Annotations
We’re relying on these little companions to validate us and to collaborate with. But it’s not a genuine collaboration like between humans, it’s one that is completely driven by us, and the AI is just there for the ride.
Particularly when you’re not familiar with how the systems are supposed to work, giving in to what the machine says and then thinking one understands what is going on creates some really bizarre outcomes at times.
“You can just do things” was what was on my mind all the time but it took quite a bit longer to realize that just because you can, you might not want to. It became so easy to build something and in comparison it became much harder to actually use it or polish it.
If the maintainer is in the loop, and the whole community is in on this mad ride, then everyone and their dæmons just throw more slop up. As an external observer the whole project looks like an insane psychosis or a complete mad art project. Except, it’s real? Or is it not?
It takes you a minute of prompting and waiting a few minutes for code to come out of it. But actually honestly reviewing a pull request takes many times longer than that.
Maybe the answer is that we need better tools — better ways to signal quality, better ways to share context, better ways to make the AI’s involvement visible and reviewable. Maybe the culture will self-correct as people hit walls. Maybe this is just the awkward transition phase before we figure out new norms.