[slopeloaf]

“Survey evidence reveals that these gains come at a cost, however, as 82% of scientists report reduced satisfaction with their work due to decreased creativity and skill underutilization.”

What an interesting finding and not what I was expecting. Is this an issue with the UX/tooling? Could we alleviate this with an interface that still incorporates the joy of problem solving.

I haven’t seen any research that Copilot and similar tools for programmers have a similar reduction in satisfaction. Likely with how much the tools feel like an extension of traditional auto complete, and you still spend a lot of time “programming”. You haven’t abandoned your core skill.

Related: I often find myself disabling copilot when I have a fun problem I want the satisfaction of solving myself.

[dennisy]

I feel if people are finding programming as creative and interesting with AI as without there is a chance they actually prefer product management?

Half statement, half question… I have personally stopped using AI assistance in programming as I felt it was making my mind lazy, and I stopped learning.

[aerhardt]

The thing I like the most about AI coding is how it lowers the threshold of energy and motivation needed to start a task. Being able to write a detailed spec of what I want, or even discussing an attack plan (for high-level architecture or solution design) and getting an initial draft is game-changing for me. I usually take it from there, because as far as I can tell, it sucks after that point anyway.

[dennisy]

This makes sense for sure. Have you been getting good results with something more complicated than basic CRID type applications?

[aerhardt]

o1-preview is the best model I've tried thus far, but I wouldn't say it's even capable of putting a basic CRUD app together, without constant coaxing major adjustments and on my part.

[rwyinuse]

As a programmer I feel that software development as in "designing and building software products" can be still be fun with AI. But what absolutely isn't fun is feeding requirements written by someone else to ChatGPT / Copilot and then just doing plumbing / QA work to make sure it works. The kind of work junior devs would typically do feels devalued now.

[gmaster1440]

AI appears to have automated aspects of the job scientists found most intellectually satisfying.

- Reduced creativity and ideation work (dropping from 39% to 16% of time)

- Increased focus on evaluating AI suggestions (rising to 40% of time)

- Feelings of skill underutilization

[sourcepluck]

> Related: I often find myself disabling copilot when I have a fun problem I want the satisfaction of solving myself.

The way things seem to be going, I'd be worried management will find a way to monitor and try cut out this "security risk" in the coming months and years.