this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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In this case the evidence is literally first-hand experience. There is nothing that will change my mind on this because it's my direct personal experience from actual use.
I honestly don't care what marketing says, and if other people have different experiences then that's just them. In my personal actual real-world experience I found that they let me get tons more done and their quality of work is perfectly fine as long as you're using the right tools and giving them the right instructions.
The article says that developers are disagreeing with that in situations where they are "forced" to use AI, and that's fair, it doesn't make sense to force a tool to be used for something it's not good at. They might be using it wrong. I use it whenever it's better than not using it, and that ends up being quite often in my workflow.
The right tools is definitely key. Back an eternity ago, like October 2025, there was only Claude IMO if you wanted anything bigger than about a page of code. The others have come a long way - better than Claude was then, and I still feel like Claude is out in front, though by a less dramatic margin now.
As for "the right instructions" - I'd say it's more of "use the right process" which basically involves applying all those best practices that have developed over the past decades for human development, but we old farts from back before their time "don't need all that, it's a waste of time" because, basically, we internally practice most of the discipline without doing the documentation. With the AI tools: document your requirements, your architecture, tool choice selection process, designs, development plan, comment the code with traceability to why the code is being written, unit and integration tests, reviews, lessons learned, etc. etc. Having all that documentation kept with the project, well organized, is key to "bringing the AI agent up to speed" which you may be doing often. They really do demonstrate the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, so if you have them take the time to write everything relevant down as they go (not just the code), then when a new one comes online it can jump into the middle of a development plan without repeating (as many) mistakes / making (as many) bad assumptions.
To be brutally honest, working with AI coding agents reminds me a LOT of working with overseas programmer consultants - if you don't get everything in writing you're gonna have a bad time.
Unfortunately your being downvoted by the echo chamber participants that have to make sure you know that your opinion is wrong and theirs is better. AI is a tool, just like my impact gun. Yea there are times where you absolutely should not use an impact gun on something, but it's THE tool for some situations. And yea, using an impact gun where you should t will get you in trouble just like using AI in situations you shouldn't will get you in trouble. There is nothing new on that front!
I don't disagree with the post you are responding to, almost all of that is reasonable.
Your overall argument would be more convincing if it wasn't you doing the exact same thing you are complaining about.
As for specifics , the "Just a tool" argument is meh, not all tools are equal in potential benefit and harm.
Asbestos (while it is a material) was a "tool" used to insulate from heat.
Was it good at that, sure, it probably saved many lives, was it also harmful as fuck in the medium to long term, yes it was.
It can be a useful tool and also be a detriment, those things aren't mutually exclusive.
The danger of a tool can also be mitigated with adequate safeguards that come from experience gained over time.
The argument then becomes risk vs reward, which is an entirely different conversation.