No Take-Backs In The AI Lottery

The eternal developer's dilemma in flowchart form! If AI-generated code doesn't work, it's a hard "DON'T DO IT." If it works but you have no clue why? Also "DON'T DO IT" (future you will curse present you during debugging). But if it works AND you understand why? "SURE" go ahead! This is basically the modern version of "I found this snippet on StackOverflow" except now we're copying from robots instead of humans. The flowchart perfectly encapsulates that brief moment of temptation when ChatGPT spits out something that runs without errors but feels like forbidden magic. Remember folks: understanding > working code.

Ah yes, the classic tech startup delusion in its natural habitat! Nothing says "I'm qualified to be CTO" like casually proposing to replicate a $500 billion AI company with a budget that wouldn't even cover their coffee expenses. It's the tech equivalent of saying "I could totally beat Usain Bolt if I just had some new sneakers." Sure buddy, OpenAI only has thousands of PhDs, supercomputers, and decades of research—but you've got a MacBook Pro and an energy drink. Your investors will definitely be impressed when you deliver ChatGPT at home: "Hello wrold, how can I halp you toady?"

Remember when we were gods among mortals? The 2021-2022 tech boom was like being SpongeBob and Patrick at an all-you-can-eat buffet of job offers, six-figure salaries, and companies practically begging us to take their money. Fast forward to 2025, and we're Squidward—watching from behind the blinds as layoffs spread faster than a poorly optimized for-loop. The tech bubble didn't just burst; it ghosted us harder than that recruiter who promised to "circle back." Now we're fighting over the one backend position that doesn't require "10+ years experience in a framework released last Tuesday."

BREAKING NEWS: Tech giant discovers laws apply to them too! 😱 OpenAI dramatically declares the AI apocalypse is upon us if they can't vacuum up copyrighted works like my vacuum cleaner attacks dust bunnies under my desk! Meanwhile, car thieves everywhere are SHOCKED to discover their business model might be slightly problematic. The absolute AUDACITY of copyright holders wanting compensation for their work! What's next? Paying for groceries?! The horror! The drama! The completely reasonable legal expectations that somehow feel like persecution when you're a multi-billion dollar company! *faints dramatically onto keyboard*

Nothing says "we love our users" like dropping a free AI feature that immediately sets fire to your data center. Those poor GPUs, running at 110°C, fans screaming like they're auditioning for a metal band. Meanwhile, DevOps is frantically calculating the electricity bill while the marketing team high-fives over user engagement metrics. The best part? The feature probably could've been implemented with a simple if-statement, but hey—gotta justify those VC millions somehow!

Oh, how the times have changed! In 2020, we were writing our own isOdd() function with a cascade of if statements like absolute savages. Fast forward to 2025, and we're just outsourcing our brain cells to OpenAI's API. Sure, the 2020 approach was inefficient and borderline ridiculous (just use num % 2 !== 0 , you monsters!), but at least it didn't cost $0.002 per API call. Progress? Maybe. But our wallets are definitely feeling the difference between "free but stupid" and "smart but expensive." The real tragedy is that somewhere out there, a junior dev is actually implementing this in production right now.