r/AskComputerScience • u/Some_Fly1628 • 9d ago

AI in CS/programming/coding

As someone who couldn't be farther away from this field, I started using claude recently for a project of mine and had claude code do all the work for me. Then I turned to my CS friends and they told me it was the same for them.

At one point I heard an argument that AI should be used to explain things to you or only do stuff which you'll understand afterwards.

What is it actually looking like at this state? Do any AI users in the space actually understand each function it sends out or are they trusting it blindly like me? This isnt an ethics question, just the reality of our current situation.

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u/Elygian 9d ago

If you are having Claude write code for you and then running it on your own system/network without checking it AND understanding it you should have computer privileges taken away.

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u/Some_Fly1628 9d ago

Why so? As someone with no time (at the moment) to learn coding, and with no background in it, I was able to add a software part in my non CS project that is good enough on its own. I'm not against learning to code in the future but for now im indulging in the convenience claude offers.

If you know any better way to go about these things do let me know !

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u/Elygian 9d ago

If you found a random USB drive lying around would you plug it in to your laptop? If you found a random pill in your bathroom closet would you take it? Granted these are far fetched examples but the core principle is the same. You don't just trust that random shit is safe without making sure first.

If you do not have the skillset to at least read code and ensure you understand what it is doing then you shouldn't be using that code on the assumption that it's safe. As another user commented, if you have quality gates, unit tests, or other controls in place to stop the code from doing what it's meant to do then you are at least one step closer to a good solution, but assuming it's doing what it's supposed to in a secure manner without more than surface level validation is not good practice.

There is no real shortcut to this stuff other than basically going through the code and figuring out what it is doing. Ironically, this is a much better use case for AI because it's good at summarising code and putting it in to terms that are easily understood. Even then it's always worth going to the docs or some other non-AI source to ensure what it's saying is accurate.