this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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I had this experience once. We have a ChatGPT license where I work, and I asked it to configure a switch that I wasn't familiar with. I simply described in words what network architecture I wanted and it did it! It even made some nice-looking documentation.
But, then I tried the new configs, and they didn't work. It turns out there were some key syntax things it got wrong. And the documentation was wrong on top of that, with incorrect diagrams, and when I asked it to fix it it made different errors I the diagrams in different places. On balance, I still saved some time over reading all the manuals and figuring out the syntaxes myself, but only because I made my own documentation with the results that worked. If I had trusted the AI I would be sunk.
I've concluded that AI gives the illusion of competence, like a overly confident new manager. This can be very attractive to a less experienced person. But it's really guessing, just like we all are. It can just guess after actually "reading" all the manuals. I haven't used AI to write anything more than simple configurations and helper scripts. If I did want to use AI for more it would be in more of a pair-programming context. I might have a window open where I describe some things and ask for analysis, but I wouldn't just run anything it does blindly.
Pair programming/writing/creating is exactly how AI is meant to be used. It is an augmentor not a replacement for human competence. The person using it still has to do the thinking, qc, and directing, not take the first output as final.
And always with skepticism!
A couple other cool things I've seen experts do:
The first: finding bugs which, considering the scarcity of humans capable of bugfinding doesn’t seem so bad in our weeks with finite hours.
Next, really tedious work that experts do know how to do, but simply wouldn't prioritize because they have lives. A big one seems to be reverse engineering, like to give new life to ancient hardware. “I connected over USB at , give me control.”