this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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No no no no...
You don't want AI replacing devs where they're "weak". That is literally the worst thing you can do with AI. All that does is mean the devs aren't qualified to assess and debug those portions of code. The solution to devs being "weak" in an area is for them to gain experience doing that task.
Some programmers use AI to make boilerplate code they can easily check to save time without much issue. That's about the only thing you can use AI for in software development with little risk without taking up excessive time checking/fixing what it shits out.
I'm weak in knowing APIs. I can use AI to generate the code that might include a library that I wasn't aware of. I can then use my experience to validate syntax with linters as well as reading up on the library and finding if there are features that exist that might help solve the issue that I have.
It's not perfect as AI can make up a library that doesn't exist, but it lets me get started and fine tune the code for a solution that works the way that I want.
Instead of that, you could just search online and go through examples on how to use the API's in question. Then you actually learn and gain experience in that task, which you wouldn't get if you have AI get you 95% of the answer from the start.
While having an AI code something you're unfamiliar with is more efficient for that specific task, over time it's less effecient and detrimental to you as a programmer. Think of it like getting a teacher's edition of a textbook for a class. You can answer questions more quickly by looking up the answer in the back of the book and copying it down. Sure, you absorb the answer a bit, but not nearly as much as if you worked through it yourself.
Now think about the differences between junior and senior dev jobs. What's the primary difference? It's experience. If you're a junior dev that has AI do all the hard parts for you, then you'll gain experience slower than another junior dev that does everything on their own. In the future, that other junior dev is more likely to get the lucrative senior dev promotion than you because they've built up more experience.