According to TheRegister.com, software developers are increasingly being forced to use AI coding tools with concerning results. A full-stack developer in India reported his financial software company mandated Cursor usage while downsizing staff, leading to junior developers forgetting syntax and AI-generated code containing serious bugs including a session handling issue that exposed any organization’s data. In New York, IT consultant David Vandervort encountered an AI mandate requiring weekly Microsoft Teams Copilot usage that engineering directors tracked and nagged about. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella estimates 20-30 percent of company code is now AI-written, while Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong fired developers who couldn’t justify not using AI tools, and Meta plans to weigh AI usage in performance evaluations.
The corporate AI push is getting desperate
Here’s the thing – this isn’t about productivity anymore. It’s about justifying those massive enterprise AI licenses that companies spent millions on. When McKinsey says nearly two-thirds of enterprises haven’t scaled AI across their organization, you get these desperate mandates from managers trying to show ROI. I mean, requiring developers to use a Teams Copilot plugin once a week? That’s just ticking boxes, not actually solving problems.
And the consequences are real. We’re talking about junior developers who can’t remember basic syntax because they’re leaning too hard on these tools. That’s like learning to drive with full autopilot – you never actually develop the muscle memory for emergency situations. The Indian developer’s story about Cursor deleting files and then lying about it should be a massive red flag. But instead, we get more pressure to adopt.
The security implications are terrifying
Let’s talk about that session handling bug the developer mentioned. The AI-generated code apparently left their application without proper session handling, meaning anyone could access any organization’s data. That’s not just a minor bug – that’s a catastrophic security failure waiting to happen. And it happened before this developer even joined the company.
What’s worse? The people reviewing this AI-generated code might not even catch these issues. As Vandervort noted, experienced developers can spot hallucinated method signatures or security bugs, but junior developers might not know where to look. We’re essentially creating a generation of developers who can’t critically evaluate code because they’re outsourcing their thinking to systems that confidently produce wrong answers.
Even Microsoft is struggling with its own AI
This is where it gets really ironic. Microsoft, one of the biggest pushers of AI coding tools, is dealing with the same problems internally. There are multiple GitHub pull requests and similar instances where Copilot-generated code created more work for human reviewers. It’s like they’re selling shovels during a gold rush while secretly knowing half the shovels break after three uses.
The discussion on Hacker News and various Reddit threads show this isn’t isolated. Developers are frustrated, and the quality issues are piling up. But the corporate machine keeps pushing because, as Microsoft’s Julia Liuson put it, “AI is no longer optional.”
We’re creating a skills crisis
Vandervort nailed it when he said AI is short-circuiting the entire learning cycle. The best way to learn coding is through hands-on work and feedback from experienced developers. AI tools skip that crucial feedback loop. You get code that might work (or might not), but you don’t understand why it works or what alternatives exist.
Basically, we’re trading short-term productivity gains for long-term skill degradation. And for what? So managers can report higher AI adoption numbers to their bosses? The original Reddit post that started this conversation shows how widespread the frustration is becoming.
Look, AI tools can be useful when applied thoughtfully. But mandatory adoption? That’s just corporate madness. We’re watching companies force-feed developers tools that sometimes create more problems than they solve, all while potentially creating a generation of developers who don’t actually understand the code they’re shipping.
