AI Doubts, Real People, and the Power of Honest Feedback

I’ve had a bit of an existential crisis lately, and you may have guessed it already: it’s because of AI.

I was thinking, why even write blog posts if ChatGPT and co can instantly give you what you want, in beautiful language that I can only dream of?

Then my friend reminded me: AI needs something to “feed from”. I needs us humans to learn – otherwise it will just become redundant. This sparked joy in me again, and hope that writing these mini blog posts is not in vain and actually helpful.

I also realised how important it is to get feedback from real people. People who see what you are doing, and can give you practical tips on how to improve. I had this aha moment at a time when I submitted a way too big PR yet again, already frustrated that it became so big again, and already knowing that I will get so many comments on it, and go back to my code, add things, fix things, making the PR become even bigger, invoking more comments, and… you get the point. I saw my colleague typing. Those three little jumping dots continued for a long time and I was already expecting a massive paragraph. But then: just a small sentence. But how it started made me pause: “This may be hard to read…” But what came after that was such a good idea that I could immediately implement! Undiagnosed-probably-neurodivergent-me wondered, why is this difficult to read? It was quite a simple sentence actually with great advice. My colleague mentioned I should have split my PR into two parts: one for the service implementation and tests, and the next one for the application and usage. This was brilliant! But then came the next three jumping dots… Again, quite the pause. The next sentence from him started with “I am so sorry. I know the feedback can be tough to hear…” Now it finally clicked: it was very difficult for him to give me this feedback because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings. The “hard to read” part wasn’t about me not being able to read a sentence that was structured in a difficult way, but it was about an “emotional hard to read”. I laughed. Partly because of my little blonde goldfish brain that couldn’t figure this out the first time I read the sentence, and partly because of a breakthrough in our team. I could tell him now that I welcome these tips, and that they are so valuable, because “I don’t know what I don’t know”.

People shying away from giving feedback because they don’t want to hurt others’ feelings seems noble at first, but it can be detrimental to their growth.

Yes, I do this too. Way too often. I am a people pleaser. I want to get along with everyone. I hate conflict. I want sunshine and rainbows. But in that moment I realised how much it helped me, and it would have been so sad if this piece of feedback had gone to waste. Now I could finally do something new, different, and become better.

So, today I am going into the day with hope and happiness, all because of real people around me who shared their opinions.

Have you had a similar moment recently? Share in the comments!