About whether AI-written code deserves less scrutiny than AI-written prose.
Has this happened?
Yes 39 (32%)Not sure 26 (21%)No 56 (46%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether AI-written code deserves less scrutiny than AI-written prose.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
The key difference is that code is not the end product
I think this is open to debate. To me, the code has always been the goal, and the fact that writing it sometimes serves to produce a product is important to others (and what brings the paychecks in), but ultimately not something I've ever been excited about or interested in throughout my career. So I judge a developer based on the beauty and quality of the code he produces, just as I judge an LLM by the same sorts of things.
The fact that AI can one-shot a working CRUD app is not really that interesting to me. If it could make the code beautiful, concise, maintainable, extensible, minimal, performant, readable, and bug-free: a work of art and love that a craftsman would be proud of... that would impress me.