r/AskComputerScience • u/Some_Fly1628 • 12d ago

AI in CS/programming/coding

As someone who couldn't be farther away from this field, I started using claude recently for a project of mine and had claude code do all the work for me. Then I turned to my CS friends and they told me it was the same for them.

At one point I heard an argument that AI should be used to explain things to you or only do stuff which you'll understand afterwards.

What is it actually looking like at this state? Do any AI users in the space actually understand each function it sends out or are they trusting it blindly like me? This isnt an ethics question, just the reality of our current situation.

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u/HotPersonality8126 11d ago

I don’t “blindly trust” but reviewing agentic code isn’t a good use of my time, either. I evaluate and trust the gates: tests, benchmarking, code audits. I investigate what doesn’t smell right.

Ticking off each line like “yup… looks good… yup… looks good” is just a way to train yourself not to pay enough attention to find anything.

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u/Time-Radio7871 11d ago

I should probably try claude. My experience was with chatgpt 3.5? Where a coworker send me code that "solved my problem". Half of the flags were made up. I tried searching for the original of the code but obviously it didn't exist. Next meeting i asked where he got it and he said AI, so then I showed him my markup of the mistakes i found.

But that was already years ago. I know newer models can not just write snippets but draft pull requests into multiple commits. I'm quite comfortable with git so I'm sure I could parse through a lot more code changes with a newer model but I haven't had the time to play with it, and I'm not interested in "trust first ask later" cause I'm sure I'll find some weaknesses I'd like to be aware of.