Three Quarters of Google's Code Is Written by Humans
On hard-to-check claims that we shouldn't care about
Claiming that AI now writes x% of overall code is like saying WordPress powers 40% of the web.
It’s a vast, generic claim about the world out there1. It says nothing about the code you’re writing or the application you’re building.
There are valid use cases for WordPress. And yes, there are valid use cases for code that AI fully generates.
But, in general, you shouldn’t unthinkingly default to WordPress for your next app just because so much of the existing web is powered by it.
Similarly, you shouldn’t delegate your hard-earned ability to think deeply and craft scalable code to AI just because some dude online managed to build a web page in 5 minutes with Cursor.
Keep honing your skills. Don’t allow billion-dollar companies and attention-seekers on social media to dictate what the right way to add value as a software engineer (or as a software business) should or shouldn’t be.
That’s, of course, assuming the veridicity of such claims. It’s not as though companies like Google (claiming that AI generates a quarter of their code) don’t have a vested interest in shoving AI down everyone’s throat.