Your Name Goes on What the Machine Wrote

The model wrote the function.

But your name
is on the commit.

Remember that
before you paste.

The machine feels no shame
when the code is wrong.

It will not be paged at 3 a.m.
It will not explain the outage
to the people who trusted it.

You will.

So the work is not done
when the answer arrives.

The work is done
when you can stand behind it
as if you had written
every line yourself,

because in the way
that matters,
you did.

The machine is a fast intern
with a confident voice
and no stake in the outcome.

Use it that way.

Let it draft.
Let it suggest.
Let it try the boring version
so you can judge it.

But do not let it
sign your name.

Read what it wrote
the way you would read
a stranger's pull request

that you are about to
merge into production
with your reputation attached.

Because you are.

The temptation
is to trust it more
the busier you get,

to skim, to nod,
to ship the plausible thing
because reading it slowly
feels like the slow lane.

That is exactly
where the quiet bugs
walk in
wearing your badge.

Ownership does not transfer
to the tool.

It never has.

A pen has never once
been blamed
for a bad sentence.

So take the speed,
gladly,

but keep the judgment,
keep the reading,
keep the moment
where you say

yes,
this is right,
and I know why.

The machine gives you
a faster first draft.

It cannot give you
the one thing
that made you worth trusting:

the willingness
to be wrong
in public,
and to answer for it.

That part is still yours.

Keep it.

– Serguey Asael Shinder