When I talk to #CTOs, they tell me about their main challenge: many developers resist AI adoption. And engineering managers are baffled. Why do developers resist the transition to AI? Isn’t AI a great and astonishing technology? Why do seniors seem to resist most? Where does that push-back come from?
AI brings a lot of change and many new possibilities. AI means Tabula Rasa for most of the things we have taken for granted. The times are as exciting as the Apollo program, the first home computers or the arrival of the internet. Why do so many developers resist AI, why do so many developers downplay the benefits and try to find the flaws in AIs? Why is their first reflex to dismiss the code AIs are creating?
To understand we need to switch perspectives, take the view of developers on AI. We hear how AI enables companies to write more code with less developers. “We write X% of our code with AI” is the new CEO flex. If AI is only about writing more code in a shorter amount of time, developers do not benefit from this. Their job is being taken away, their skills are devalued, their income shrinks. They have been the kings (and queens!) of the world for several decades, salaries knew only one way - up, up, up! Developers were valued, developers were treated like royalty. “The New Kingmakers - how developers took over the world” is a sign of that era.
Companies want to deliver 2x the features, but the salary stays the same - developers should be happy about this? Are managers mad?
One might argue, developers do more than writing code. But if you ask any CEO, what they think developers are doing, it’s “writing code”. As CTO I was often asked by CEOs why developers didn’t sit at their desk, don’t they know we need to deliver features? When the pressure is up to deliver more code, the view on what developers do shrinks to writing code.
Through this lens developers do not benefit from AI. Developers face the problems of bad code written by AIs down the road - they get up at night for the incident, they are blamed for the critical bug. They do not benefit from AI, but they own the downsides. Their boss, or the CEO, or the head of marketing, gets all the benefits.
We have seen this before - with testing. By writing tests, developers do not benefit in the short term but need to own the downsides. I wrote about the phenomenon in “Tests Are Bad For Developers - The real reason developers don't write tests”. Developers are under pressure to deliver, writing a test takes time and can only find a bug - which then means even more stress to make the sprint deadline. Writing tests does not bring short term benefits but short term downsides for developers. Not writing tests is the better short term strategy. A bug found in production is bad, but it’s a problem of the future, not of the current sprint deadline.
The same is true for AI.
Asking and looking around, it seems senior developers are resisting AI adoption even more. What is it about senior developers? When the thing that gives you value and distinguishes you in the market place is taken away - why not resist? But shouldn’t they have more experience and see the possibilities that AI brings to creation? No - seniors have to lose most with the introduction of AI. They have invested years or decades to hone their skills, to get where they are. Now an AI generates code - their skills that made their salary, their status in the world and often their identity are devalued by AI. The thing that distinguishes you from a junior is taken away with AI - AI the great equalizer it seems. While at the same time, companies expect more features, more oversight, taking responsibility for what the AI does by senior developers and more code reviews - the job gets more stressful than it was before.
But there is a lot of candy - and a brighter future - in there for developers. Developers are often either mainly coders or creators. Creators will flourish, for them AI is just another tool, like the many programming languages and tools and frameworks before. Another tool to create in a long line of tools. Creators were drawn to coding because of creation, wringing something into existence out of the void of an empty screen.
What greater thing can be there? They can welcome AIs for writing most of their code.
On the other hand we have the coders. They love the tools more than the creation, coding and the intricacies of code more than the product. And in an industry with shallow products it’s no wonder many developers are coders first, creators second.
Our industry has taken agency away from developers for 40 years. In the 1980s there were many one man shops, game developers, application developers who did it all. With software development growing, roles specialized and agency was take away. This accelerated with the introduction of product managers in the 2000s when developers - despite the claims of agile! - lost the last bit of agency they had and were degraded to execution machines. We tell you what to do, you code it! FASTER!
No wonder most developers are coders and not creators.
If we want to convince developers to use more AI, we need to explain: What is in it for them! If you want to sell something, it’s not about you, but about the other person. Put yourself in their shoes and understand them. What is in it for them? What are their desires? What are their problems? How can you help?
Luckily there are lots of things in AI for developers.
First, developers are often bored by some things - proper error handling everywhere, thinking about security first. Finding and fixing that bug that isn’t critical but just annoying. Changing dozens of files is tiring and boring. AI can do all those things - the AI is never bored.
Second, AI is a great tool beyond writing code. AI can do many things and help developers make their coding task easier. Analyze code. Make refactoring suggestions, finding security problems, plan a pen test, explain the architecture of a module you’re not familiar with. The benefit of AI is not mainly writing code, but interacting with code in general.
Third, developers can get back their agency! We need to nurture the creator inside every developer. With hackathons and prototyping we can make developers see the creator in themselves again - and give them back the agency they have lost over the last decades.
CEOs have been focusing on the wrong things for a long time now: they see technology as a feature factory. Just recently a CTO told me their CEO asked them to use AI to write more code faster. The CEO didn’t ask for using AI to find better ideas, or write better requirements. No, write code faster. Deliver faster.
AI is the opportunity to change this. I told the CTO: Push back, all of you focus on the wrong things. Use AI to focus on building the right things. Ask the AI for better ideas. Ask the AI if a feature should be build at all! Ask the AI how a feature can be promoted to be used more - and give developers the impact their work deserves.
Opportunities are endless.
Don’t use AI to push out more code.
If you do, developers will resist.