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The advent of powerful AI coding tools has quickly made programmers heavily reliant on the tech, with experts warning that they\u2019re slowly but surely losing the ability to write code<\/a> by hand.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a growing existential crisis<\/a> that\u2019s significantly raising the chance of errors or security issues in AI code that hasn\u2019t been properly vetted. Experts are warning of a \u201cclass divide<\/a>\u201d between those, who are over relying on AI tools and more experienced coders, or \u201ccraftsmen,\u201d who are left wading through the former\u2019s group\u2019s output and applying any necessary fixes.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, coders who\u2019ve been instructed to use nothing but AI in a race to the bottom are losing their minds, saying they\u2019re relegated to pushing buttons instead of taking pride in their work and building meaningful products themselves.<\/p>\n As a user who goes by \u201cv0xium\u201d argued on X<\/a>, the situation is getting out of hand. In a post that\u2019s been viewed over seven million times and liked tens of thousands of times, the user warned that \u201cit is over.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe state of engineering right now is horrible,\u201d the user wrote. \u201cIt has been half a month since I started a new role at a big company. Nobody knows anything here.\u201d<\/p>\n The engineer explained that everything at the unnamed company is being made by Anthropic\u2019s coding assistant Claude Code. <\/p>\n And while everybody is \u201cbeing forced to ship as much as they can,\u201d and pushing code isn\u2019t a \u201cbottleneck,\u201d operations are still \u201cslow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are working 12 to 13 hours a day just to press enter,\u201d v0xium wrote. \u201cEveryone, literally everyone, from an L1 to an L7 engineer here is doing the same thing. Talk to Claude.\u201d<\/p>\n That means there\u2019s \u201cno sense of victory\u201d and \u201cnobody is resolving bugs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn reality, nobody is thinking anymore,\u201d the engineer concluded. \u201cEverything is done by LLMs. It is so soul-sucking.\u201d<\/p>\n The concerning tweet thread drew a somber reaction. Even X owner Elon Musk chimed in with a \u201cyikes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are turning an entire generation of technical experts around the world into the equivalent of retirees pushing a button in front of casino slot machines,\u201d podcast host and venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya responded<\/a>. \u201cEssentially the brain rot of doom scrolling social media is coming for your development team\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The comments highlight an alarming fundamental shift, with AI tools effectively stripping engineers of the cognitive tasks they once found fulfilling. That tedium could result in companies pushing uninspired and buggy products.<\/p>\n \u201cThe value of automated software is not making the software faster,\u201d Palihapitiya added. \u201cIt is understanding your intention and making the software BETTER.\u201d<\/p>\n A recently-coined term perfectly describes this behavior: \u201cmeat proxies<\/a>,\u201d or people who regurgitate the output of AI chatbots verbatim without ever critically engaging with it.<\/p>\n \u201cMost software engineers are facing an identity crisis bordering on depression,\u201d VC firm Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das tweeted<\/a> earlier this year. \u201cThe craftsmen are tired. Day after day, their workload grows. Bugs seep into production. No one seems to care. Another round of AI is thrown at it. Their animosity to their colleagues rises.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEventually, they give up,\u201d he added. \u201cThe craft they loved is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n