Or at least, aware that this argument continues to be made with tenuous evidence and anecdotes. And yet, people are being more productive (actually productive) with AI. Release schedules are increasing, bugs are getting fixed faster, security issues identified and patched sooner, so on and so forth.
I’m not denying (at all) that unused skills languish. I take issue with AI being characterized as a magic eraser that mystically makes people forget what they have already learned. I’ve just done a study and concluded that dogs gets dumber when I throw a ball. What’s my evidence? They stop staring at me to chase it. The ball definitely made them forget who I was, so we shouldn’t allow dogs to have balls anymore.
Can AI make developers lazy in new ways? Of course! Why wouldn’t it? I don’t write things in ASM because I can be “lazy” and write 50x more useful instructions with a few lines of a modern language. I doubt I’d be able to write working ASM anymore without a serious refresher. Did newer languages erase my memory of ASM and make me “lazy”, or did my efforts evolve to make use of the newest technology regardless of “lost” skills?
I’m not denying (at all) that unused skills languish. I take issue with AI being characterized as a magic eraser that mystically makes people forget what they have already learned. I’ve just done a study and concluded that dogs gets dumber when I throw a ball. What’s my evidence? They stop staring at me to chase it. The ball definitely made them forget who I was, so we shouldn’t allow dogs to have balls anymore.
Can AI make developers lazy in new ways? Of course! Why wouldn’t it? I don’t write things in ASM because I can be “lazy” and write 50x more useful instructions with a few lines of a modern language. I doubt I’d be able to write working ASM anymore without a serious refresher. Did newer languages erase my memory of ASM and make me “lazy”, or did my efforts evolve to make use of the newest technology regardless of “lost” skills?