Any software developer worth their salt can tell AI is just an excited pair programmer.
In the early stages of ChatGPT, everybody was luring me into using the chatbot to help me as a software developer. Everything I heard about it was "heaven-like". When I started using it, I did feel its versatility for developers; even went the extra mile and purchased the premium version. Everybody who was or knew a software developer told stories about how powerful the bot was when it had access to the internet. After less than a week of using the paid version, I failed to see big differences between the paid and non-paid answers.
I then tried out GitHub's Copilot. I found this tool extremely powerful for developers. Not because of the solutions it provided, but because I didn't need to go back to the browser to copy and then paste them in my editor. However, I started to feel an uneasy loss of control over my thinking. It wasn't me programming anymore. I was just trying out snippets until the program worked. Eventually, I configured Copilot to be toggled and disabled by default. I only use it when I don't want to rewrite something or when I'm writing unit tests.
This post is more of a venting outlet for me. I was laid off last year and with all the talks of AI taking over tech jobs and nobody batting an eye at Sam Altman being all excited about it, I think people hyping AI need a reality check. It's a tool, a new software tool, 1s and 0s, and tools are made for us to "amplify the inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes" - Steve Jobs
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