Is AI making our code stupid?
Coding tools like GitHub Copilot can help developers author code 55% faster, according to GitHub. Hurray! Right? Well, maybe not. GitClear analyzed 153 million lines of changed code between January 2020 and December 2023 and now expects that code churn (“the percentage of lines that are reverted or updated less than two weeks after being authored”) will double in 2024. In other words, “Code generated during 2023 … resembles [that of] an itinerant contributor,” as if you hired a short-term contractor more concerned with cranking out verbose code than ensuring its maintainability.