My Thoughts on AI Tools

I recently read a short post on “Why I stopped using AI code editors” and I just wanted to share some short thoughts on this topic as a student. First of all, I don’t want to come off as someone who is against AI tools at anymeans; however, I personally believe that relying on them hindered my ability to code and more importantly, learn.

First of all, I want to start off by saying that this article is written without the help of any LLM; I did not feed it into chatGPT for proof-reading, which is what I often find myself doing nowadays.

Honestly, it actually felt weird to not rely on a LLM to check my writing because I have become quite accustomed to it. It seems crazy that only a few years ago, we were able to write confidently without AI tools, but now - we can’t imagine life without them.

To get back into the concept of coding, I first started coding by learning Web Development through a free online curriculum called the Odin project.

Back then (even though it’s not too long ago) there were no LLM to ask questions if I was stuck doing an assignment or if I was confused with a concept. One of the things that the organizers recommended was to read the documentation, go on Stackoverflow, reddit, and ask in their Discord channel to discuss any confusions, which is exactly what I did.

Finding answers was a frustrating process but I think a lot of learning came out of that experience. Most of the technical skills and general knowledge that I have today about the web and programming in general, comes from the hours spent trying to find a solution that a random stranger posted 5 years ago on Stackoverflow.

Searching for answers from real people feels different compared to asking an LLM. More generally, the ability and experience of finding and exploring solutions for a new problem is what makes us unique but we have slowly been transfering that task to AI tools.

I still remember most things that I learned from doing my own little research until this day but struggle to remember the things I have learned recently.

I know this might be a bit of a stretch but as I learn more about reinforcement learning, I am reminded of how special we are in terms of our ability to adapt and solve new problems that we haven’t seen before.

Howevever, if we are outsourcing the answers to our questions to AI tools, I’m not sure if we are using our unique abilities to the fullest. I often wonder whether we actually think about a problem anymore or simply ask a LLM to explain it.

And I think talking and discussing about this is important because we’re still students. Our job is to learn new things and if AI tools are preventing us from learning, I’m not sure how much we are using it as a tool anymore.

But more importantly for me, it spoils the idea that brought me to engineering in the first place, which is that learning can be enjoyable. Obviously, learning is difficult. I’m not going to say that I enjoyed every course and did well on each and every one of them. Even the courses or subjects that I really love, are difficult and challenging.

But learning is supposed hard. That is what makes it worth it. Using AI tools can take away the difficult part of learning by spoonfeeding us a potential answer. It’s like doing practice questions with the solutions wide open. You feel like you know what you’re doing until you take the actual test.

For those who do any form of music, art, sport, or any technical skill, you would be familar how frustrating and difficult the first few weeks, months, or possibly years could be. However, for those who consistently practiced and became good at it, you would also know how satisfying it is to actually be good at it.

I personally don’t see studying or coding to be much different.

Yes, AI tools can make work quicker and more efficient but at what cost? Struggling and trying to figure out a problem can sometimes be the fun part of learning. Is speed really that important when we are learning new things?

I guess this doesn’t mean that I’m not going to use AI tools anymore. I don’t believe moving away from AI tools is anywhere near the future. We should definitely embrace that a lot is going to change in the future. But at the same time, the future of people blindly using AI tools without real learning looks quite grim to me.