The AI and I

When ChatGPT arrived, I was told that my job was in danger. Engineers with twenty years of experience were going to be replaced by a chatbot that graduated from the internet. I wasn’t worried. I had survived Y2K, the dot-com bust, demonetization, and three different JavaScript frameworks - each one promising to be the last one I’d ever need to learn. I could handle a chatbot.

Six months later, I must report: my job is safe. Not because AI can’t code. It can. It’s just that I can’t make it code for me.

The problem, I have diagnosed, is communication. The same affliction that has plagued my marriage, my friendships, and my attempts at ordering “medium spicy” in Bangalore restaurants. When I tell the AI “write a Python script to parse this JSON,” it writes something beautiful - clean, documented, efficient. When I paste it into my editor, seventeen red squiggles appear. The AI, it turns out, was solving a slightly different problem. A problem from a parallel universe where my data is structured sensibly.

I described my nested JSON monstrosity to the AI in painstaking detail. The AI responded with confidence. The code didn’t work. I clarified. The AI apologized and tried again. The code still didn’t work. We went back and forth sixteen times. By the end, the AI was generating code so convoluted that I suspect it had given up and was now just mocking me.

My colleague Ramesh - who has the annoying habit of making everything work on the first try - showed me his screen. One prompt, perfectly running script. I examined his prompt. It was nearly identical to mine. The only difference I could spot was that he had used the word “elegant” somewhere. Apparently, the AI responds to flattery.

I tried flattering it. “Write an elegant, beautiful, world-class script that…” The AI thanked me for my kind words and produced the same broken code with slightly better variable names.

The truth is, to use AI for coding, you need to already know how to code. It’s like those assembly instructions that say “simply attach Part A to Part B” - simple only if you already know that Part A is the thing that looks like a medieval torture device and Part B is hiding inside Part C. I spend more time debugging AI-generated code than I would have spent writing it myself. (Somewhere, a Luddite is smiling.)

But here’s the twist that even M. Night Shyamalan couldn’t see coming.

While I have failed spectacularly at making AI write code, I have discovered an unexpected talent: making AI compose songs. Silly songs. Stupid songs. Songs that have no business existing.

It started when I asked the AI to write a song about my ceiling fan - the one that makes a clicking noise at speed 3. Within seconds, I had four verses and a chorus in the style of Coldplay’s “Fix You” - except it was about a fan named Greg who dreams of becoming a helicopter. “Lights will guide you home, and ignite your motor” had me wheezing. My wife came to check if I was finally losing it. (The jury, as they say, is still out.)

Since then, I have commissioned:

1. A Linkin Park-style nu-metal anthem about slow WiFi (“I’ve become so buffered, I can’t stream right now”)
2. A Backstreet Boys ballad about finding parking in Koramangala (“Tell me why, ain’t nothing but a no-parking zone”)
3. A Radiohead-esque existential piece about Excel spreadsheets (“I’m a creep, I’m a pivot table”)
4. A Green Day punk rock number from the perspective of a Nokia 3310 watching smartphones take over

I play these for friends at gatherings. They think I’m joking. I am not. These songs are my legacy now. My children will inherit them along with my debts and my inability to fold fitted bedsheets.

Last week, I made a power ballad about quarterly reviews in the style of “November Rain.” Complete with an eight-minute runtime and an unnecessary guitar solo in the middle. My manager heard the first verse: “When I look into your slides, I see the pain of missed KPIs.” He didn’t laugh. He asked for a copy.

I am, against all expectations, a man in demand.

The irony isn’t lost on me. I spent fifteen years learning to code - data structures, algorithms, design patterns, the works. I can explain recursion to a five-year-old. I once optimized a database query so well that my manager mentioned it in a town hall. And yet, my contribution to the AI era is a Nickelback parody about network latency.

“Look at this bandwidth, every time I do it makes me buffer.”

It’s not much. But it’s honest work.

PS: The AI still can’t fix my JSON parser. But it did write a haiku about my failure. I have it framed on my desk. Right next to my “Stairway to Jira” lyrics.