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The Voice of the DBA
 

I Love Creative People

LGTM (Looks Good to Me) is a song about AI and the way it's been used, or maybe how a lot of people think it's been used in organizations. I find it catchy, creative, and most importantly, funny. I chuckled out loud.

As a side note, this is one of the amazing things I see with technology these days. There are many incredibly creative people who do amazing things. Even the music/reels/etc. that I don't like can showcase amazing talent. I love it and hope more people can succeed at using their creativity to make a living.

The story in the song is that the boss heard AI was used by one person to do something amazing, so we should be doing that in our company. Does that sound familiar? Any of you out there being wow'd by stories told by management of some other company using AI to do more work than your entire team? I've heard a few of those stories from people, though not at Redgate. We know AI can help us, and we have a lot of usage in engineering, but our view is that AI assists and helps developers. It doesn't replace them.

The song, and a few friends, note that AI is supposed to compress roadmaps and timelines. I do think you might get more code written, perhaps get things done that no one has time to do, but I'm skeptical that true production-level, high-quality systems are being built at 100x engineer speed. Some people might get more code written, and some people are amazing at directing AI.

AI models also go off the rails, and there are certainly some "steps backward" taken when models hallucinate or implement features that don't exist. I've personally seen models tell me features could be used that don't exist in SQL Server. Or that I could load a library in Python that hasn't been written. One part of the song that made me laugh (and want to cry) dealt with this, noting the model made up a library that doesn't exist and a hacker wrote it and slipped it in.

I bet that's happened.

I wouldn't be surprised if hackers were asking LLMs to write code for something in Node/JS (or something) and, when they see a hallucinated library, writing one, and publishing it. What a great thriller/hacker movie idea that might be happening now. I'm sure we'll see plenty of libraries appearing in package managers that people use, not knowing they're full of vulnerabilities, specifically planted inside.

It's a fun song. Some of the things in the song are real. I know people have given AI Agents admin privileges. I know boards and some execs love the idea of firing people and replacing them with AI tokens. I'm sure there's plenty of tests mocked (or changed) by AI agents to create the appearance of code that's well validated. I'm also sure that there's plenty of AI code that no one knows how it works. For sure, bots have deleted databases.

To be fair, a lot of the failures of AI are things humans do. Dropping databases? Not creating tests or mocking them and never adding code? Fixing a bug and making it come back? People do that. AI does it faster.

AI is a tool. It doesn't think, no matter how amazing it can seem. Learn to use the tool well.

Or just shake your head and enjoy the video.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
 
 Featured Contents
SQLServerCentral Article

Packing and Decoding Device Status Codes with LEFT_SHIFT() and RIGHT_SHIFT() in SQL Server

john.martin from SQLServerCentral

Some systems store several small status values through a single packed integer. For example, a device integration may require tracking operating mode, alert level, and zone information as one status code rather than separate values in different columns. That creates a practical reporting problem. The packed value may be convenient for an integration format, but […]

External Article

SQL Server 2016 end of support: how to choose your upgrade path

Additional Articles from SimpleTalk

SQL Server 2016 reached the end of extended support in July 2026, which means it no longer receives regular security updates unless you pay for Extended Security Updates (ESUs).

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Experimenting with CHOOSE: #SQLNewBlogger

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

I was looking over the CHOOSE() function while editing an article at SQL Server Central. I realized there isn’t a documentation note on how many parameters can be included....

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Book Review: Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals

MarlonRibunal from Marlon Ribunal - SQL, Code, Coffee, etc.

I don’t currently manage Microsoft 365 Copilot in an enterprise environment, but it is one of those technologies that I want to understand better. As AI becomes part of...

Microsoft Power BI Performance Best Practices: Learn practical techniques for building high-speed Power BI solutions Microsoft Power BI Performance Best Practices

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from SQLServerCentral

In a world dominated by data, organizations heavily rely on business intelligence tools like Power BI for deriving insights and informed decision-making. Yet, as data volumes grow and user demands increase, achieving optimal performance becomes challenging.

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

SQL Server Audit Failures

If I have a SQL Server Server Audit setup, what are my options for configuring the instance in the event it can't write to the audit log?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

The ##MS_DatabaseConnector## User

On SQL Server 2025, I run this code as a sysadmin:

CREATE LOGIN Demo WITH PASSWORD = 'Demo1234567'
GO
ALTER SERVER ROLE ##MS_DatabaseConnector## ADD MEMBER Demo
GO

I then login as Demo and run this:

USE sandbox
go
SELECT CURRENT_USER

What is returned?

Answer: Demo

Explanation: The login is mapped to a psuedo user, which doesn't exist in the database, but has the same name as the login. Ref: Fixed server-level roles introduced in SQL Server 2022 - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/security/authentication-access/server-level-roles?view=sql-server-ver17#fixed-server-level-roles-introduced-in-sql-server-2022

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.


SQL Server 2017 - Development
Inventory Snapshot for missing Period - Hello, We maintain an inventory table that captures monthly snapshots of item inventory levels. However, a new record is only created when there is a change in the inventory value. As a result, if an item has an inventory value of 200 in January 2026 and the value remains unchanged through March 2026 with value […]
SQL Server 2019 - Development
MERGE in a nested TRY/CATCH won't roll back - I have a section of code similar to the following abstract: DECLARE @loop [int] = 0, @savepoint [varchar](4) BEGIN TRY BEGIN TRANSACTION _OUTER_ WHILE (@loop < 10) BEGIN SELECT @loop = @loop + 1, @savepoint = '_' + CAST(@loop AS [varchar](2)) BEGIN TRY BEGIN TRANSACTION SAVE TRANSACTION @savepoint MERGE ... -- This transaction works MERGE […]
SQL Azure - Administration
Managed Instance vs Azure Database - is this a good option? - We're currently in Azure, however as we had a very tight migration timeline when we moved, we've been using SQL Server on Azure VMs for the last several years.  There's a push in the organization to go "cloud native," and on the database side, well, I see some potential headaches. My question can be boiled […]
Editorials
A Heavy Heart - Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Heavy Heart
AI Is Improving Security - Comments posted to this topic are about the item AI Is Improving Security
Making an Impression - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Making an Impression
Article Discussions by Author
Hyperscale Replicas V - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Hyperscale Replicas V
Calculating Weighted Average in Power BI - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Calculating Weighted Average in Power BI
SQL Server 2025 Server-level Roles - Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server 2025 Server-level Roles
Stairway to DAX and Power BI - Level 29: The DAX Combine & Aggregate Functions - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stairway to DAX and Power BI - Level 29: The DAX Combine & Aggregate Functions
Azure SQL Hyperscale Unveiled - Comments posted to this topic are about the item Azure SQL Hyperscale Unveiled
MiniMax m3 and SQL Server - Comments posted to this topic are about the item MiniMax m3 and SQL Server
SQL Server Vector Support I - Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Vector Support I
SQL Server 2022 - Administration
Perfermance result aftet purge operatio - Hello everyone, I am planning to implement a data purging solution that is expected to reduce the size of one of our main databases by nearly 50%. One of my colleagues believes that the performance benefits will be limited. His argument is that most queries access data through Index Seeks, so reducing the amount of […]
What is the worst part about existing monitoring solutions? - Hi. What is the most difficult aspect of using monitoring software like idera, redgate, solarwinds?
 

 

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