Like, every AI generated thing I’ve seen, when viewed from the eyes of someone who actually knows what they’re doing, is at best below average. Maybe some things aren’t quite as bad as the general “AI slop”, but of the things I’m actually experienced in (code and art), I just see so many amateur mistakes in everything AI.
Regarding art, AI can make really visually appealing things, but it gets the details wrong. That’s something that a below average artist does. And regarding code, it’s the same thing. Overall, it has the appearance of decent code, but it gets the details wrong, just like a below average dev. (Probably about the level of a high school senior or college freshman.)
I’m not super experienced at writing, but I can also tell that it’s not very good at that. The stories it writes just aren’t compelling, but I’m not experienced enough to tell you why. And the same with music. It’s just below average, but I couldn’t tell you why.
I’m not trying to sound elitist by saying this, but I’ve noticed people who aren’t very good at these things tend to praise how good the AI is.
So, is it just me, or are the big fans of AI just below average at whatever the AI is doing?
The thing that no one every talks about in the software industry is how the majority of software developers are just barely good enough to get by.
I spent 10 years consulting and there are entire companies out there where nobody even knows what high quality code looks like.
LLMs are trained on all this so they produce at the same level. For most developers they don’t know the difference between good code and code that works (but is low quality).
In a world where no one cares about the code, and only cares that the product works (badly), LLMs are perfect.
I write code that no one is going to look at, ever (yet it goes in production).
Oh, I can recognize good code from code that works… I’m just not skilled enough to produce the former. (Does that put me ahead of most people by default?)
To me, one of the best ways to close that gap is the book The Pragmatic Programmer. Its old and if you ask me its still as valuable as ever. It’s not about any particular language. It’s about how to write high quality code in any language.
Hey, thanks. I wrote that response to be jokey, and I didn’t expect an actual, useful reply in return. I will check that out, thank you.