We're AI-assisted engineers, not *those* AI people

When engaging with new clients, I now have to remember to clarify that we are not *those* AI people. You know the ones.

All of these amateurs flooding into my occupation making grandiose announcements, and even grander software mishaps, now put me in the unfortunate position of having to constantly qualify our use of AI in coding.

I have no interest in hiding the ball on this, nor is it my nature. We are AI-assisted experienced engineers. If you're on the full anti-AI end of the spectrum, we're not for you. But if you are (rightfully) concerned about someone vibe coding you out of business, we are exactly who you should be talking to.

Our focus on thorough business analysis, thoughtful design, and expert-driven architecture and coding pre-dates this vibe coding era and is more important than ever. And our years of experience in finance means we account for risk reduction every step of our process, because in that world, little oopsies can translate to big $$ lost.

This is why I have framed us as AI-assisted engineers instead of vibe coders (which hits my old ears as "script kiddies"). It's unfortunate that the current climate has soured many people fully on AI due to the uptick in hustlers claiming my career.

And I'll note for those who are anti-AI due to the environmental and evil corporate overlords concerns, I see hope on that front as well in self-hosted LLMs and more importantly SLMs, and companies like AIX Global Innovations' SeedIQ offering a more realistic path forward than hoping that probability algorithms will magically manifest intelligence. Our own incorporation of self-hosted Qwen models into our process has already been a huge win on that front, and that project is in its infancy.

Anyway, bit of a vent post. Defending the quality of our work is a part of the consulting process that I'm generally happy to do, just frustrating having to defend against the taint of this influx of hustlers. Happy our reputation and amazing clients have allowed me to easily move past that uncomfortable part of the conversation with little friction.