Ask HN: Is there a term for feeling sad about forced AI adoption?

Personally I'm a bit of an AI Gloomer because I do think it's effectively inevitable, and putting people out of work is not a good thing. People out of work eventually tend to do desperate things. Not a doomer because I don't think it's going to literally end the world.

Anyway, I'm a hobby coder and, unlike you, I've really enjoyed AI-assisted development. I was never a strong developer, so coding always took me a long time, and my interest in projects faded quickly that forced me to relearn them from scratch after long breaks. With AI, I can actually finish projects, and my code quality has improved. GPT is a better developer than I am. Example: the first time I had it analyze a personal project, it found over 50 vulnerabilities.

I enjoy learning and understanding how code works, but since AI has largely automated typing code I've since then shifted my focus to higher level topics like software architecture and systems engineering. I am reading the book "designing data intensive applications" right now.

We're being devalued. Our engineering judgment is being devalued. We're being driven toward a cliff by those who know less than we do but think they know more.

If I had to give it a name, I might say: marginalized.

I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet. I want to see what things look like on the other side of the crash, when people get more realistic about using the things as tools instead of replacements, and get more realistic about their limitations. I’ve seen articles where a reporter with no stated experience created a dashboard for a few different things. While she admitted she wanted to throw her laptop in the ocean, she seemed to gloss over much of the hardship and didn’t mention how long it took to get something working. She also didn’t post a link, so there was no way to gauge how functional it was, beyond a couple screenshots.

My suspicion is that once the hype wears off, maybe anyone can code, but most people won’t want to. Then we’ll have the question of how professional developers best work. WYSIWYG web page editors used to be all the rage… anyone can make a website… but look at what we have now, professional are back to code and people not looking to write code are using very structured web-based platforms.

I’m with you on saving up money to get out, even if it’s just as an insurance policy. That said, I don’t think the collapse of the profession is inevitable just yet.

The app doesn't do this... (AI makes changes) Run again

It's good for POCs in unknown tech territory

I just don't feel good about it

It is funny when you run out of tokens

Times change. You’re just sad the times changed for you in a way you didn’t like.

So use it. I've been programming for 45 years, and I've found it to be a really useful tool.

I'm still writing code, still doing all the fun stuff, but I'm moving along MUCH faster than before. Mostly because when I get stuck I ask the AI questions. About the code, about the API I'm talking to and so on. In the past I remember spending days finding really obscure bugs, or reading soooo much material to try and figure out that "in this case call A before B, but in that case call A before C.".

To me, it's made programming (the creative) part more fun, while removing the unfun stuff (like bug fixing.)

I'm using "chat" more than agents though - The AI doesn't edit my code directly.

My company doesn't really care how we use it, just as long as we use it to make ourselves faster. "Ignoring" it out of some nostalgia for the past is not helpful from an employer perspective.

I certainly don't miss the pre-internet days (when you sought out programming books, and coded with a reference manual in one hand) or the even the google days where trying to do the right search lead you to some answer you could kinda interpret.

It's not about hating the AI. It's about pushing back against our value being stripped away. Never thought We'd actually relate to the industrial workers this way.

I feel that now ha, I was so against it... now I've tasted it, had it reverse engineer a bluetooth stack... I see the power. I still don't like how I didn't really do anything other than drive it... but yeah. I need to stay in the job for the high pay but still feel the same about loss of joy.

What is driving you to feel this adoption pressure? Is it the actual results other people on your team are producing or just the discussion/hype?

AI can produce garbage, it can produce excellent results. As long as you know what you are doing, and provide perfect specification, it can come with results, that you alone can't think of, or they can take a lot of time for 'manual' research and implementation. Some people still find issues, and don't trust, but the topic is big here: what's the model, how good is the specification, what's the used process/workflow, what are the agents, what's the technical background of the person leading the agents. Not that easy to say: AI does not work, why people want to use it after all, when it produces garbage

Life changes, customer demand it. We have no choice, and we need to adapt. Of course, there will be places that code will still be written manually. Banking, military, and other highly confidential areas have no other way to do it.

How did people feel in the beginning of the industry revolution? Have they felt the same way back then ?