I watched a senior developer last week fumble with ChatGPT for twenty minutes.
His prompt? âWrite me a React component.â
Thatâs it. No context. No requirements. No examples.
The AI spat out some generic garbage. He showed it around the office. âSee? This stuff doesnât work. Itâs all hype.â
This is the same guy who writes the most toxic code reviews
You know the type. Theyâll spend fifteen minutes arguing about semicolons. But completely miss that your function has three different responsibilities and should be split up.
They criticize everything. They help with nothing.
Both behaviors come from the exact same place - pure insecurity.
These developers built their whole identity on writing complex code
When AI can generate something that looks similar, their entire sense of self-worth crumbles. So they sabotage the experiment before it can threaten them.
Iâve never had this problem because Iâve always called myself just âdecentâ at coding.
Not brilliant. Not a 10x developer. Just decent.
I donât write code to show off. I write it to solve problems. To build stuff people actually use.
Thatâs why AI felt natural to me from day one
No ego to protect. No identity crisis when a machine writes clean functions.
The developers who embraced AI fastest? Theyâre the ones with the smallest egos. They donât care who writes the code as long as it works.
Theyâre not afraid to look stupid asking basic questions. They experiment without worrying about their reputation.
If youâre still on the fence about AI, hereâs what actually works:
Start by using it like a rubber duck
Donât ask it to write your entire application. Ask it âWhat am I missing in this approach?â or âHow would you refactor this mess?â
Have a conversation. Treat it like a junior developer who needs clear instructions but has infinite patience.
You donât need to let AI write all your code. You just need to stop being afraid of it.
The future belongs to developers who can work with AI, not against it.
Your ego isnât helping anyone build better software.