Veteran dev: AI built a full MMO in 2 hours, so what am I for?
devontec · reddit · 2026-09-21
A developer with decades of programming experience describes asking Astra to build a full online MMO — auctions, seasons, inventory, leveling, chat, deployment, DNS, HTTPS — and watching it finish in about two hours what he estimates would take him months.
The experience prompted a long-form essay asking an unresolved question: if society no longer needs the debugging judgment and engineering taste he spent a lifetime acquiring, how can he still be useful? He frames it as an attempt to understand how learning, usefulness, identity and meaning come apart when AI masters in minutes what took humans years.
He suggests creation may mean making something that eventually outgrows you, and invites other experienced builders to share how they're adapting when mastery feels personally valuable but less socially necessary.
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