Developer's Honest Assessment of AI at Work Rattles the Official Narrative

I work, I think? - Annotated

How AI may quietly dismantle the feedback loop that turns inexperienced people into competent ones, and why my work matters to me.

Developers say AI coding tools work—and that's precisely what worries them

Ars spoke to several software devs about AI and found enthusiasm tempered by unease.

Wherein I Find Myself Writing About Writing

Most everyone finds writing to be challenging (especially those who say they enjoy it). This is because writing is an intentional, thoughtful act. This is as it should be, but “AI” has recently exacerbated the misbelief that writing is simply an output. In fact, it's a creative process that has merit in and of itself.

The Impact of AI Coding Assistants on Software Engineering: A Longitudinal Study

AI coding assistants have become prolific in recent years. Through a longitudinal mixed-methods investigation, we examined how professional software engineers perceive the effects of AI coding assistants in regard to task focus, developer experience, and productivity. Two questionnaires were administered six months apart, yielding 158 eligible participants at the first time point, 101 at the second, and a matched longitudinal cohort of 95. Participants reported spending less time on most development tasks, with 82% reporting less on writing code. We find broader shift in focus from creation to verification activities. We propose a new category of work we term supervisory engineering work, encompassing the direction, evaluation, and correction of AI output. We also identified a productivity-experience paradox: productivity perceptions held stable, with 84% reporting improvement at both time points, yet among matched participants, the proportion reporting worsened developer experience in at least one dimension nearly doubled from 14% to 27%, with flow state and cognitive load eroding while feedback loops improved. These findings suggest that AI coding assistants are impacting both the nature of software engineering work and how engineers experience it.

AI boosts worker productivity — but does that translate to final outputs? | MIT Sloan

A new study found that developers using AI tools can write much more code than those working without AI, but they don’t release as much new software.

What Actually Happens When Programmers Use AI Is Hilarious, According to a New Study

As AI takes the programming world by storm, experienced devs are still the gold standard — and they're better off without AI assistance, too.

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our tech columnist

Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity

We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how early-2025 AI tools affect the productivity of experienced open-source developers working on their own repositories. Surprisingly, we find that when developers use AI tools, they take 19% longer than without—AI makes them slower.

AI | 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey

84% of respondents are using or planning to use AI tools in their development process, an increase over last year (76%). This year we can see 51% of professional developers use AI tools daily.

Letting AI Do Your Work Erodes Your Confidence, According to a New Study

Those who actively question the technology, however, feel more confident.

AI is Creating Peak Software, Media is the Best Analogy

Let's learn more about the world's most important manufactured product. Meaningful insight, timely analysis, and an occasional investment idea.

The AI productivity myth is more harmful than you think

Perceived productivity may be up thanks to AI, but there's debt collecting in the shadows.