Technology

The way I look at it is AI is a time saving tool if you know what you’re doing. Otherwise it’s like playing IT Russian roulette. There are many times I could write the code or procedure I need manually but using AI has saved me countless hours. I’m not doing anything mission critical and I know how to read the code/scripts/configs it’s spitting out. I would never in a million years just accept what it spits out as gospel. I basically treat the output like a junior developer created it and I’m doing the code review. I’d also like to add in running all this on local models since I have the hardware to do that. And 95% of it is either for a lab or a proof of concept. I’ve also had it spit something out I didn’t understand and went and looked it up and learned something in the process. That’s always a nice surprise.

But you do bring up a very good point. It is VERY easy to lose control and understanding of what it’s spitting out. And you absolutely need people to understand what the code is doing, regardless of who or what wrote it. I’ve inherited projects when people leave that I have spent days if not months trying to understand.

There are many things I don’t like about AI… at least the kind run in giant data centers using up way too many resources like electricity and water. But under the right circumstances and used correctly, it can be a very powerful and useful tool.