I just finished reading an interesting article on AI and how it has affected the learning experience for many developers. The author, over at NMN.gl, brings to our attention something that's been on my mind for a while. It seems the immediate instinct for tackling any problem is now to just ask AI to handle it. We’re so quick to get the answer or the output that we often skip really digging into the problem itself and figuring out the best way forward.
It's striking to realize that since ChatGPT became mainstream, my visits to StackOverflow, which used to be my constant companion for coding problems, have become rare. StackOverflow's strength lies within its community and the diverse perspectives it offers, allowing you to truly understand the problem you're trying to solve. While AI has been a fantastic tool for me, boosting productivity with auto-completion and boilerplate generation, the profound understanding I gained from navigating StackOverflow and absorbing multiple solutions from those who had already wrestled with similar issues is what truly deepened my understanding of how and why things work.
Thinking back to my early days in IT, I had to manually configure everything, understand the intricate connections, and essentially learn how systems communicate. It's that hands-on experience that now allows me to confidently justify why one solution is superior to another. However, I've observed a telling sign in newer developers – the telltale trace of copy-pasted AI code. It becomes particularly evident when you try to dig a little deeper and ask them to explain the logic behind the code or how they might adapt it for a slightly different scenario. The foundational understanding simply isn't there.
The author's statement, "AI gives you answers, but the knowledge you gain is shallow" (Namanyay, NMN.gl), really stuck with me. Yes, AI offers a quicker path to a possible answer. But is it the optimal one? Does it factor in potential risks? And is the developer interacting with the AI even thinking about these risks? I'm concerned that AI is hindering the foundational learning of younger developers as they progress in their careers.
AI is a fantastic tool, no doubt. But I keep coming back to this: if we don’t spend the time to actually think about what we’re trying to achieve, are we really getting the best solution? Or just the quickest one? We need to remember to put in the mental effort, understand the nuances, and come up with our own informed approaches. AI should be a boost, not a bypass for good old-fashioned problem-solving.