He left OpenAI to become a filmmaker. He said AI coding was 'lonelier' and 'mentally draining.'
Former OpenAI engineer Kasra Kyanzadeh left the company to pursue filmmaking, citing that AI-assisted coding made the work feel lonely and disconnected. He argues that AI agents allow individuals to own entire projects, which reduces the collaborative nature of software engineering.
Why it matters
This highlights a growing sentiment among developers regarding the potential for AI to erode team cohesion and job satisfaction in the tech industry.
Former OpenAI employee Kasra Kyanzadeh said that AI coding made him "miss people." Kasra Kyanzadeh Kasra Kyanzadeh worked at OpenAI for two months. He said he worried that AI coding had "gone too far." He told Business Insider that AI agents let a single software engineer own a project. That reality made him lonely. "You don't get that same feeling of: We accomplished this thing together," he said. Kasra Kyanzadeh missed working with people. "I was like: Where are there smart people?" the 33-year-old engineer told Business Insider. "At OpenAI, there are smart people." So, Kyanzadeh joined the team building the Codex desktop app in June. By mid-August, he said he was feeling tired and drained. He left to pursue filmmaking. It wasn't OpenAI that was the problem, he said. It was coding with AI agents.
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