As I am writing this in mid-2025, AI has become a common byword of today’s world. It seems that everything just tastes better with AI. Without AI everything tastes bland. Moreover, AI will eat the world.

But recently I gained some personal experiences which convinced me that while AI will be more and more useful in almost all activities, humans are still dictating where things should go. Here are one recent experience of mine.

I need to write a Python script to download all my videos, in the order of hundreds, in the cloud from one service provider. I asked AI to write me the code, and it did not work. I copied the error code and showed it to AI, which then sent me a revised version of the code.

Initially I thought this should be straightforward, and would take no more than 30 minutes. But it ended up taking much longer than I thought. Altogether I spent about 4-5 hours for about 100 lines of code. Nevertheless, the experience has been quite valuable. I learned a few things:

• AI will not get it right, without human input. For example, it was curious that my AI assistant did not test the codes before suggesting them to me. I had to test myself and upload the error codes so my AI bot can debug and figure out a solution.
• AI is very good at suggesting fixes. I guess that is because it has read a huge number of codes. However, it will not fix all the bugs at once. It is still an iterative process
• I myself learned quite a bit about coding from conversing with AI, and by looking at the different iterations of the codes. I am also very convinced that many coders’ job will be replaced with AI. Not all of them, especially software architects or those in charge of large projects. But the entry-level coders can now be replaced.

This experience even boosted my confidence in writing codes and designing programs. Most importantly, though, I realize that I am the driver here. In other words, today’s AI may be a good worker, but is not a qualified manager. It lacks the big-picture vision, and therefore the ability to lead. For now, it can be a capable assistant, but not a leader.

It will be a game changer if AI can ask intelligent questions and in turn can think like a human to solve those questions. I know there are already very smart researchers working on that.