I Used AI and Look What Happened

·4 min read
🇧🇷 Versão em Português
A GIF showing a scene from the game 1000xResist, where a character dressed in blue breaks a blue crystal.

I looked into the abyss and the abyss looked back.

That was the feeling the first time I used AI. I was always hesitant. Before, I only used it to look things up or get code suggestions — basically what I was already doing with Google. I kept the AI away from my actual code. Web only.

But I bit the apple.

My "Eve" was my friend Kaio, a guy who was skeptical about AI and somehow convinced me to give it a shot. So I did. I went through the whole cycle: amazement, frustration, and finally, something like peace. Let's start with the amazement.

Fair warning: I'm writing this post and asking AI to fix my grammar — I was always barely scraping by in English class ehehhe

First: the apple

A GIF from the anime Death Note, where the shinigami Ryuk is eating an apple

I started by putting AI to a real test: I subscribed to Claude and built a little project called code-katas, where I solved coding challenges from different sites in Rust — a language I had studied but never actually shipped anything in. The result was surprising. I used TDD, clean code, DRY, refactoring... Everything the great programmers said was good actually was good.

Every problem had a solution. Every limit could be pushed. I couldn't picture myself coding without AI anymore.

Life was good.

Until the abyss looked back.

The abyss

I tried to build a project I couldn't even define: a site-game where people visited tourist spots in Recife and checked in via geolocation. A virtual passport stamped in the street. (I used AI to write that part because honestly I still don't know what it was)

I made the rookie mistake of not knowing what I wanted and letting the AI decide for me. I was in love with it and couldn't say no. I just kept burning tokens.

The result was a Frankenstein. Half-baked ideas, things that made no sense, bugs everywhere, product problems. Ugly inside and out.

That's when it clicked.

I need to know where I'm going.

It's like being in a car: the AI drives, but I give the directions, correct the route, change course. When that flips — or worse, when the AI does both — the abyss shows up.

So I tried again. The right way this time.

I Used AI and Look What Happened

A GIF from the anime Vagabond, where Miyamoto Musashi is deep in reflection

I decided to improve my blog. I had a backlog of ideas sitting there collecting dust.

First: dependency updates. I asked AI to put together a full plan, then asked it to execute. A few things broke, but everything worked out.

Then came testing — believe it or not, there wasn't a single unit test in the whole codebase. I asked for a coverage plan and today I have unit tests, integration tests, component tests, and — brace yourself — e2e.

With all that in place I went on a roll. New typography, responsiveness fixes, animations on the home page, a reading progress bar, a comments section. So much stuff.

The difference was knowing what I wanted. I even knew which technologies I needed — I just didn't know the path, or I was too lazy to figure it out. That's where AI shines: clear requirements, solid result.

Coding is fun. I used to enjoy spending time hunting down a fix on a forum or Stack Overflow. But not having to stop every five minutes for the small stuff makes coding even better.

What now?

AI is here to stay. Pandora's box is open. But it's not magic — it's a tool. A tool that helps a lot, but still just a tool. I plan to use AI to go places I always wanted to go but never knew how. Maybe a game? Who knows...