When scrolling through the internet it seems like everyone is using AI coding assistants (“agents”) AND is loving it. I still don’t get it.

I try not to use AI for coding. It’s getting harder every day because people believe that they can save truck loads of money when everyone is reading code instead of writing code.

For me there are several reasons to avoid this new kind of software development. Some very important, some less so. Here are the most important reasons for me sorted by importance.

1. I love coding

I’m one of the few people who loves coding. Even writing the 100th implementation of a table view or setting up a views layout in code gives me joy. My brain rewards me with dopamine when I write boilerplate code.

I guess the reason for this is that occasionally while typing a boring implementation of a boring table view again I have an idea what could be improved. This is rare but when it happens I’m exited for days. Situations like this feel awesome. If this ever happened to you, I guess you know what I mean.

All this joy evaporates when an agent suggests code. I have less good ideas when reading the code of others. Sometimes I learn something but it’s more like learning in school or university. It’s nice but it fails to even remotely compare to the feeling of creating something elegant by myself.

I get (even more) grumpy if I don’t write code regularly. Then my wife asks me to write some code to brighten my mood. I’m not making this up!

“Grumpy. Angry. Stupid. How long since last sleep code, question?”

2. Environmental impact

Coding agents need lots of energy and water. This energy and water consumption has a huge negative impact on the environment. What use has a boring and bad application or service on a planet where nothing grows anymore? We have to solve very demanding and complex problems before we can use AI for coding.

I have two children and even before everyone stopped caring about the environment because they are to lazy to write code themselves, I has afraid of their future.

3. Modern colonialism

All current models have been trained with stolen data and labor. All profits flow to the rich and wealthy. People have been and are right now exploited by AI companies to make the wealthy richer.

This is wrong and by using these agents trained with stolen data and labor I am wrong as well.

4. The end of learning

I learn by doing. When I stop coding, I stop learning about code. Learning is slow. It took me years to become an acceptable coder. And I need constant practice to keep my skills.

A few years ago I realized that creating table view using diffable data sources was hard. I had to look up the same thing each and every time. So I forced myself to do lots and lots of table views with diffable data sources. After a while I got it. I was able to use this API without opening the documentation. And this was the moment when I developed my own ideas how to improve the API for diffable data sources. I was able to create helper extensions to make the usage easier. Without doing the hard work I would never achieved this understanding.

5. Bad results

Over the last few weeks I used coding agents. Results are underwhelming. Sometimes the agents tells me that I could improve my code. Sometimes the results are trash. At best the result is what I would have written but without the joy.

As always with conmen if you experience problems like this it’s either your fault or the next snake oil (model) will fix all your problems. Just keep using it.

6. Good ideas aren’t quick

Our brains need time to come up with good solutions. And often we need to make mistakes and figure out the problems ourselves to come up with even better solutions. Without this slow process the solutions can’t be good.

7. (Future) costs

At the moment all AI usage is heavily subsidised. Anthropic, GitHub and OpenAI are gambling, that we are soon not able or willing anymore to write code ourselves. They will have to charge 10x or even 20x when the VC money runs out. OpenAI already started and failed to add ads into ChatGPT.

Why should I buy myself into addiction?

8. Last but not least: It’s against the natural order of things.

I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

  1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
  2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
  3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

– Douglas Adams