#coding assistants

[jamesmitchia]

AI vs Junior Devs: Threat or Tool?

Let’s be real—AI coding assistants are getting really good. Tools like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and CodeWhisperer can now generate snippets, complete functions, and even help debug code in seconds. It’s no wonder there’s a growing concern (especially among junior developers) about whether these tools are taking over their roles.

But here’s the thing: while AI is evolving fast, the narrative that it's replacing junior devs is oversimplified—and a little unfair.

AI coding assistants are just that—assistants. They’re not logging into Jira, joining stand-ups, understanding project context, or making product decisions. They lack the creative problem-solving, empathy, and real-world decision-making that human developers bring to the table.

That said, the junior dev role is changing. So let’s unpack that.

So, what's really happening?

Automation of Repetitive Tasks: AI is great at handling boilerplate code, basic algorithms, and syntax fixes—things junior devs used to cut their teeth on.

Faster Onboarding: New devs can now use AI to learn and produce faster, but they still need mentorship to grow.

Higher Expectations: Companies might expect junior devs to understand how to use AI as part of their workflow.

Shift in Learning Curve: Instead of memorizing syntax, new devs are focusing more on architecture, logic, and communication.

Human Skills Still Matter: Teamwork, curiosity, problem-solving, and the ability to ask good questions are irreplaceable.

In short, AI coding assistants are reshaping how junior devs work—not replacing them. Think of it as Iron Man's suit: it amplifies your abilities, but you still have to know how to fly.

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[tangramkey]

i love my Basketbot Portal AU

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Humans are not perfectly vigilant

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE (Apr 12), and beyond!

Here's a fun AI story: a security researcher noticed that large companies' AI-authored source-code repeatedly referenced a nonexistent library (an AI "hallucination"), so he created a (defanged) malicious library with that name and uploaded it, and thousands of developers automatically downloaded and incorporated it as they compiled the code:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

These "hallucinations" are a stubbornly persistent feature of large language models, because these models only give the illusion of understanding; in reality, they are just sophisticated forms of autocomplete, drawing on huge databases to make shrewd (but reliably fallible) guesses about which word comes next:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Guessing the next word without understanding the meaning of the resulting sentence makes unsupervised LLMs unsuitable for high-stakes tasks. The whole AI bubble is based on convincing investors that one or more of the following is true:

There are low-stakes, high-value tasks that will recoup the massive costs of AI training and operation;

There are high-stakes, high-value tasks that can be made cheaper by adding an AI to a human operator;

Adding more training data to an AI will make it stop hallucinating, so that it can take over high-stakes, high-value tasks without a "human in the loop."

These are dubious propositions. There's a universe of low-stakes, low-value tasks – political disinformation, spam, fraud, academic cheating, nonconsensual porn, dialog for video-game NPCs – but none of them seem likely to generate enough revenue for AI companies to justify the billions spent on models, nor the trillions in valuation attributed to AI companies:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

The proposition that increasing training data will decrease hallucinations is hotly contested among AI practitioners. I confess that I don't know enough about AI to evaluate opposing sides' claims, but even if you stipulate that adding lots of human-generated training data will make the software a better guesser, there's a serious problem. All those low-value, low-stakes applications are flooding the internet with botshit. After all, the one thing AI is unarguably very good at is producing bullshit at scale. As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/inhuman-centipede/#enshittibottification

This means that adding another order of magnitude more training data to AI won't just add massive computational expense – the data will be many orders of magnitude more expensive to acquire, even without factoring in the additional liability arising from new legal theories about scraping:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

That leaves us with "humans in the loop" – the idea that an AI's business model is selling software to businesses that will pair it with human operators who will closely scrutinize the code's guesses. There's a version of this that sounds plausible – the one in which the human operator is in charge, and the AI acts as an eternally vigilant "sanity check" on the human's activities.

For example, my car has a system that notices when I activate my blinker while there's another car in my blind-spot. I'm pretty consistent about checking my blind spot, but I'm also a fallible human and there've been a couple times where the alert saved me from making a potentially dangerous maneuver. As disciplined as I am, I'm also sometimes forgetful about turning off lights, or waking up in time for work, or remembering someone's phone number (or birthday). I like having an automated system that does the robotically perfect trick of never forgetting something important.

There's a name for this in automation circles: a "centaur." I'm the human head, and I've fused with a powerful robot body that supports me, doing things that humans are innately bad at.

That's the good kind of automation, and we all benefit from it. But it only takes a small twist to turn this good automation into a nightmare. I'm speaking here of the reverse-centaur: automation in which the computer is in charge, bossing a human around so it can get its job done. Think of Amazon warehouse workers, who wear haptic bracelets and are continuously observed by AI cameras as autonomous shelves shuttle in front of them and demand that they pick and pack items at a pace that destroys their bodies and drives them mad:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

Automation centaurs are great: they relieve humans of drudgework and let them focus on the creative and satisfying parts of their jobs. That's how AI-assisted coding is pitched: rather than looking up tricky syntax and other tedious programming tasks, an AI "co-pilot" is billed as freeing up its human "pilot" to focus on the creative puzzle-solving that makes coding so satisfying.

But an hallucinating AI is a terrible co-pilot. It's just good enough to get the job done much of the time, but it also sneakily inserts booby-traps that are statistically guaranteed to look as plausible as the good code (that's what a next-word-guessing program does: guesses the statistically most likely word).

This turns AI-"assisted" coders into reverse centaurs. The AI can churn out code at superhuman speed, and you, the human in the loop, must maintain perfect vigilance and attention as you review that code, spotting the cleverly disguised hooks for malicious code that the AI can't be prevented from inserting into its code. As "Lena" writes, "code review [is] difficult relative to writing new code":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773779967521780169

Why is that? "Passively reading someone else's code just doesn't engage my brain in the same way. It's harder to do properly":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773780355708764665

There's a name for this phenomenon: "automation blindness." Humans are just not equipped for eternal vigilance. We get good at spotting patterns that occur frequently – so good that we miss the anomalies. That's why TSA agents are so good at spotting harmless shampoo bottles on X-rays, even as they miss nearly every gun and bomb that a red team smuggles through their checkpoints:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

"Lena"'s thread points out that this is as true for AI-assisted driving as it is for AI-assisted coding: "self-driving cars replace the experience of driving with the experience of being a driving instructor":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773841546753831283

In other words, they turn you into a reverse-centaur. Whereas my blind-spot double-checking robot allows me to make maneuvers at human speed and points out the things I've missed, a "supervised" self-driving car makes maneuvers at a computer's frantic pace, and demands that its human supervisor tirelessly and perfectly assesses each of those maneuvers. No wonder Cruise's murderous "self-driving" taxis replaced each low-waged driver with 1.5 high-waged technical robot supervisors:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

AI radiology programs are said to be able to spot cancerous masses that human radiologists miss. A centaur-based AI-assisted radiology program would keep the same number of radiologists in the field, but they would get less done: every time they assessed an X-ray, the AI would give them a second opinion. If the human and the AI disagreed, the human would go back and re-assess the X-ray. We'd get better radiology, at a higher price (the price of the AI software, plus the additional hours the radiologist would work).

But back to making the AI bubble pay off: for AI to pay off, the human in the loop has to reduce the costs of the business buying an AI. No one who invests in an AI company believes that their returns will come from business customers to agree to increase their costs. The AI can't do your job, but the AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI anyway – that pitch is the most successful form of AI disinformation in the world.

An AI that "hallucinates" bad advice to fliers can't replace human customer service reps, but airlines are firing reps and replacing them with chatbots:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know

An AI that "hallucinates" bad legal advice to New Yorkers can't replace city services, but Mayor Adams still tells New Yorkers to get their legal advice from his chatbots:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/03/nycs-government-chatbot-is-lying-about-city-laws-and-regulations/

The only reason bosses want to buy robots is to fire humans and lower their costs. That's why "AI art" is such a pisser. There are plenty of harmless ways to automate art production with software – everything from a "healing brush" in Photoshop to deepfake tools that let a video-editor alter the eye-lines of all the extras in a scene to shift the focus. A graphic novelist who models a room in The Sims and then moves the camera around to get traceable geometry for different angles is a centaur – they are genuinely offloading some finicky drudgework onto a robot that is perfectly attentive and vigilant.

But the pitch from "AI art" companies is "fire your graphic artists and replace them with botshit." They're pitching a world where the robots get to do all the creative stuff (badly) and humans have to work at robotic pace, with robotic vigilance, in order to catch the mistakes that the robots make at superhuman speed.

Reverse centaurism is brutal. That's not news: Charlie Chaplin documented the problems of reverse centaurs nearly 100 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film)

As ever, the problem with a gadget isn't what it does: it's who it does it for and who it does it to. There are plenty of benefits from being a centaur – lots of ways that automation can help workers. But the only path to AI profitability lies in reverse centaurs, automation that turns the human in the loop into the crumple-zone for a robot:

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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Jorge Royan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Munich_-_Two_boys_playing_in_a_park_-_7328.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

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CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[viktorarcanedeservesbetter]

Imagine being Singed though, knowing Viktor? All you wanna do if find a cure for death (lmao right) and bring your daughter back to life, then one day this little boat enters the cave you keep your mutant salamander in, and a little boy with a cane finds it, offers to help because its dying and you’re like hell yeah an apprentice I’m good with kids.

Then this kid doesn’t get that the salamander ain’t a pet, it’s drugs/tester for drugs, and leaves angrily (bro thought you were chill) and you never see him again though you do hear things about him being a co-creator of literal magic technology and you’re probably like damn that’s cool.

Then about twenty years after you first met he comes back to your lab, looking sick af (literally) and is like I totally get why you were torturing that pink lizard, do you have a solution that will keep me from dying? And you’re like yep sure do, he’s some modified heroin-crack I made from the lizard for you, people are gonna hate you though. And he only is like “Jayce will understand” and you’re like fuck he’s repressed and gay, whatever

Then a few months (idk) later you find out he survived an explosion, got fused with the thing you wanted to see (👀) now the leader of a cult, has a hivemind, can heal people and see memories and thoughts, and he’s trying to reverse the process on your wolfman, once again forgets the lesson you tried teaching him (bro, the mutation must survive!) even though you just showed him that very private memory of your dead daughter. And refuses the wolfman blood.

So you’re like, fuck it, stops the process anyways on the wolfman, his ex boyfriend shoots him in the chest, he cocoons himself in a weird sphere, his boyfriend rejects him again, then he’s like fine whatever use the blood. Then he ascends to godhood, you use leftover parts to bring your daughter back to life, and later find out that while in the hivemind his on-again off-again boyfriend told him they were soulmates, and they blipped out of existence.

It’s like what if the kid you babysat one time came back when they were an adult with like, ten college degrees and a co-ceo of apple, bought your own brand of weed, and then half a year later became Jesus.

[chaoticneutralgood2627]

Completely off topic from politics, can anyone help me find a book title?

I grew up in the 2000's, it was in my local library. Was like a spy, codes-and-cyphers book adjacent thing. Big book, size of a child's torso (maybe around 12-14 inches? Child me wasn't good at sizing, so I'm very much guessing). Had a red decoder thingy on the front cover that you could remove and use in the book. There was an Egypt one similar.

[oneaichat]

How Authors Can Use AI to Improve Their Writing Style

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the way authors approach writing, offering tools to refine style, enhance creativity, and boost productivity. By leveraging AI writing assistant authors can improve their craft in various ways.

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AI can assist in brainstorming and overcoming writer’s block. Platforms like OneAIChat, ChatGPT and Sudowrite provide writing prompts, generate story ideas, and even suggest plot twists. These AI systems analyze existing content and propose creative directions, helping authors develop compelling narratives.

3. Improving Readability and Engagement

AI-driven readability analyzers assess sentence complexity and suggest simpler alternatives. Hemingway Editor, for example, highlights lengthy or passive sentences, making writing more engaging and accessible. This ensures clarity and impact, especially for broader audiences.

4. Personalizing Writing Style

AI-powered tools can analyze an author's writing patterns and provide personalized feedback. They help maintain a consistent voice, ensuring that the writer’s unique style remains intact while refining structure and coherence.

5. Research and Fact-Checking

AI-powered search engines and summarization tools help authors verify facts, gather relevant data, and condense complex information quickly. This is particularly useful for non-fiction writers and journalists who require accuracy and efficiency.

Conclusion

By integrating AI into their writing process, authors can enhance their style, improve efficiency, and foster creativity. While AI should not replace human intuition, it serves as a valuable assistant, enabling writers to produce polished and impactful content effortlessly.

[daryfromthefuture]

HAPPY BTTF DAY ⚡🎉

excuse the potato quality, the og image turned out to be way too big and i had to compress lmao-

super happy to be part of this beautiful fandom, i love all of you so much <33

[trashrattt]

Welcome to the internet

[namaeekaki]

✨️🌈MISS GOLDEN WEEK BIRTHDAAY! 🎨🖌️

Buggy can handle a bit more of debt. It's for a good cause. the happiness of his daughter art assistant

[damianwaynerocks]

damian wayne canonically reads naruto now. do we think he is an obito defender or an anti.

[meaningofaeons]

thinking about vidyadhara!reader x jing yuan ...

we learned in the recent quests that vidyadhara can indeed become mara struck under the right circumstances, but they're capable of molting and turning into someone entirely new, thus freed from the mara that once struck them ... but of course, along with the molting process comes the loss of memory.

so imagine a reader who was once great friends with jing yuan. the two grew up together practically, working in the cloud knights together, doing everything together. jing yuan, despite his newfound duties as a cloud knight, finds himself falling in love with you.

then, amidst one of the abundance wars, you are stricken with mara. he watches you go insane, just before you disappear. and then, somehow, you are gone from his life forever.

for years, he wonders if you perished on that battlefield shortly before he was dragged away from you. he wonders if you suffered. surely, with the insanity of the mara wreaking havoc on your mind, you had. but at least he can be confident that you would not have had to live through that for long... that's what he tells himself so he can sleep at night.

it takes the general so, so long to let go of what happened. centuries pass, and he's still not confident he can completely dash the thought of you from his mind when he sees a new stall open with a snack he thinks you'd like, or when he sees the tailor shops put out a new line of clothes in your favorite hue.

and then, one day, he sees a familiar face among the crowds.

jing yuan is so quick to rush to your side, trying frantically to catch his breath, to ensure that what he sees before his own eyes is you, not some vision made up by his mind, not a sign that he's succumbing to mara himself, but really and truly you.

yet you only give him a nervous half-smile, your form going stiff the second you see him. you bow politely, and ask if there's anything you can do for the general. you ask him if you've met before.

it's you, and yet it's not.

he lets out that small hum of his when he's trying to fight back the pain he feels. he puts on that placating smile of his when he's trying not to let his hurt show. and he shakes his head, though it takes him nearly a minute under your familiar gaze to do it.

"...no. forgive me. I must have mistaken you for an old friend."

it's you, and yet it's not.

and it never will be you again.

[drvct-tape]

I was plagued with a vision. Will do something about it if nobody else does.

[takethispotion]

Disco boiiiiissss!

This was made to become stickers, because i got some sticker paper to test (i slapped the background for fun and experimentation)

The square sketchbook was just perfect for them

I think i could figure out how to sell them if you are interested to get them (and maybe i'll make more of them in the meantime).

I'll update you on that later :>

Bonus first sketch 'cos i think it's nice to see how this came to be :>

[heartofpromethea]

today's offering is more grocery store au for some reason

[dreadfuldevotee]

how is everyone else occupying themselves between seasons. Im developing parasocial relationships with the writing staff

[subsequentibis]

more of my klokateer oc as i have fallen in love with him