I'm the GP that got Claude to port the app, set up the SMTP server etc. etc. And I do see stuff on that level of complexity, multiple times a week. I'm not a full-time software dev any more, but did learn the craft at a really good company before AI came along - and I've been doing basic sysadmin stuff by hand, almost exclusively on the terminal, for almost a decade now.

A lot of pithy responses to your comments that contain some pretty bad-faith assumptions about AI "power users", but to answer your question I think part of it genuinely does come down to a "skill issue" - or at least familiarity.

AIs really do have huge blind spots, and there are things it can't do well. But on the flip side, there are modes of operation that do get good results and if you keep it in this "zone" you can get amazing results.

For example, here is my CLAUDE.md that's global to all projects: https://github.com/EspoTek/.claude/blob/master/CLAUDE.md

Note the "Working with unfamiliar data or systems" section - it doesn't stop the models from making wrong assumptions but it does get them to test these assumptions with simple experiments and course-correct before human eyes ever see the result.

Setting up things like CLAUDE.md files and skills so that it doesn't make the same mistakes over and over is a big help too. The model doesn't literally get smarter, but it knows how to avoid pitfalls its fallen into in the past.

If you want to have a chat about it earnestly, my email's in my profile.