices

Never restrict yourself

You have the power to become the person you dream yourself to be

Reality only serves to strip away the perfection we imagined
—For all beginners

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We always think that simple is not as good as difficult, and only when doing difficult things do we feel we have worked hard.

carrey cullen — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 07:09:25 +0000

But is the fact really so?

When I first started coding, I imagined it to be very difficult. I thought all systems would require thousands or tens of thousands of lines of code, and I imagined these codes to be very, very hard. So, when I saw that a feature only required one function, I would tell myself, "The resource you found is wrong; this isn't the correct code." This sounds very laughable, but this is what I have always thought.

People are always like this, believing that only complex and difficult things can reflect a person's effort, while simple things make people feel they are lazy. Of course, I cannot know what others think, but that is exactly what my thoughts were.

So what changed my mind? Can I say that nothing has changed? Now, two thoughts often fight in my head; one says, "Yes, it’s just that simple," and the other says, "No, it should be a bit more complex."

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AI coding is just another form of emerging debt.

carrey cullen — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 07:50:42 +0000

I actually have a deep passion for cybersecurity; in fact, it is my primary motivation for doing backend development. When we discuss authentication and refresh logic, I automatically think about attack prevention—it’s my professional instinct. That’s why I feel happy when I hear claims that AI will replace developers. Although I know that’s impossible, if we were to assume it happened, it would be a massive opportunity for me and the entire cybersecurity industry.

As is common knowledge, cybersecurity consists of Black Box and White Box testing, and my main focus is Black Box. If a website’s source code is generated by AI, it becomes much easier to guess the logic behind it through Black Box methods. AI-generated code has a specific characteristic: it’s formulaic and highly repetitive. What it generates for you, it will also generate for me. Moreover, it’s well known that the similarity rate of AI responses is as high as 99%.

AI is certainly a great assistant, but first and foremost, you must be the one in control, rather than being led by the nose by AI and using code that you don’t even understand yourself.

I’m saying this to myself because that’s exactly who I was. This behavior reached a peak last year; I began to rely excessively on AI, stopped thinking, and started piecing programs together using code I didn't comprehend. The consequence was that I began to lose myself and started forgetting things I had already mastered. I didn't even know how to fix bugs because I had no idea why the code was written that way in the first place.

Now, I have a visceral, almost physical repulsion toward AI. I fell into so many traps last year that I had countless mental breakdowns. Yet, here I am, still using ChatGPT. Yes, I never learn.

“This reminds me of my favorite poem, ‘Seven Times I Have Despised My Soul,’ in which there is a line: the third time was when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.”

This sentence is so fitting; it perfectly captures the mindset of developers using AI:

"What used to take a week to complete now only takes a day with AI; what used to take a whole day now only takes an hour."

Such a massive temptation—anybody would give in, wouldn’t they?

"This reminds me of my favorite saying: 'Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.'"

"A new form of Technical Debt has emerged."

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I became completely obsessed with coding when I was fifteen.

carrey cullen — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 07:59:42 +0000

When I was 15, I was completely obsessed with coding, and back then I thought an authentication system required a thousand lines of code.

I don’t know if everyone is like this, but I tend to imagine anything that seems mysterious as extremely complex and difficult, pushing myself back before I even start.

But after three years in backend development and a year in cybersecurity, I realized—why was it actually so simple?

This is a sample code for authentication using FastAPI.

from fastapi import FastAPI
import bcrypt

app=FastAPI()
#Call the known database user_info_user_data to retrieve the user hash
@app.get("/data/{data_user}")
def user_data(data_user:str):
    #Assume the database function is user_info_user_data
    user_info=user_info_user_data(data_user)
    return {"user_info":user_info}
#→ Verify the password hash
#Assume the user input function is user_input_
def hash_(user_input,user_data):
    user_input=user_input
    user_data=user_data()
    return bcrypt.checkpw(user_input.encode('utf-8'), user_data)

It’s obvious that I cut corners in this sample code.

You can tell my personality from this: I’m extremely prone to procrastination and really like to avoid things.

The truth is, this blog post should have been published three days ago, but I only finished writing and posting it today.

Ok, enough chatter—let’s return to the core of our blog post: authentication.