Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu to engineers: Use AI but never …
Engineer says AI is changing software development
Employees were working 12 to 13 hours a day while spending much of their time directing AI tools instead of writing or understanding code themselves, according to the post.
In an X post, Sridhar Vembu said that engineers should use AI tools without giving up their own understanding of the work. The engineer said there was little time to inspect what the AI had produced or understand how different parts of the system worked. “People are working 12 to 13 hours a day just to press enter,” the engineer wrote.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has warned engineers against relying too heavily on artificial intelligence for software development. Vembu was responding to a post by a software engineer who described the use of Anthropic’s Claude Code at a large company. The engineer claimed that AI was being used to create almost every part of the software development process, including specifications, code, tests, product requirement documents (PRDs), tickets and reports. “Nobody knows anything here. The specs, code, tests, PRDs, tickets, resolution of those tickets, reports, etc., everything is made by Claude Code. Nobody on my team likes this. They are being forced to ship as much as they can,” the engineer wrote. The engineer’s post also raised concerns about the pressure to deliver more code as AI makes software development faster. “There is no sense of victory. Nobody is resolving bugs. In reality, nobody is thinking anymore. Everything is done by LLMs. It is so soul-sucking. I would not mind it, to be honest, if we were at least given the time to check out the code and see what is going where. But no, the goal is to just ship. No matter what happens,” the engineer wrote. Get the latest technology news and updates. Download the TOI App.
Industry Cautions Against Overreliance on AI in Coding
Sridhar Vembu has expressed concern over the rapid adoption of AI-powered coding tools in the tech industry. He emphasized the importance of maintaining human understanding in programming, stating, “This is sad. I tell our engineers to use AI but never cede our understanding to AI.” Vembu warned that companies may be implementing these tools faster than engineers can grasp their implications.
He further cautioned, “As an industry, we are driving too fast in a fancy new car we barely understand how to drive, inviting disaster.” This highlights the potential risks associated with relying on artificial intelligence without a solid comprehension of its effects on coding practices.