LLMs are no excuse for bad code reviews or developers who don’t know what it’s spitting out.
In my code reviews the person who wrote the code needs to explain to me what they changed and why. If they can’t then we are going to have a problem. If you don’t understand the code that an LLM spits out you don’t use it, it’s that simple. If you use it and can’t explain it, well… we are going to have to have some discussions and if it keeps happening you’re going to need to find other employment.
The exact same thing has been happening for pretty much the entire time we’ve had internet. Stack Overflow being the primary example now but there were plenty of other resources before SO. People have always been able to copy/paste code they don’t understand and shove it into a codebase. LLMs make that easier, no doubt, but the core issue has always been there and we, as an industry, have had decades to come up with defenses to this. Code review being the best tool in our toolbox IMHO.
In my code reviews the person who wrote the code needs to explain to me what they changed and why. If they can’t then we are going to have a problem. If you don’t understand the code that an LLM spits out you don’t use it, it’s that simple. If you use it and can’t explain it, well… we are going to have to have some discussions and if it keeps happening you’re going to need to find other employment.
The exact same thing has been happening for pretty much the entire time we’ve had internet. Stack Overflow being the primary example now but there were plenty of other resources before SO. People have always been able to copy/paste code they don’t understand and shove it into a codebase. LLMs make that easier, no doubt, but the core issue has always been there and we, as an industry, have had decades to come up with defenses to this. Code review being the best tool in our toolbox IMHO.