If you’ve been on the internet for more than 5 minutes lately, someone has told you:
“Bro, AI can write your entire backend now.”
So obviously, I believed them.
I decided to run a small experiment:
Could I replace most of my side project backend logic with AI-generated code and prompts?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: oh no.
Let’s talk about what broke first.
🧪 The Setup
Side project:
- Simple backend (CRUD + auth + notifications)
- Nothing fancy, just something that worked
- Stack: REST APIs, database, some business rules that were… let’s say “grown organically”
The plan:
- Use AI to generate controllers, services, and even some validation logic
- “Clean it up later” (famous last words)
- Move fast, break things — preferably not production
🚨 Thing #1 That Broke: Assumptions
AI is amazing at writing code.
AI is terrible at understanding your assumptions.
Example:
- I said: “Generate an endpoint to send notifications.”
- AI said: “Sure, I’ll retry failed notifications infinitely.”
Infinitely.
No backoff. No limits. No circuit breaker.
Just pure optimism.
Turns out AI assumes:
- Network calls always recover
- External systems are friendly
- Rate limits are a suggestion
Reality disagrees.
🔐 Thing #2 That Broke: Security (Quietly)
Nothing crashed.
No errors.
No alarms.
Which is exactly why this was scary.
AI happily:
- Exposed internal IDs
- Logged sensitive payloads
- Skipped edge-case auth checks because “it looked redundant”
The code was clean.
The vulnerability was invisible.
Lesson learned:
If you don’t explicitly say “this is security-sensitive”, AI assumes it’s a tutorial.
🧩 Thing #3 That Broke: Business Logic Nuance
This one hurt emotionally.
I asked AI to:
“Validate whether a user is eligible for an action.”
AI:
- Checked basic conditions
- Missed why those conditions existed in the first place
Humans encode intent in ugly if-statements.
AI encodes patterns.
That difference matters more than I expected.
🧠 The Surprising Win
Here’s the twist.
AI was incredible at:
- Boilerplate
- DTOs
- Mappers
- Test case scaffolding
- Explaining my own code back to me
It didn’t replace me.
It removed the parts of the job I secretly hated.
🧠 What I’d Do Differently Next Time
If you’re tempted to do this (and you should try it once):
✅ Use AI for:
- Skeletons
- Repetitive logic
- Tests
- Documentation
🚫 Don’t blindly trust it for:
- Auth
- Retries
- Money
- “This edge case only exists because of a 2021 incident”
Basically:
AI is a brilliant intern. Not your tech lead.
🎯 Final Take
AI didn’t break my backend.
My overconfidence did.
But honestly?
I’ll still use it again tomorrow.
Just with better prompts… and more tests.
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