For the Board: Software development with AI – do you know the risks?

 

For the Board
Software development with AI
– do you know the risks?

 

Are you on the board of a company relying on software engineering? Then you’ll want to know this.

It is common for board members to have tons of experience and know quite a lot, but sometimes perhaps not so much about the risks related to software development with AI. That is fine, we can’t all know everything…but there is a  whole new ocean of risks popping up in many companies. You should know about that ocean.

Did you ever wonder what it means when someone says that AI brings risks to software development? After reading this text, you will able to ask more insightful questions to your CEO and the tech leaders in your company.

 

Disclaimer

In this project, I didn’t care much about quality or security because I wanted to see how much of this project AI could do for me.
Note: I did not actively try to do bad things, like producing bad code, ruin quality or produce a non-secure product. I just didn’t care actively about it.

I acted like I was just after a finished product that works. I pretended I was a beginner needing help with everything. I wanted to see how the AI would handle all this.

Everything in this text happened as described.

 

AI in software development

When it comes to software development with AI, I bet you have heard more about saving time and increasing quality than anything else.

So, how much time was saved thanks to AI in the project I am describing here?
A lot, but I just don’t know. I can’t compare the time I spent to anything, partly because I did things that I didn’t even know how to do. Yes, you read that right.

What I did

I developed a Bluetooth remote control for the latest action camera on the market. Sure, you can buy a simple remote from the camera manufacturer, but I wanted some extra functionality in mine.

This project wasn’t just about writing code more quickly with the help of AI. It involved technical research, software development and building electronics. A physical product, no less.

Why I did it

Because I needed that remote. And it seemed like fun.
And I wanted to test how well AI can help with all this and how it handles carelessness and ignorance.

How well it worked

Mostly great…almost all the time…for the most part.
I was able to do things that I wasn’t even familiar with yet.
See any risks here?

I was able to do it a lot faster than I normally would have. I never had to hesitate. See any risks here?

…and since I was having so much fun, I quickly added several features that I hadn’t thought of before.
See any risks here?

A couple of times, I even asked the AI to suggest cool features I could add, and it did. You could say that the AI didn’t just help, it actually offered opinions on what I should ’want’ in the final product. This is called scope creep.
See any risks here?

 

So why am I telling you all this?

  1. Already from the beginning, the AI knew my code a lot better than I did, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped it would make good decisions when changing it. But I don’t know that for sure.
    See any risks here?

     

  2. The final product seems to work fine.
    Speed of development is often a requirement, and with AI you can run to the finish line faster than ever. But you may not know what disasters you create along the way.
    I have only done some simple testing of the finished product, because I got to the fun part so quickly and it seemed to work. ”Why test it when it already seems to work well?”
    See any risks here?

 

  1. After a while, I asked the AI to clean up the code (remove unused lines, etc). Did it? No idea. It said it did. I could have looked more closely, but I didn’t have to.
    See any risks here?

 

  1. I asked the AI to translate any comments in foreign languages from the API author and then add fresh, new, pedagogical comments in English to every single line that wasn’t super simple.
    Did it? No idea. It said it did. I was too lazy to check. I was having fun and moved on.
    See any risks here?

 

  1. I asked the AI to handle version control for me and check the code into GitHub. I also asked the AI several times to ’remember’ how things looked at that time and prepare to revert if things went bad. Did it? I hope so. I was too lazy to check. I think it did…but I’m not sure what it did – if it did anything. I moved on.
    See any risks here?

 

  1. The AI told me it needed some permissions to handle version control for me in GitHub – it even told me how to do that. I gave it what it asked for and it seemed to work. Too lazy to check. Were those permissions unnecessary? I have no idea.
    See any risks here?

  1. After a while, I got tired of the AI asking a lot of very sensible questions like ”Can I run this command on your machine?”. I told it to stop asking so often. After a while, it did stop asking. Now I really don’t know what commands it runs anymore. Too lazy to check.
    See any risks here?

 

  1. Along the way, the AI suggested several things that sounded clever and cool, but those later turned out to not be great at all or not needed. One of those suggestions was just plain bad. The AI told me it was a bad suggestion two minutes after saying it was a great idea.

    I am not sure if I managed to stop all those ideas from being implemented, since I wasn’t the one doing the implementation. I didn’t have to check.
    I moved on.
    See any risks here?

     

The end result

I have a working Bluetooth remote and I enjoyed the whole journey, but by now I may have created massive amounts of useless code, several security vulnerabilities or perhaps ruined planet earth. I have no idea.

I don’t know because I was only the orchestrator, not the operator.

This was just a tiny example but it shows that I can create a physical electronic device containing software and then that product can in turn control other physical objects and tell them what to do. And I don’t have to know much at all.

What if I had a more sinister purpose and created a more powerful device with much more powerful code?

But hey, it seems to work! That must be a good thing, right?

 

Note:
In case you were wondering, this whole thing just cost me about €13.

 
Take care, everyone!

Björn

 

We use cookies to personalise content and ads and to analyse our traffic. We do not willingly share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.
Cookies settings
Accept
Decline
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookies list
Cookie nameActive

Privacy Policy

Do we use cookies? Yes (Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computers hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information We use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart, understand and save your preferences for future visits, keep track of advertisements and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business. If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies via your browser settings. Like most websites, if you turn your cookies off, some of our services may not function properly. However, you can still place orders by contacting customer service.

What do we use your information for? Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

  • To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs)
  • To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you)
  • To improve customer service (your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs)
  • To process transactions
Your information, whether public or private, will not willingly be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested. Google Analytics We use Google Analytics on our sites for anonymous reporting of site usage and for advertising on the site. If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics monitoring your behaviour on our sites please use this link (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/)

Do we disclose any information to outside parties? We may release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Your Consent By using our site, you consent to our privacy policy.

 
Save settings
Cookies settings