// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
The problem is not the AI code, but nobody knows anything anymore
Last updatedUpdated:
Sep 28, 2026
by Simon Späti · CreatedCreated: Sep 26, 2026 · 4 min read
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Sep 28today
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If we think Is writing code dead, and AI is generating all codebases, I still think the bigger problem is people or full teams not knowing anything anymore about the system architecture or the intent behind why certain choices have been made.
I think AI writes probably average code (depending on the task and size). So if your code base was below average AI can easily improve it up to average. At least that’s what I’ve observed here.
To me, the problem is not the AI code, but that nobody knows anything, and everyone just asks Claude. You end up with no plan whatsoever.
This tweet summarizes the current state at fast moving startups well, or larger companies or where middle management is pushing AI hard:
I am done with this shit. It is over. The state of engineering right now is horrible. It has been half a month since I started a new role at a big company. 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. I have heard multiple times from higher management that pushing code is not a bottleneck, so why are we slow? People are working 12 to 13 hours a day just to press enter. Nobody is reading anything. Humans in corporate are doing nothing on their own.
Everyone, literally everyone, from an L1 to an L7 engineer here is doing the same thing. Talk to Claude. 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.
Voxium
Hoyt Emerson mention that data engineering is different: