Do we have a moral obligation to improve software with AI?

I wrote one of the first native JavaScript spellcheckers, Typo.js, fifteen years ago. At the time, it was really only useful within a browser extension, since webpages didn’t offer all of the JavaScript features it needed. (I originally used it to get YouTube Comment Snob working in Chrome, which didn’t have Firefox’s native spellchecker API.)

Smash-cut to present day. Node.js has become exceedingly popular, creating demand for JavaScript-based utilities like Typo: it’s downloaded hundreds of thousands of times each week via npm. I get an occasional bug report or pull request that I address, but some of my early design decisions make it impractical to fix issues like the one where it can’t load a Portuguese dictionary because it runs out of memory.

On a whim, I gave Claude the task of writing a drop-in replacement that:

a) is compatible with Typo’s existing APIs b) passes all of the existing tests c) solves the problem of excessive memory usage for certain dictionaries

In about an hour, Claude was done, producing a complete solution that is 50% faster and uses 50% less memory. What took me fifteen years to do, AI did in an hour. It finally happened: AI stole my job.

I was conflicted. The new version is verifiably better, and shipping it would benefit Typo’s existing users, but it would feel like erasing hundreds of hours of my own effort. I could just delete it, pretend it never happened, and continue to work on Typo as I please, but that would be a disservice to anyone using it (especially the Portuguese).

I decided that it would be technical malfeasance and the epitome of Not Invented Here syndrome to throw away a better version just because I was jealous that I hadn’t written it. Not to mention, any developer with a few spare tokens can now write their own spellchecker in any language, so I might as well be the caretaker of an existing popular one.

So I’ll ship the AI-generated replacement. It will essentially put an end to Typo.js as artisanal software, since Claude will likely handle any further improvements, but it will be better for the community in the long run. At least it will give me more time to work on new ideas that AI can replace later.

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