This is more of self reflection than some sort of an ai generate slop that i wish to shove it on to your face, Less than 5% of my friend circle has enough patient’s to actually read an any article let alone debate or discuss on the topics, im trying to get into that learned circle because they seems to have more clarity on topics, thankfully at work i was blessed with a friend who shared and discuess on the things he shares, i mostly defend the values/lessons/reflections shared by the articles (Thanks aditya!) One such article is the reason for this reflective thougts.

before we go further i humbly request you to read this article, don’t stop reading it after the first few paragraph(Again, Thanks Aditya), keep reading till the end there are twists and turns so please try to read it and get back here on this reflection journey.

Recently, a colleague shared an article with me titled “You Don’t Have To” by Scott Smitelli. I highly recommend reading it. It really makes you think about how we might slowly be losing our edge due to the heavy use of Large Language Models (LLMs), like how i stoped memorizing phone numbers coz its available on my phone book except mine ;0 and find it hard to calculate in head with large numbers continuesly like the guy in typical village shop guy does quickly.

With ai there are so many techniques i still experiment with and i continiously work on. It’s great to use AI to brainstorm, validate, or debate your thoughts, but don’t let it run the show for you. If you do, you’ll slowly vanish into the background.

Reading this article—and later debating it with my manager—sent me down a rabbit hole of self-reflection. It sparked a deep, sometimes controversial, conversation between us. Is AI destroying the art of coding? Or is it simply the next step in our evolution? After stepping back to clear my thoughts, here are my reflections on where I stand with AI tools today.

The “Zero to One” Myth

There’s a romanticized idea in our industry that we are still building things “from zero.” The truth is, that hasn’t been true for years. We went from machine code, to assembly, to C, to Java, and Kotlin. Today, 95% of developers rely heavily on layers of abstractions like frameworks, APIs, and libraries that they didn’t build and often don’t fully understand under the hood.

AI isn’t some alien invasion; it is merely the newest layer of abstraction in this ongoing shift.

Also, AI isn’t a “magic button.” Unless you are simply cloning a well-documented repository, AI cannot build a full-fledged, custom solution from start to finish with a single prompt. Real engineering still needs architecture, logic, and deep orchestration—all of which must come from a human.

Value over “The Craft”

Many developers treat coding as an art form. They pride themselves on writing the perfect, zero-dependency code. But let’s be practical: in a professional setting, we aren’t here just to write poetry in code. We are here to solve problems, deliver value to our clients, and ultimately earn a living.

All I care about are the humans using the tools I build. The exact ingredients or the “purity” of the code doesn’t matter nearly as much as the end-user’s experience. Getting too caught up in digging through abstractions or coding like a purist feels unnecessary if it stands in the way of delivering a working, valuable product.

The Danger of “AI Slop”

That being said, my manager raised a very valid point: the sheer ease of generating content with AI easily leads to garbage. Generative AI can produce 10x more content in a single day than humans have produced in a lifetime. When people generate and publish content without any personal input, refinement, or real intent, we get what he accurately called “AI slop.”

I agree completely. Outputting anything publicly without real personal meaning—just creating for the sake of creating without adding value—is wrong. It pollutes the internet and human conversations. The tool is only as good as the intent behind it.

The Axe and the Chainsaw

Think of AI as an electric chainsaw, and traditional coding as an axe (an example from the article shared above).

Knowing how to use an axe remains extremely important even when a chainsaw is available. The chainsaw can break or fail. More importantly, a lumberjack who has cut down trees with an axe a thousand times knows exactly how to angle the cut so the tree falls right where he wants it to.

Using AI tools doesn’t turn your brain to mush, provided you actually understand the changes it makes to your creation. Let me be real here THIS IS EXTREMLU HARD! That’s actually why I’m thankful for Claude’s token limitations sometimes. It forces me to stay involved. AI shifts your role from pure execution to orchestration. You cannot outsource your JUDGEMENT, EXPERIENCE, or PERSONALITY. If you rely entirely on AI without applying these human traits, the quality of your work will drop, and you will eventually become redundant.

An Equalizer for Communication

Beyond just writing code, AI is an incredible equalizer for communication. Not everyone is a natural wordsmith. For those of us who are less vocal or struggle to find the right phrasing, AI is a tool that helps us communicate our technical intent clearly. It’s not about faking a voice; it’s about polishing it. It helps take the raw intent inside my head and words it rightly for the world to understand, let me say its not easy to get it the way we have in mind there are limitations like token limit, it tries to end it very quickly by saying the crux of things or to draggy but never, or almost never the right proprotion.

Wielding the Future

My philosophy in this rapidly changing landscape is simple:

  • When we only had machine code, we coded in assembly.
  • When we got high-level languages like Java and Kotlin, we used them.
  • Now we have AI, and we should use it extensively.
  • If AI becomes inaccessible or too expensive tomorrow, we simply go back to coding in Kotlin. We should be prepared for that.

To make sure I’m prepared, I’ve actually started “AI fasting.” As silly as it might sound, taking a break from AI helps me make sure I can still build or think differently without these tools. I’m not sure how every employer feels about this, but for me, spending three days coding without AI is a healthy practice. If feature demands increase, I might have to tweak this schedule, but I try not to be too rigid about it, so far looks like we are going all in this new era.

Recently, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a reel where a developer made a great point. He said: “Before AI, you delivered a project in a week. Now, even with AI, it still takes a week—why is that?” His answer was that while AI generates code quickly, fixing the bugs or tweeking the code it creates and also reviewing it has become extremely harder.

That really stood out to me. I still have some lingering doubts about all of this, but what matters most is finding the right balance,keeping it away is not going to help me, im going to embrance it tight find its strenth and weekness and use it to my advantage.

I don’t wish to nitpick on philosophies people have, that have no real meaning to the end user. Coding like a “caveman” shouldn’t be a badge of honor. Utilizing tools like MCP, plugins, and advanced prompting is how we stay forward-thinking and effective in this day and age, especially in the phase we are moving in right now.

Ultimately, machines should take the drudgery out of life. AI brings that promise to our doorsteps. It’s up to us to embrace it, orchestrate it responsibly, and ensure that we are using it to add real value, rather than just contributing to the noise of confusions around.

I wrote this just to clear some thoughts in my head regarding the excesive ai tool usage, i myself fell into this trap of vibe working for a short period of time, i regret it coz i lost the chance to learn what happend in that part of the code, i thought skipping that was okey but that above article opens by eyes. This is also a phase of learning but don’t ever do that on work/personal projects that you truly care, thats a big no no, Blinde Vibecoding is okey for prototying some personal productivity tools, features and such silly thing never on any real product that you truely care.