The rise of artificial intelligence development tools has been rapid and promises to radically change the industry. Mohammed Khan vibe checks AI coding tools
Mohammed Khan, CTO Microsoft Services Division, TEKenable
Despite excitement about artificial intelligence (AI) agents, the area where this novel computing technology is having the greatest impact is, naturally enough, computing itself. AI coding assistants can now analyse, debug and even write code, but will it be a case of code eating itself with so-called ‘vibe coders’ knocking out dodgy code and ouroboros AIs chasing their tails?
Paul Sweeney, chief strategy officer of Limerick-based conversational AI developer Webio, says that, for now at least, using AI tools for development means doing a lot more than copy and pasting from a chatbot.
“I’ve got mixed thoughts on this, and everybody has mixed thoughts on it. The general one is: you still have to validate that code. You have to ensure that it adds up and is structured,” he says.
“I think coders are going two ways on this. Some are saying, ‘Why would I do this when it will take me longer just to debug it?’, and yet, if you put something into a code review and it finds some things or it gives you some ideas, that’s helpful,” Sweeney says.
Even if there are reasons to be cautious, it is clear that generative AIs have proved particularly adept at coding. This should not surprise. While programming languages are not quite a subset of natural languages like English, they do have well-defined grammar and syntax rules that, due to their strict nature, are significantly more regular than human language.
While AI has surprised with its imitation of human qualities, the truth is that machines are good at behaving like machines, meaning that, having been fed on deep resources, they can churn out endless amounts of text in any programming language you care to mention. Consequently, code written by code has flooded the internet. In response to this surge, many developers are now turning to AI tools for development to streamline their work and improve efficiency.
Despite this, Mohammad Zeeshan Khan, chief technology officer of the Microsoft services division of Irish-headquartered developer TEKenable, says that rumours of fully automated coding appear to be exaggerated.
“Some people claim they are there now, but I’m not so sure,” he says. However, Khan says, the scope of what is being done is changing all the time.
“It’s coming at such a breakneck speed that it’s almost impossible to keep up. Every morning I am looking at LinkedIn to see what’s new – literally.”
The upshot of this is that rapid development of AI tools means their impact is growing.
“The good is that there are a lot of tools and frameworks that people are building. The bad is that it’s difficult to know which tools to use,” he says.
The other side of the argument is that AI tools have a clear impact on the speed and efficiency of software development. Mitch Lieberman, vice-president of product at Fuel iX, says AI was already helping to “increase the velocity” of product development and rollout.
“My recent revelation is that product managers need to jump on this bandwagon.” In his own case, Lieberman was able to use AI tools to make a point clearer. “I was trying to communicate an idea to my team so I prototyped the app myself. This was not deployed as a product, but it was a functional prototype.”
Impressive stuff, but, for security reasons, not something that is a suitable way to develop actual products for the public. However, it is arguable that it could be good enough for custom business applications that run in a restricted and secured environment.
“If you’re in the enterprise, you’re inside the firewall,” says Lieberman.
GOOD VIBRATIONS
This need for speed appears to be the key reason why AI coding tools are already more than an experimental curiosity. Peadar Coyle, chief technology officer and co-founder of AI audio production tool developer AudioStack, says the company had experimented with AI coding.
“What I would say, as a CTO of a team who manages 18 engineers, is that it helps new engineers ramp up more quickly.” What it will not do, Coyle says, is issue P45s.
“It also helps with testing, which is a task developers don’t enjoy. But in no way will it lead people to sack all their developers,” he says. Developer Simon Frank, who works on coding projects as a hobby, says his opinion of AI assistance was positive. “Do I think AI-assisted coding is of benefit? One hundred per cent. Have we got to autonomous coding yet? I’m sure some people have, in very strict circumstances, but it’s not quite there, and it can still go wrong.”
Frank, who writes in Python, says translating code from one programming language to another tended to yield better results than asking AIs to write code from scratch.
“Will it improve? It’s got to. Though the whole ‘in a year’s time you won’t need coders’, I don’t believe that. However, a good coder with AI assistance is a very powerful thing.” Frank says that AI excels at translating from one programming language to another, and that while it can be used to generate code from scratch, professional oversight remained essential.
“It can go catastrophically wrong, not in a people-hurting way, but in an annoying way.” Indeed, so-called ‘vibe coding’, where developers come up with the idea and let the AIs bang out the script, has become something of a ‘meme’. Frank says that it is an interesting phenomenon, but that skill, aptitude and experience still count.
“Getting Photoshop doesn’t make me an artist. When desktop publishing arrived, it didn’t make me a writer, a publisher or a designer,” he says,
As Polonius tells Laertes in Hamlet, “apparel oft proclaims the man”, but having a tool does not make a user competent. And, of course, there are concerns around this very fact.
A recent survey published by an Irish recruiter found companies complaining of unskilled staff using AI to get job interviews for positions they were not qualified for. If, indeed, this is a problem, it is probably less of one in the results-focused demi-monde that is software development.
“If you [cheat to] join a company, you’re going to get found out quite quickly,” Frank says.
The above text was reproduced from the interview published in BusinessPost on April 23rd, 2025.
