Recently, my mom sent me news about a young guy who developed his app with ChatGPT and got rich. Maybe she wanted to encourage me, but this information only became a source of overthinking.
As they say, that guy didn’t write a single line of code. So why bother creating apps manually if you can use ChatGPT alone? Because all people have different interests.
That guy was a manager. He delegated the development process to the AI. And I think it also helped him with the promotion of his product. He was interested in giving orders to somebody and getting a result. Seems like he just had no desire to dig into the code.
It’s my idea of hell. I tried vibe coding and it didn’t have any “vibe” in it. Yes, code was written fast, but it’s so boring and doesn’t motivate me to continue at all. You get a result without the feeling joy of creation.
I don’t know do managers feel the joy of creation, when completing their ideas by others’ hands, or not. Maybe they have another sort of feeling, like joy of being in charge. I just don’t feel it.
AI can do many things, but it will never feel for you. And it’s the main reason why I do something even if it’s not effective and can be done by AI. I just do what I feel is right.
ChatGPT is an instrument that becomes an extension of its user. If you have ambitions to rule the world it can help you, but if you don’t, nothing will.
My use case of ChatGPT
I use ChatGPT as a consultant. It doesn’t do the work for me; it gives me tips. Sometimes it’s better than documentation, but sometimes it misleads.
For example, I faced a problem with Capacitor. It used the wrong APK file in watch mode after I added two flavors to my Android project: prod and dev.
ChatGPT suggested many irrelevant options for solving my problem. Some of them didn’t work, some were overengineered so I didn’t even try. My gut told me there should be a simpler solution.
It turned out the answer was right on the surface: in the documentation. I simply needed to change the config by adding a property:
android: { flavor: 'dev' }Conclusion
ChatGPT has its advantages and disadvantages as any instrument, but I must confess that it really makes life easier. It can write an app or a book for you, or it can simply become your partner and help you when you need advice. All in all, it depends on your needs.