what i actually think about using ai to build things

ai · Nov 16, 2025 · 1 min read

i use ai tools. i have opinions about that. here they are, without the part where i pretend to be balanced.

where it is genuinely good

• getting from "i do not know how to express this" to a first draft that runs
• reading codebases that are not mine
• the boring translation between two things that should be the same
• as a rubber duck that answers back

where it is genuinely bad

• it removes the part where you struggle, and the struggle is where the understanding comes from
• it produces confident wrong answers with the exact shape of right ones
• it launders other people's code through a model that will not tell you whose
• the output has no memory of your constraints. you have to re-explain every time

my actual rule

i use it the way i use a reference implementation: to get unstuck and to be corrected. anything i ship, i could explain line by line, or it does not ship.

the tell for me is when i cannot explain why the code works. at that point i did not write anything, and i should not be putting my name on it.