Is AI Really Going to Replace Devs? My Recent Exp. Says Otherwise 👀🤖

Swayum Hastwala — Thu, 21 May 2026 06:03:31 +0000

Every few days, we see another discussion about AI replacing developers.

And honestly, after experimenting deeply with AI coding tools recently, I still don’t think developers are becoming irrelevant anytime soon.

Yes, AI is absolutely changing the game- Code generation is getting insanely fast ⚡, Boilerplate is becoming automated, Junior-level repetitive tasks are slowly getting replaced.

But at the same time, AI is creating a completely new skill domain:
debugging, reasoning, architecture thinking, and understanding systems deeply. 🧠

I realized this while experimenting with Google Antigravity today. I tried using its latest version to build an OpenCV-based project inspired by skribbl.io — essentially a multiplayer gesture-controlled drawing experience powered by computer vision.

And to be fair, the results were genuinely impressive. The UI structure, project flow, and a large portion of the logic were generated surprisingly well. You can clearly see how much engineering effort has gone into these systems.

But here’s the interesting part, even though the AI generated most of the structure, I still spent a huge amount of time:

Debugging issues 🛠️
Fixing gesture inconsistencies
Testing real-world interactions
Understanding why certain CV predictions were failing

And that’s where I think the real developer value still exists. Computer Vision, especially, exposed a major limitation in current AI coding systems 👁️‍🗨️

Generating code is one thing but understanding real-world spatial behavior, noisy camera input, gesture accuracy, latency handling, and contextual interactions is a completely different challenge.

The generated logic looked correct on paper — but practical implementation still required human intuition and experimentation.

That’s why I don’t think AI is “replacing” developers. I think it’s changing what being a developer actually means.

The developers who survive won’t just be people who can write syntax from memory. They’ll be the ones who can:

Think critically
Debug efficiently
Understand systems deeply
Experiment rapidly

Personally, I’m excited about that future 🚀✨

For now, I’ll keep experimenting with new AI tools, testing crazy ideas, learning emerging technologies, and slowly building toward my long-term goal: creating AI products that people can genuinely use in real life.

Would love to hear what others think:
Have AI tools improved your workflow — or just changed the type of work you do?

DEV Community: Swayum Hastwala

Is AI Really Going to Replace Devs? My Recent Exp. Says Otherwise 👀🤖