You didn't notice when it started.
One day you're stuck on a bug. You ask AI. It answers. Clean, fast, confident.
Nice.
Next week, same thing. Week after that. Every week after that.
You're shipping. You're moving. The green squares on your GitHub don't lie.
But something quiet is happening inside your skull.
The Thing About Leeches
Leeches are actually medical. Surgeons still use them today. Microsurgery, reattached fingers, skin grafts — the leech helps. This isn't a story about something purely evil.
That's what makes it dangerous.
Because when a leech feeds, it doesn't just drink. It secretes.
An anticoagulant. Something that keeps your blood from clotting while it feeds. Keeps things flowing. Smooth. Uninterrupted.
Feels fine. Looks fine.
Until you need to clot.
The Clot Is The Point
A cut needs to clot. That's not a flaw in your biology — that's your biology working.
Learning has clots too.
The 3-hour bug you can't crack. The documentation you read four times before it clicks. The moment you stare at the screen and your brain has no choice but to build the pathway itself.
Slow. Frustrating. Inconvenient.
Necessary.
That struggle is the learning. The clot is the point.
AI doesn't just answer your questions.
It secretes something that stops the clot from forming.
The Compounding Nobody Talks About
It's not that AI gives you wrong answers.
It's that it gives you slightly wrong answers. Confidently. Repeatedly.
Imagine studying calculus where every formula is 3% off. Not wrong enough to fail. Not wrong enough to flag. Just... slightly off. You pass. You move on. You build on top of it.
Semester after semester.
Until one day you hit something hard and the foundation beneath you is just... 3 degrees off. And everything built on it. And you can't trace it back because it felt right the whole time.
You Already Know The Healthy Version
Use AI for things you know but don't want to retype. That's the nail gun for someone who already swings a hammer.
Use AI for things you've never touched but know exist — unknown knowns. You have enough foundation to smell when it's wrong.
But never blur the two in the same session without knowing which is which.
The moment you lose track — is AI saving me time, or is it teaching me right now? — that's when the anticoagulant is already in your blood.
The Closer
The leech won't empty you.
You'll still ship. Still have green squares. Still look productive.
But one day something will need to clot.
A production bug at 3 AM. A whiteboard with no internet. A junior dev looking at you waiting for an answer that isn't a prompt.
And your blood just... won't.
You didn't lose your intelligence.
You just let something make sure it never had to work hard enough to survive.
Top comments (1)
Wow, I love the comparison – very vivid and to the point! 100% agree! I noticed that I started doubting my own skills after relying on AI for some time. Now I'm trying to speak my own words, which may not be perfect, but at least mine, not generated 🙂