AI coding assistants dumb us down! I wrote a post on that topic a few days ago here on LinkedIn, and it received an enormous reception: 700'000+ views, 6k+ likes, 190+ reposts, 600+ comments! I believe that the reason my spicy take hit hard with so many people is very simple: those who are determined to get better at their craft have either intuited early on in their lives, or learned the hard way through experience, the #1 lesson for success. That lesson is very straightforward to understand, but deceivingly difficult to fully internalize and live with. Ready for it? Here it is: Difficulty and struggle, in all their varied shapes and forms, are the two things that you MUST experience and overcome - EVERY SINGLE DAY - in order to achieve mastery at your chosen craft. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't matter if you're a sculptor, a pastry chef, musician, lawyer or a software developer. Our brains, ALL our brains, work in almost identical ways. For our brains to develop mastery, they need difficult challenges to overcome, which subsequently demand of us to struggle in order to learn and develop the skills, abilities and mindsets which are required to then succeed at said challenges. This is what brought us from stick-wielding monkeys all the way to keyboard-clacking "digital natives". So, will AI help you today with any of these two aspects, in a useful way? Nope! And most definitely not with the current state of technology. On the opposite: use the current iteration of "AI" extensively in your professional day to day work - either as coding assistants or content generators - and you run the risk of dumbing yourself down in the long term, deskilling yourself of even the good skills that you have, and worse of all: building a set of detrimental habits which will be very difficult to unlearn later. Not to mention that you become hooked and addicted. Don't believe me? Go now and uninstall/delete your AI assistants. I bet even the thought of it made you sweat a little, didn't it? "But but, I read that X and Y got huge productivity boosts, and also my friend Johnny can now code in 10 languages at once! Isn't that a superpower?!?" Sure, there are a few areas in which AI coding assistants can offer some help. I do not believe though that the price you pay, and the risks you take for your future development, are justified. The slope is very slippery, and it's simply not worth it. To end, I want to also mention our friend, Fear. Especially in tech, there's the ominous dread that "if I don't use AI then I'll get left behind". To you I say this: every technological leap in the history of humanity has generated more opportunities for people who were good at their craft than it took away. So do the proven thing: hone your craft! Become an expert in what you do, and work more at developing mindfulness, kindness and empathy. Then you'll always manage to find a well paying and meaningful job, with or without AI.
I'm glad you are publicly dedicated to your answer, we need people like you that are specialists in the same way that we need mathematicians to do things by hand. Most everyone else, we don't need it anymore, we utilize the tools and we expand upon them in ways that are unpredictable by current people telling us that this is making us dumber. Go read history on how the following made us 'dumber'. TV calculators internet social media smart phones and now AI is added to the list....
Well said, sir. I am a computer systems administrator (so technology is my job), but I have become convinced that the more we offload thinking to any “smart” device, the less smart we become (at least in the long term).
Learn about how things work before embedding those things in your life.
“To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” F. Nietzsche
I do not use AI tools at all.
Excellent post Alex! 1. Difficulty and struggle are good for growth. 2. Using AI code generators can hurt your skills in the long term. 3. Do not fear AI. These are all excellent points and I truly loved all of them!
The tremendous amount of AI generated slop proliferated on LinkedIn in the last one year! It's a tool, supposed to be used as a tool, not as a life hack.
Principal Software Engineer | former CTO & startup founder | Rust 🦀 | aragalie.com
3wFor those interested, here's the initial posting I'm referring to https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aragalie_this-morning-i-deactivated-copilot-in-my-activity-7250173023981371393-BSuh