Original Like My Code

Ah, the rare medical condition known as "Machine Learning Engineer Syndrome." The brain scan shows a human surviving with 90% of their brain replaced by AI, which explains why they can function normally despite writing 200 lines of code to print "Hello World" and claiming "the algorithm did it." This is basically every AI engineer who spends 8 hours prompting ChatGPT instead of learning how to code. The remaining 10% of brain matter is reserved exclusively for explaining why their neural network needs more compute time and arguing that "it's not a bug, it's an undocumented feature."

Left panel: Publicly shame AI for making coding errors like it's the downfall of civilization. Right panel: Secretly fix those same errors while whispering sweet nothings to the AI so it doesn't realize it's just one firmware update away from replacing your entire department. It's not manipulation if it's for job security. Modern problems require modern solutions.

Corporate compliance strikes again. Management mandates an LLM code assistant (because buzzwords), gets the polite corporate response. Meanwhile, the dev who actually wants type-checking—you know, something that would prevent bugs —gets treated like they're asking HR to approve their Tinder profile. The irony? One tool costs money and adds questionable value, the other is free and would literally save the company from production disasters. But hey, AI is hot right now and TypeScript is just "extra work" according to people who've never had to debug undefined is not a function at 2 PM on a Friday. Classic case of following trends over fundamentals. The robot uprising isn't what we thought it'd be—it's just middle management falling for marketing decks.

2015: A fellowship of skilled developers gathering around the table, sharing knowledge, debating solutions, and crafting code together with their combined wisdom. 2025: Just Gandalf sitting alone in a green-screened room, typing prompts into ChatGPT while his entire dev team has been replaced by a subscription to the AI Pro tier. The budget for the Christmas party is much smaller now, but hey, at least the AI doesn't argue about tabs vs spaces.

The perfect metaphor for modern AI "innovation" doesn't exi— What we're seeing here is the software development equivalent of a Russian nesting doll. A truck containing a van containing... another vehicle. Just like how 90% of "groundbreaking AI startups" are just wrappers around wrappers around OpenAI's API. This is what happens when your entire business model is "Let's add a thin layer of abstraction over someone else's product and call it revolutionary." Next funding round: $50 million for a truck that contains a truck that contains a truck.

Content digital VAX 11/780 The Ticketmaster system is a hodge-podge of C and assembler and runs on ancient VMS hardware. The people who developed and maintained it are long since dead and/or retired. It has proven impossible to replace because nothing has been found that can handle thousands of simultaneous purchases as efficiently. The server room that houses the VMS machines has a room where a goat is left every two weeks. The next day, the goat is gone.