1. It's making me impatient
We are designed to take the path of least resistance to save energy, time and overall effort. In most things in life this is fine. Except when it comes to programming, at least for me. I love my craft. I enjoy knowing more and understanding things at a deeper level. This often means spending time on a problem to understand what really causes it not getting an answer. The problems are a valuable part of programming. Knowing how to figure out why something breaks is as important as knowing why it happens. I've found that over the last few months I've become really impatient and I am happy to get an answer from the AI so that I can move on and make some "real" progress.
2. It's making me stupider
If I lack the patience to work through a problem, I'm loosing the ability to endure the frustration that comes with being stuck. Right around the corner there is an LLM that can just give you the answer so why spend time being frustrated and stuck when you can release yourself from this pain instantly. I'm a weak willed person. If there is a cookie in my fridge I'll eat it. Granted I wasn't very smart to begin with but I'd like to not get stupider.
3. Solving the wrong problems
The speed at which the AI writes code is phenomenal. There is a problem with this. You miss repeating patterns which programming is made for. Writing a different version of the same code is so much more easier than figuring out how something could be avoided altogether. It's faster for the LLM to spit out code than it is for you to think about the problem and see if it's even worth solving. Or if it was an upstream decision that you made that needs refactoring.
Overall the fear for most people including myself is that I'll be left behind if I don't use it. Unless the place that I'm left behind is the place I enjoy being. So I've removed all the extensions, logged myself out of Cluade (company account, so I'll need to request a new login link, not worth the effort :D). Initially I'm going to feel slower, it's something I have to come to terms with. I'm going to spend the next few months doing things the old school way, reading the docs and trying to figure out why things go wrong. Let's see how long I can keep this up. After months of depending on an AI for all the answers this is going to be hard. I think it's the right decision for me.