>Why are files so bloated in the first place? Because AI prefers adding new code over modifying existing code, and it rarely deletes anything.

Did you ask it to delete stuff or consolidate functionality? Did you ask it to reuse certain available implementations? Or do you use it as a black box, letting it do all the design and code, and not caring to steer it, except with some high level request ("build x")?

If it's the latter, if we treat a (non-actually-intelligent, generative) AI as a hands-off developer and remove ourselves from the loop, we get exactly what you mention in the rant.

But nothing forces us to use it like this (except the craze of "vibe coding"). Use it as a carefully monitored and steered coding assistant.

It's slower that way? That slowness is a requirement to ingest the expertise/knowledge/taste of a human developer in the mix. It's what avoids an avalance of slop to be commited and become part of the codebase unchecked.

That's why all the focus on maximazing speed, and removing the humans from the loop, are misguided.

When LLMs are ready to removed humans from the loop, we'll know: we'd be out of a job. As long as we have one, our role is to act as a quality bottlenect, not to open the floodgates.