AI is making me lazy, what should I do?

[Toranvor]

I’m a web developer with ~5 years of experience, and lately I’ve been relying heavily on AI-assisted programming (mostly Claude Code). The thing is… it’s extremely good. It often writes cleaner, faster solutions than I would, and it’s significantly boosting my productivity.

I catch myself delegating more and more thinking to the AI. Instead of designing the architecture myself, I ask it. Instead of debugging deeply, I paste errors. Instead of recalling knowledge, I prompt. And while the results are great in the short term, I worry I’m slowly making myself… lazy.

It feels like I might be sabotaging my long-term growth. What happens if I lose access to these tools? Or if I’m in an interview? Or if I need to solve something novel without AI? Am I trading competence for convenience?

At the same time, not using AI feels irrational. It clearly makes me more productive, and the industry seems to be moving in this direction. Avoiding it completely almost feels like refusing to use Google years ago.

So I’m stuck between:

Using AI heavily and worrying I’m weakening my skills

Avoiding AI and knowingly reducing my productivity

Are other developers experiencing this? How are you balancing AI usage with maintaining your own skills? Do you set rules for yourself? Or is this just the new normal and I’m overthinking it?

Would really appreciate hearing from people in the same boat.

[Miguel1]

Why use a car / public transportation when you can walk / run?

[OBEler]

@Toranvor It feels like I might be sabotaging my long-term growth. What happens if I lose access to these tools? Or if I’m in an interview? Or if I need to solve something novel without AI? Am I trading competence for convenience?

You don't get it.  You will never loose access to these tools. They will be there forever. 

You will be never in an interview for coding again. This is your last job. Keep it as long as possible.

You don't trade anything. Your competence is obsolete. Your skills are not needed anymore.

[bazera]

22 hours ago, Toranvor said:

Are other developers experiencing this? How are you balancing AI usage with maintaining your own skills? Do you set rules for yourself? Or is this just the new normal and I’m overthinking it?

Yes, me too. I don't have a good answer for that yet.

One thing that you can do it spend at least an hour a day manually doing some solutions for some problems. Doing something 1-2 hours a day that will have some kind of resistance to it, a friction, it will build a skill.

Maybe start a side project that will be a bit more ambitious than usual. But again, I think you should use AI for boilerplate code even for such a project. Don't waste your time on repetitive things. Only do what's hard part manually.

[YIDIRYIDIR]

@Toranvor This would take some trial and error. maybe you can find your answer in history of how people dealt with similar issue with the rise of similar technologies. 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Yeah bro, I'm certain these are the kinds of questions and thoughts going throught every white collar person's mind, not just for IT people, so you're not alone in this. We'll just have to wait and see. Brace for the impact the best you can, maybe it'll come early as per optimistic predictions, maybe more pesimistic estimates will be correct, but it'll come. So buckle up lol

[Leo Gura]

Hard to say.

It's like smartphones. They are so useful but also ruin your mind.

Tasting the Devil's honey.

Edited 7 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Inliytened1]

My brother is a teacher and he says school as we know it is pretty much done.  But in terms of my own job I try not to use it unless I need to.  Heck we got through without it before but its like anything else people are gonna forget what it was like before pretty soon.

Edited 7 hours ago by Inliytened1

[bazera]

17 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

My brother is a teacher and he says school as we know it is pretty much done.

Do they have some plans of how to move forward? Like for example how do teachers distinguish actual vs ai generated homework?

[UnbornTao]

 

[YIDIRYIDIR]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

 

nice 😆

[Leo Gura]

Where was my Asian in school when I needed him?

[CARDOZZO]

On 05/04/2026 at 5:30 PM, Toranvor said:

I’m a web developer with ~5 years of experience, and lately I’ve been relying heavily on AI-assisted programming (mostly Claude Code). The thing is… it’s extremely good. It often writes cleaner, faster solutions than I would, and it’s significantly boosting my productivity.

I catch myself delegating more and more thinking to the AI. Instead of designing the architecture myself, I ask it. Instead of debugging deeply, I paste errors. Instead of recalling knowledge, I prompt. And while the results are great in the short term, I worry I’m slowly making myself… lazy.

It feels like I might be sabotaging my long-term growth. What happens if I lose access to these tools? Or if I’m in an interview? Or if I need to solve something novel without AI? Am I trading competence for convenience?

At the same time, not using AI feels irrational. It clearly makes me more productive, and the industry seems to be moving in this direction. Avoiding it completely almost feels like refusing to use Google years ago.

So I’m stuck between:

Using AI heavily and worrying I’m weakening my skills

Avoiding AI and knowingly reducing my productivity

Are other developers experiencing this? How are you balancing AI usage with maintaining your own skills? Do you set rules for yourself? Or is this just the new normal and I’m overthinking it?

Would really appreciate hearing from people in the same boat.

At this point you should work on refining your prompts, learn new tech stacks, experiment creating novel software/original UIs, aesthetics, building unique things, digital experiences. 

You can automate your work with AI + develop projects for yourself to code on hard mode (No-AI).

 

[YIDIRYIDIR]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Where was my Asian in school when I needed him?

probably because Asians only study math and engineering, not philosophy. and they do so since birth. 

[Jacob Morres]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Where was my Asian in school when I needed him?

Sorry to police leo but this kind of comment would make my asian friends uncomfy

Edited 2 hours ago by Jacob Morres

[caspex]

Shift your expertise from code work to AI prompt making and other such technologies. Set time aside to brush up on the skills you want to keep.
Don't let your mind become lazy just change what it engages with. It would be irrational to run on foot when you have a car, but since you won't be getting any exercise that way, you gotta start hitting the gym to keep your muscle. 

In Phaedrus, Socrates recounts a myth where the egyption God Theuth invents writing claiming it will improve memory. King Thamus rejects this by saying it will weaken memory because people will rely on external marks instead of their own minds. He says it's only an 'appearance of wisdom'.

This problem is really old. Time and time again people face it and time and time again those who survive prove the existence of only one solution, the adoption of the new technology.


The only difference seems to me is that writing wasn't something that was owned by another person, unlike AI. If they take away your AI you would suddenly be helpless. So instead of rejecting AI, spending time figuring out how to host your own seems worth it.

Edited 1 hour ago by caspex

[Xonas Pitfall]

On 06/04/2026 at 2:18 AM, OBEler said:

You don't get it.  You will never loose access to these tools. They will be there forever. 

This.

These tools are getting so deeply integrated into major companies that at this point, it almost feels like asking whether to use them isn’t even relevant anymore.

It's kind of like saying: "I’ve been using social media to promote my business, and it’s working way better than anything I used to do. I don’t need to go door-to-door or chase newspaper headlines anymore; I can just make content and get results."

I actually think the smarter move is the opposite of what you’re worried about. If you fully lean into AI and get really good at web dev + using it properly, you’ll be ahead of most people. If you avoid it or don’t learn it deeply, that’s when you fall behind. The future is going to massively favor developers who know how to guide AI, prompt it well, and quickly fix or refine what it gives back.

[lostingenosmaze]

@Jacob Morres Meh, I've seen worse. Once I pointed out to my friends to a dog passing by ("Look at that dog!) and their owned barked "They taste good, huh?" 💀 We were waiting in line at a Chick-Fil-A too 💀💀

[Joyboy]

I’m a developer too and I’ve had the same concern.

AI has made me way faster, but I’ve also caught myself skipping the “hard thinking” parts more often. Like you said - architecture, debugging, even recalling patterns - it’s so easy to just prompt and move on. Short-term, it feels great. Long-term, it’s a bit… unsettling.

For me, the worry isn’t just “what if AI disappears,” but more like: am I still building the muscle, or just outsourcing it?

I don’t think avoiding AI makes sense anymore, it’s similar to not using Google back then. But using it blindly also feels risky.

This is the new normal, and we’re all just figuring out where the balance is.

A small tip - you don’t need to focus so much on improving prompts anymore, since the models are getting smarter every day. What really matters now is context engineering.

[Jacob Morres]

1 hour ago, lostingenosmaze said:

@Jacob Morres Meh, I've seen worse. Once I pointed out to my friends to a dog passing by ("Look at that dog!) and their owned barked "They taste good, huh?" 💀 We were waiting in line at a Chick-Fil-A too 💀💀

that's crazy lmaoo 

ive had a lot of crazy instances too. a homeless lady in nyc was chasing me calling me slurs a few years ago lmao. i stared at her too long and she flipped the fuck out LMAO

yeah im trying not to police tho. i dont agree with it but the least i can say is that some ppl find that offensive

Edited 5 minutes ago by Jacob Morres