Prime Reacts - Why I Stopped Using AI Code Editors

Artists realized this about AI instantly, now programmers are learning the hard way. When you offload a creative process to a machine, even just the tedious "little decisions", you become worse overall at the creative process. Because you deny your own humanity and its necessity in creating something important.

Hey, the author here! Thanks for reading my article! It was really interesting hearing your thoughts on this. One thing I would like to add, is that the quote for "I’d say that I program for the same reason that people still play chess" is from a video by Tsoding, link for the clip is in the footnotes. The DHH quote of course you rightfully pointed out in the video, imo some of the best interview content on this channel.

This is nothing new. There are also studies on how GPS usage in commuting affects our navigation and location skills.

'It's like pair-programming with the most annoying person in the universe.'

After a lifetime of driving on the right, I learned to keep the car lane-centred after a day of driving on the left. The points in this article are valid, I just wanted to let people know I can drive on both sides of the road.

Tech like social media, AI and so on are "testing in production" the side effects on human psychology and well-being. It's really damaging.

100% agree. For the most part, the vibe coding "talk to your IDE" stuff sucks. But autocomplete feels so good when you're doing boilerplate. I don't care if I'm "losing the skill" of writing 1k lines of boilerplate divs...

This actually has been an issue in aviation for quite some time now and recognized in the 80's/90's. Pilots lose their 'stick and rudder' skills due to complacency and reliance on autopilot, auto throttles, auto brakes, etc. Automation surprises as they are called are a real thing and can be challenging for pilots if they are not proficient.

The authors part about learning is exactly how i use AI with my coding. I use it for my questions, and not for really doing any code for me other than having it do tests (but only when ive written my tests it can use as reference). I find that the AI suggestions when coding are honestly annoying to me, and i prefer just good old intellisense.

I've noticed that there's a common theme amongst people with ai code editors. Early adopters move away from it after a period of time where we end up using it and realising it's fundamental limitations damage our work flow. It cripples the creativity needed to deal with novel problems but mostly it damages your ability to hold mental models of systems in your head. Once you lose that its hard to get back.