Designers Vs Programmers: The AI Theft Paradox

The classic programmer paradox. Manually writing code for 30 minutes? Absolutely disgusting. But spending 3 hours configuring LLMs to generate code that would've taken 10 minutes to write? Now THAT'S what we call "productivity." It's the same energy as spending 5 hours automating a 30-minute weekly task and calling it "efficiency." The math doesn't add up, but the dopamine from avoiding actual work definitely does.

That moment when ChatGPT confidently gives you code that looks perfect but introduces five new bugs because it's stuck in 2021 while you're using the bleeding edge framework version. Nothing like the special migraine that comes from AI trying to help but actually making your codebase look like it went through a blender. Stack Overflow veterans would've just called you an idiot and linked to the docs, but at least their solution would've worked.

The eternal VC funding dance. Top panel shows startup founders desperately holding up an "AI" label when asked what powers their startup. Bottom panel reveals the truth: it's just "Algorithms" – you know, the thing programmers have been using since computers existed. Nothing says "add three zeros to your valuation" quite like slapping "AI" on your if-else statements. Venture capitalists can't throw money fast enough when they hear those two magical letters.

Ah, the existential crisis of modern programming! That moment when GitHub Copilot is silently judging your spaghetti code while you spiral into imposter syndrome. Remember when we used to worry about Stack Overflow judging us? Now we've got AI watching our every keystroke, probably thinking "I could've done that in 2 milliseconds." Yet here we are, still employed despite our "junior skills" because someone needs to explain to management why the AI hallucinated an entire authentication system. Cherish these moments—soon we'll all just be prompt engineers for our robot overlords.

The face every senior dev makes when some kid who just discovered "Hello World" starts dropping hot takes about the industry. That classic list of naïve programming opinions is what we veterans call "peak Dunning-Kruger." Sure, LeetCode will definitely prepare you for building enterprise systems that handle millions of users. And yes, we senior engineers just type "how to code good" into Google faster than juniors. Nothing says "I've never built anything real" quite like claiming backend is just "hitting APIs." Eight years of experience? More like eight minutes on a JavaScript tutorial.

Ah yes, the modern debugging workflow: write broken code, catch the error, and let AI fix it for you. Because nothing says "senior developer" like outsourcing your bug fixes to ChatGPT. Next week: teaching AI to attend your standup meetings while you "work from hammock."