Artificial Intelligence slows down the speed of developers

The surprise findings of a new research found that coding artificial intelligence assistants not only increase the speed of experienced developers, but they actually finish their work by 5 %. This study shows that despite the positive notion of programmers themselves, the functional reality of these tools in complex projects is quite different.

Although artificial intelligence tools have conquered the technology world’s productivity, the new study of the nonprofit organization Metr The results were completely unexpected. The study, which focused on professional developers, showed that the use of smart coding assistants reduced their speed.

Reduce developers’ speed due to the use of artificial intelligence

In this study, four experienced open source programmers performed two actual task (from bug fixes to new feature development) in large projects they were fully familiar with. They were randomly allowed to be of artificial intelligence tools (mainly Cursor Pro With models Claude 3.5 Or 3.7 SONNET) To use or not.

The results of this experiment revealed an interesting contradiction; Prior to the start, developers predicted that they would be 5 % faster with artificial intelligence. Even after the study, they also believed that they had 5 % improved productivity. But recorded data showed that developers when using artificial intelligence on average 5 % more Have spent time completing their duties.

But Why does artificial intelligence slow down? Researchers have identified several reasons for this:

• Excessive optimism: The current capabilities of artificial intelligence have not yet advanced as well as users’ optimism.
• Familiar with the code: Experienced developers were so dominant over their codes that artificial intelligence could not offer them a significant shortcut.
• Project complexity: Artificial intelligence in massive projects (with over one million lines of code) has weaker performance than small and limited issues.
• Uncertainty to offers: Programmers accepted only less than 5 % of the codes produced by artificial intelligence and spent a lot of time reviewing, validating and modifying its suggestions.
• Lack of understanding of the field: Artificial intelligence had difficulty understanding the context and hidden relationships in large projects, and often offered irrelevant suggestions.

Despite these results Should artificial intelligence be abandoned? The answer is “no”. Researchers insist that these findings should not be generalized; These tools may be very useful for less experienced developers or in smaller projects.

Interestingly, many participants in this study continue to use these tools despite seeing the results. Their reason is that, although not always faster, artificial intelligence can reduce the mental stress caused by some repetitive and boring aspects of coding and make this process less frustrating. This study shows that at present, smart assistants play more of the role of a “partner” that requires careful monitoring, and is not a tool to increase flawless speed.