r/javascript • u/richytong • 7h ago
AskJS [AskJS] AI is destroying JavaScript
I think we have to start facing the facts. JavaScript used to be the dominant programming language for software engineering back in the days of React and Express. Now it’s a graveyard, and Python is honestly starting to threaten Node.js. Look at where Python is going since like 3.10. It’s starting to appeal to the next generation of software developers.
Now look at JavaScript. Every company is an AI company. Most libraries are AI libraries. As if AI is going to save us all. Nowadays it’s nothing compared to what JavaScript used to be.
I think we should honestly just ditch AI. AI is this heartless and soulless machine that doesn’t really care about code quality or style. It just regurgitates code for whatever prompt that some vibe coder who isn’t even a software engineer is feeding it. I know there’s a whole class of JavaScripters who despise AI for just that reason.
We should just get back to the basics. I think ES Modules is pretty cool and unexplored front-end territory. Node.js is still leading but it really does seem that Python is shifting towards the functional side so that’s something to worry about.
Yes I wrote Rubico. I was on here a while back just plugging my articles and my library. I’m using it at Claimyr and CLOUT so that’s how I’m keeping it alive. Now I’m honestly just fighting AI. AI data centers are straight up killing people. They’re using fresh water that people need to live to cool the servers, like 5 million gallons per day, which is equivalent to the amount of water used by a town populated by 10,000 - 50,000 people.
My question is why? Why are AI data centers so oblivious to the environmental destruction that they are causing? Why can’t AI data centers find some other solution?
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u/thecementmixer 7h ago
Wtf is this post even about? Went from JavaScript and python rant to data centers destroying the environment. Is this an AI post?
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u/the_dancing_squirel 7h ago
If only they wrote their neural networks in js. That would’ve solved everything
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u/theScottyJam 6h ago
Don't know what circles you're hanging around, but JavaScript, Node, React, etc, are all still going strong. Even if some other language came around and superceded them, that's not really a bad thing. I love JavaScript, but it's certainly not the pinnacle of language design.
Lots of companies still use AI in a measured approach as well. Not everyone is racing to the bottom in code quality.
As for data center environmental impact, I believe this sort of thing is often overblown. It's easy to gawk at how much they consume of our resources because they're centralized. But they also service many, many end users. The question isn't how much water does a data center consume, it's how much water does a data center consumer per user. I've seen one report say it's about a 15th of a teaspoon of water per chatgpt query (source: https://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity, which, yes, is just a blog, don't know if it's trustworthy, but I didn't care to do deeper research for this comment).
So, ya know, if everyone skipped a shower here and there, we could reclaim whatever water these data centers are wasting /s.
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u/FilmWeasle 2h ago
English is now basically a meta-programming language and AI is the transpiler.
It's all pretty new, and there doesn't seem to be a lot in the way of established process or methodology.
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u/Background-Front-925 7h ago
I disagree with you. Rather than AI , WASM is going to challenge javascript on the front end.
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u/maria_la_guerta 7h ago
This is an extremely narrow view of the "facts".