But for people who aren’t seasoned coders, these tools are incredibly valuable. I have some coding experience myself, but it’s never been my profession (I’m a visual artist). Now, I can accomplish in an afternoon what would otherwise take me days. Two months ago I left my job to work solo on my video game, and even though my budget is limited, I still make sure to keep Claude and ChatGPT. Also, being able to write something on my phone at 1 a.m. when I can’t sleep, send it to Codex, and then test it first thing in the morning at my computer feels pretty magical. It also takes away the worry of “what if this isn’t the best way to do it?” since refactoring parts of my codebase is now so easy. It helps not just with writing code, but also with removing the fear that might otherwise keep me from sitting down and getting the work done.

That said, I understand that much of the criticism is really aimed at the marketing hype around these tools and the broader “this will replace the engineers at your company” narrative.