Do you tell clients or employers how much of the code was actually AI-written?
I've shipped work where 90%+ of the code came from prompting an agent, with me mostly reviewing, testing, and directing the architecture. Never explicitly disclosed that to the client, they just know it got done fast, works well, and stayed in budget.
Is that dishonest, or is it no different from using a framework, a library, or a junior dev and not itemizing every line's origin? Nobody used to ask what percentage of a website a developer typed themselves versus copied from Stack Overflow or scaffolded with a generator.
But this feels different somehow, maybe because the speed and volume are so much higher, or because "AI-written" still carries a stigma that "used a library" doesn't.
Where's your personal line? Do you disclose upfront, stay quiet unless asked, or does it depend entirely on who's paying and what they'd actually do with that information?
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Considering that big companies are producing AI written code just as much, and perhaps even more than indie developers, I'm not sure it really matters anymore, and I'm not sure the end users care all that much either (or they would have asked).
@jbrio I think it's more about creating products that don't look like AI slop than about disclosing what wrote the code. Nobody's going to ask "did AI write this" if the product is genuinely solid, fast, and doesn't have that generic, slightly-off feel a lot of rushed AI output has. That's really the bar, not the origin of the code.
for me it depends on what the client thinks they're buying. if they hired for outcomes (a working feature, on time, on budget) the tool used doesn't matter any more than which IDE I typed it in. but if a contract or a client explicitly says "no AI-generated code" for IP or compliance reasons, staying quiet stops being a stigma question and turns into a real liability - I've started asking that upfront instead of waiting to be asked.