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0 pointsbitwize4mo ago0 comments

For general software engineering, the accepted thought is you're not really an engineer without the use of AI. Because engineering consists of using the right tool for the job, applying best practice, making tradeoffs, and justifying every decision from a technical standpoint. And it's anti-engineering to write the code yourself rather than putting your ego aside and taking advantage of AI's huge productivity gains.

Game dev is... different. Game devs fancy themselves more as artists, and using generative AI is an affront to those sensibilities.

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automatic61314mo ago

>And it's anti-engineering to write the code yourself rather than putting your ego aside and taking advantage of AI's huge productivity gains.

Are these huge productivity gains in the room with us now?

LLM-assisted coding makes the easy stuff quick and the hard stuff impossible. But I was spending 80% of my mental energy on the hard stuff anyway, and the easy stuff was down time that's closer to rest than it is to work.

bigstrat20034mo ago

> For general software engineering, the accepted thought is you're not really an engineer without the use of AI.

That is not remotely true. It's not clear to me that there is a consensus, but if anything people are more skeptical than favorable of AI in my experience. And even those who favor AI don't make stark declarations such as "you're not really an engineer if you don't use it", instead accepting that their colleagues have a difference of opinion.

bitwizeOP4mo ago

> And even those who favor AI don't make stark declarations such as "you're not really an engineer if you don't use it", instead accepting that their colleagues have a difference of opinion.

I have heard this exact statement with this exact phrasing from working engineers. When it comes to CEOs and the like, making public pronouncements alongside yes-you-will-be-graded-on-this AI mandates, it's couched in softer terms, like "as a technical company we must use these advanced technologies to maximize productivity and increase our market advantage", but the subtext is still clear: AI refuseniks are not doing their work properly and are irresponsible on the job.

Among the investor set there is a much clearer consensus: if the organization does not use AI they are not maximizing ROI and are being fiscally irresponsible.

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