I didn’t plan to quit coding.
It happened slowly, then all at once. It started on a Tuesday night. I was staring at a blank VS Code window, the cursor blinking that accusatory rhythm we all know too well. I was tired. The deadline was tight. The stack was familiar, but the boilerplate was tedious.
So, I did what we all do now. I opened the chat window and typed:
"Scaffold a React app with a Node backend, auth handling, and a dashboard layout."
Act 1: The Honeymoon Phase
The response was instant. Code blocks streamed down the screen faster than I could read them.
I copied. I pasted. I ran npm start.
It worked.
The folders were organized. The components were separated. The API connected on the first try. I felt a rush of dopamine that I usually only get after three days of grinding.
For the next week, I felt like a god.
I wasn't writing functions; I was directing a symphony. "Add a dark mode toggle," I’d say. Done. "Optimize this database query." Done.
I shipped the MVP in record time. I had no "blank screen anxiety." My momentum was unstoppable. I told myself this was the future.
"For the first time, my biggest problem wasn’t how to code — it was what to build next."
Act 2: The Silent Drift
Two weeks later, the project had grown. I was adding a complex reporting feature. Naturally, I asked the AI to handle the data aggregation.
It spit out a solution. I pasted it in. It worked... mostly.
Then, a small bug appeared. A calculation was off by a fraction. I opened the file DataAggregator.js.
I stopped.
I scrolled down. And down. And down.
The code was syntactically correct. It was clean. It was commented. But I had no idea what it was doing.
I saw variable names I wouldn’t have chosen. Logic flows that felt alien. Abstractions that seemed unnecessary.
A low-level anxiety set in. I realized I didn't remember why the architecture was set up this way.
"The code worked. I just didn’t understand it anymore."
Act 3: The First Real Problem
The breaking point wasn't a syntax error. It was a race condition.
Users reported that if they clicked "Save" twice quickly, the database created duplicate entries with conflicting IDs.
I pasted the error log into the AI chat.
"Fix this race condition."
It gave me a patch. I applied it.
The duplication stopped, but now the page wouldn't reload after saving.
I asked for a fix for the reload issue.
It gave me another patch.
Now the loading spinner wouldn't stop spinning.
I was trapped in a loop of patching patches. I wasn't reasoning through the system; I was hoping the machine would guess the right combination of characters.
I felt a distinct loss of control. The AI optimized for correctness within the scope of a single file, but it had no intuition about the broader context of my product.
"I wasn’t debugging code anymore. I was negotiating with it."
Act 4: The Switch
I closed the chat window.
It felt surprisingly scary. I looked at the code—really looked at it—for the first time in weeks.
I deleted the AI's "patch." I deleted the function that caused it.
I put my hands on the keyboard.
I started writing. Slowly.
I had to look up the syntax for a Promise.all (I had forgotten it). I had to draw the logic out on a piece of paper. It took me two hours to rewrite what the AI generated in three seconds.
But when I finished, something clicked.
I knew exactly how the data flowed. I knew why I made the trade-offs I made. I knew that if it broke again, I could fix it.
"Typing slowed me down — but thinking sped me up."
Act 5: The Balance
I didn’t cancel my AI subscription. I’m not a luddite.
But the workflow changed.
Today, I use AI to write the boilerplate. I use it to explain cryptic error messages or to generate mock data. But when it comes to the core logic—the business rules, the security architecture, the state management—I write it.
If I ask AI to generate a function, I read it. If I don't understand a single line of it, I delete it and write it myself.
The outcome?
- With AI: I have faster iteration and less burnout on boring tasks.
- With Humans (Me): I have a deeper understanding, cleaner architecture, and actual ownership of the results.
Final Reflection
We often talk about AI replacing jobs. But in that month of "autopilot," I realized the immediate threat wasn't to my employment. It was to my competence.
"AI didn’t replace my coding skills. It replaced my tolerance for confusion."
The real danger wasn’t AI writing code—it was me letting go of the responsibility to understand it.
Let's discuss 👇
Do you let AI write your logic, or just your boilerplate? Where do you draw the line?
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