Stop Letting AI Do Your Thinking For You

Lately it feels like roles are reversing. Instead of developers using AI as a tool, they are becoming tools for AI. People plug their entire codebase into Copilot or Cursor, click accept like it is gospel, and think they are building software. You are not. You are just pasting code with no idea where it came from or how it fits into the system you are supposed to understand. Let me be clear: I use AI. I use ChatGPT. But I use it like a scalpel, not a crutch. I do not touch Copilot. I do not rely on Cursor. Why? Because the second you offload thinking, you lose track of context. And context is the only real superpower a software engineer has. No AI today not ChatGPT, not Claude, not anything can keep track of your mental model. They do not know the trade-offs you made last sprint. They do not remember that one brittle API you agreed to avoid touching until Q3. They do not understand why you chose composition over inheritance in a specific module that is now quietly holding your whole app together. But you do. Your brain does. And when you give up your role as the system’s architect to let some autocomplete guess what you need, you become the assistant, not the engineer. AI is a hammer. You are still the one swinging it. Use AI to accelerate your thinking. Ask it to break down a regex, write a first draft of a boring config, or summarize documentation. Fine. Great. But never let it own the architecture. Do not let it become your crutch for avoiding complexity. Because if you do, one day you will open your codebase and realize you do not even recognize the thing you built. And worse, you will not know how to fix it. If this resonates, drop your thoughts. I am all for AI, but we need to stop worshipping it like it is the engineer. It is not. You are.

Apr 24, 2025 - 05:03

Stop Letting AI Do Your Thinking For You

Lately it feels like roles are reversing.

Instead of developers using AI as a tool, they are becoming tools for AI.

People plug their entire codebase into Copilot or Cursor, click accept like it is gospel, and think they are building software. You are not. You are just pasting code with no idea where it came from or how it fits into the system you are supposed to understand.

Let me be clear:

I use AI. I use ChatGPT. But I use it like a scalpel, not a crutch.

I do not touch Copilot. I do not rely on Cursor. Why?

Because the second you offload thinking, you lose track of context.

And context is the only real superpower a software engineer has.

No AI today not ChatGPT, not Claude, not anything can keep track of your mental model. They do not know the trade-offs you made last sprint. They do not remember that one brittle API you agreed to avoid touching until Q3. They do not understand why you chose composition over inheritance in a specific module that is now quietly holding your whole app together.

But you do.

Your brain does.

And when you give up your role as the system’s architect to let some autocomplete guess what you need, you become the assistant, not the engineer.

AI is a hammer. You are still the one swinging it.

Use AI to accelerate your thinking. Ask it to break down a regex, write a first draft of a boring config, or summarize documentation. Fine. Great. But never let it own the architecture. Do not let it become your crutch for avoiding complexity.

Because if you do, one day you will open your codebase and realize you do not even recognize the thing you built.

And worse, you will not know how to fix it.

If this resonates, drop your thoughts. I am all for AI, but we need to stop worshipping it like it is the engineer. It is not. You are.