It was clearly AI generated. So the author is clearly OK with using AI to generate slop in an area they don’t work in, while simultaneously decrying its use in an area they do work in. If they believe so strongly that AI use is destroying their industry, they should reflect on its effect on other industries too (it is well-documented how artists are being negatively impacted).

I agree with the commenters above that it makes the critique fall flat. The author is saying “This thing is so frustrating and harmful it makes me want to stop working in a field because of it. Oh, by the way, I use this tool myself for other things, and will indeed pivot to contribute directly to them”.

Exactly. The self-contradiction exposes this farce of an arrangement for what it is: talented engineers are presented with immense monetary incentives to automate themselves out of the workforce, their carefully honed craftsmanship to be replaced by hordes of monkeys at typewriters producing voluminous slop.

Anybody can plainly see that the emperor is without clothes, but so long as the C-level rhetoric is sung to the tune of "Either you have to embrace the AI, or you get out of your career," [0] you may as well put on your own clown nose and wig and start dancing while the music is still playing and there are still seats out.

Farcical circumstances prompt paradoxical responses.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44808645

I didn't interpret it as decrying the use of AI. Especially because he plans to dedicate his time and energy into researching the very same AI he rants about, basically promoting its use!

Instead, I see it as a deeply personal rant about the state of affairs which he considers inevitable himself. That is why he leaves the ship.

Before AI slop, there has always been just the agile slop of the bare(ly) minimum product, good enough to woo the ones making a buying decision, or at least until the career sharks have moved on to the next thing. That kind of slop has always been there and everywhere actually. Its called capitalism, or consumerism. The trick is to work for a place that isn't squeezed too hard, because its still in the investment phase or because it just earns money on its own merit.

AI will certainly transform things, just like higher level languages and frameworks have done so. Maybe programming without AI will be the 'micro optimization' of the future: something that is still there and valuable, but only sometimes and only in a certain niche. Slop is eternal, it just has a new face and a new name.

This blog to me is a nice personal rant about a smart young developer coming of age, trying to find his way and guard his ideals or standards against the onslaught of consumerism, just as ambitious young developers always have tried to do.