A grumpy screed about AI in software engineering
A software engineer expresses frustration over the pervasive use of AI-generated content in professional development workflows, labeling it as 'slop.' The author argues that reliance on AI tools has diminished the craft and enjoyment of software engineering.
Why it matters
This reflects a growing sentiment among professionals regarding the impact of generative AI on job satisfaction and the quality of technical work.
As a software engineer, my entire professional life has become AI slop.
Every line of every pull request? Slop. Every word of every pull request description? Slop. Every code review comment? Slop. Every technical design document? Slop. Every ticket description? Slop. Every graphical design spec? Slop.
I know I’m not alone in this experience. From what I can ascertain by discussing with peers, looking over shoulders at my co-working space, and participating in online forums is that this is nearly every software engineer’s daily life now. In many organizations 100% of their software engineering practice is slop.
Even leadership decisions are informed in large part by slop. Slop marketing, slop emails, slop announcements, slop roadmaps. The roadmaps are at least 50% slop, at this point.
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