Engineers are lining themselves up to be redundant by adding no value with AI.

𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝘆 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗼 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗜.

That should annoy people, it does me everytime I see it and getting more frequent IMO.

I'm completely in favour of AI in engineering. I think it's the only path forward. Engineers using AI properly will outperform engineers who don't and can acheive great things by scaling up their value and experience.

But I'm seeing a growing pattern that should worry people with some engineers using AI.

Some engineers are becoming nothing more than copy-and-paste middleware.

📥 Prompt in.

📤 Response out.

✅ Job done.

Except…

❌ 𝗻𝗼 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲.

I saw a support issue recently.

A fairly standard one. Something failed in a batch process and somebody needed to understand why.

The response that came back looked impressive at first glance:

🔎 Root cause identified

⚠️ Validation failures explained

💻 Code references included

🛠️ Suggested fixes listed

📋 Follow-up actions proposed

Technically useful.

But after reading it, it was painfully obvious that this had come straight out of AI.

That's a problem not because AI wrote it, but because nobody had done anything with it.

❌ No verification.

❌ No checking the code.

❌ No checking the process.

❌ No ownership.

❌ No judgment.

❌ No consideration of the audience.

The response literally ended with something along the lines of:

"Do you want me to fix that too?"

Of course they want it fixed. They raised a problem. A human engineer would normally say:

"We found the issue. Here's a workaround to unblock you while we implement a fix."

Instead, a wall of technical information got dumped onto an end user because an AI investigation had been pasted directly into a support response.

🚫 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀.

🚫 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀.

Because if your entire contribution is:

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘁 → 𝗖𝗼𝗽𝘆 → 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲 → 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗱

...why does a human exist in that process at all?

I'd automate them out immediately if thats all they do and in this case I saw it cant just be me seeing it.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗼𝘅𝗲𝘀.

The value is:

🧠 Judgment

🌍 Context

⚔️ Challenge

🎯 Ownership

📌 Accountability

AI can generate answers.

Engineers are supposed to decide whether those answers are actually useful, correct and aligned with what the business wants and needs.

If you become a human api layer between AI and everyone else, you're defining the api spec for your replacement automated AI chat bot.

💬 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗼?

💬 𝗜𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱?

💬 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 "𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘁 → 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆 → 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲" 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁?