HACKER Q&A
📣 ge96

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


I feel like I don't have a choice to accept it. If I want to keep my job I need to use it. I felt pride in making things with code but now that you can just type in words into a prompt and code comes out, it just feels empty now. There's no joy in writing code anymore doing this.

I know for my personal hobbies I can do that... I need money is the thing, I can't walk away yet but I think I will if this is how every job will be.

I'm not denying its capability it's like today I need to make a bluetooth android app that can do HFP today, NOW. I can't do that with my current knowledge but AI can... and anybody who can type can use it so why am I needed kind of thing.

So yeah right now my plan is to coast using these tools, do the things I enjoy to do then make enough money to get out. I'll write my own code for my own fun.

I've been a developer/writing code since 2013.

I'm not saying I'm against the technology enabling other people to code, I'm saying if I have to use it and I don't have to write code anymore I feel sad about that. No feeling of accomplishment.

The other thing is if you push back on it, you're seen as like a negative person/luddite, just do it everyone else is kind of thing.

  👤 lepuski Accepted Answer ✓
I'll coin a word for it: slopression.

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.

👤 jmaw
The terms are Zoomer, Bloomer, Gloomer or Doomer.

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.

👤 AnimalMuppet
Seems to me the issue isn't so much the "AI adoption", it's the "forced". Forced to use a tool even when you don't think it's the best option, even when you think it's going to produce sub-optimal outcomes.

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.

👤 bigyabai
Ennui