You’ve just pushed a PR after hours of careful work. You’re feeling pretty good about it too. Then the review comes in.
“ChatGPT thinks that {wall of AI-generated text}”
No context or specifics. Just a copy-paste job from someone who couldn’t be bothered to form their own thoughts.
I’m seeing this everywhere now: PR reviews, design docs, Slack threads. But here’s the thing: I don’t care what AI said. I care what you think.
ChatGPT isn’t on the team. It won’t be in the post-mortem when things break. It won’t get paged at 2 AM. It doesn’t understand the specific constraints, tech debt, or your business context. It doesn’t have skin in the game. You do.
When you paste an AI response instead of writing your own feedback, you’re not being helpful. You’re being lazy. Worse, you’re creating more work for everyone else. Now I have to parse through generic AI advice, figure out if it even applies to our situation, extract anything useful, and then guess what parts you actually agree with. Did you even read what you pasted? Do you understand it? Do you think it’s right?
Good feedback looks like this: “This nested loop is O(n²) and will blow up when we hit production scale. Consider using a hash map here.” Not: “I asked ChatGPT about your code and here’s what it said” followed by three paragraphs about algorithmic complexity that may or may not apply.
Look, I’m not anti-AI. I use it all the time. It’s incredible for exploring ideas, getting unstuck, learning new concepts. But there’s a massive difference between using AI to help you think and using it to avoid thinking altogether.
When you review someone’s work, you owe them real engagement. Specific feedback based on your understanding of the code and the context. If AI helps you spot an issue or articulate a concern, great! But then write it in your own words (if you agree!). Explain why it matters for this specific case. Show that you actually understand what you’re suggesting.
You’re the one with context. You’re the one who understands the codebase, the team dynamics, and your technical constraints. You’re the one whose name is on the review. You’re the one accountable, so own it.