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Discussion on: Testing Illusions – AI‑Generated Tests That Lie

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Alexandru A

The prompt quality pattern you're describing in Mistake 1 and 2 holds exactly the same way when using AI for QA test cases rather than unit tests. Vague input produces confident but wrong output - and the dangerous part is it looks complete.

The angle I'd add: with unit tests you can verify correctness programmatically - the test either passes or fails. With acceptance-criteria-based test cases, the validation is human - which means AI-generated gaps in coverage are much harder to catch. A missing negative scenario in a manual test case just never gets tested.

That asymmetry is what makes prompt engineering even more critical on the QA side. You can't rely on a failing test to tell you the AI missed something.