Engineer pushes back on AI hype: software engineering was never mainly about writing code
gerardsans · x · 2026-10-12
Responding to viral claims that ChatGPT "humiliated mathematicians" and gains "1.5 IQ points per month," engineer Gerard Sans argues AI is software, not a person, and talking about AI IQ is meaningless. In his original post he notes engineers spend most of their time on requirements, system design, edge-case debugging, stakeholder coordination, and years-long codebase maintenance — code generation is a small fraction. The same applies to math: proofs are a limited part of a mathematician's work, which is mostly formulating questions and building intuition — a misunderstanding common among AI labs lacking real software industry experience.
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