Observation on AI: A growing number of people in software development seem to be on the mental fast track from "human in the loop" to "spec conformance suite in the loop". Take for instance this bit I just stumbled over (never mind the origin, not about fingerpointing):
"(...) That’s certainly understandable, especially if you’re still reading, reviewing, and debugging the code yourself. But if you’ve gone largely hands-free, then what attachment do you really have to the choices you made back when you were typing code line-by-line like an animal?"
While this does not literally endorse taking the human out of the loop, the way it's written ("if you're still reading (...) the code yourself", "typing code line-by-line like an animal") I can't help but wonder if the author of these lines hasn't already internalized the idea that they are done with the "animal era of coding" (to paraphrase the author's interesting choice of word there).
My two cents on this: What you unleash on your own machine is your business and problem. As a software developer you have a responsibility to others though. If you don't understand the difference between unintentionally shipping bad code (mistakes) and deliberately distributing entirely unread code (neglect) you shouldn't work as a developer (or any kind of engineer, for that matter).
@freebliss i'm on that tipping point, but i disagree with the "bad code" premise, my current pondering is on human review really being an effective way to catch issues, especially with the kind of code AI is writing (it looks more than fine, and it's very competent at the micro level, at least with the gidelines and tooling we use), and if there are better ways, more fit to the current situation (fuzzing, property testing, others?) how do we go forward not just reaping short term speed benefits at the expense of safety and correctness, but benefit in these areas as well.
I do believe it's possible, but i want to be cautious and intent about it, and i don't think i'm alone in that.
(comments to the tune of it being impossible and a fools' errand, not to mention a fundamental harm, without serious back up, will be ignored, along with insults)