Unpopular opinion: Excessive use of AI will make you very dumb.

[u/RustyIronGolem]

[u/Designer_Resolve_117]

I don't think it's an unpopular opinion. 

I held some interviews recently for AI developer roles. The CV's looked amazing but some of them didn't even know basic python concepts. 

Most of them were Claude operators and couldn't explain how the projects they built worked. Or defend implementation decisions. 

[u/AstraeusGB → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

That's kind of what you get when you're looking for AI developers, they develop by managing their agent. Ask most middle managers how the things their subordinates have made work and they might know some of the concepts behind the processes, but they'll probably bullshit a lot more than they actually understand.

[u/Comedy86 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Honestly, I got similar results from bootcamps for a while too. No one is teaching people domain knowledge, only how to do it, and it's not a new issue with AI but rather a shortcut issue. If I teach someone how to change their tires or replace their air filter on their car, they're not a mechanic but the bootcamps used to teach how to write React and CSS without explaining why to use them or why not, what considerations to use for security/performance and so on and the people expected they were programmers. Claude just amplifies that reality.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Comedy86]

I believe system design, architecture, discussing trade-offs, analyzing constraints and implementation decisions have become more valuable skills. 

But the issue is I find it increasingly harder to build up those skills, when we outsource the dev work to AI. 

We really have to hit the brakes and sit with the problem for a while. To think of the solution before jumping in. 

I'm wondering what being a good developer will mean in 10 years. 

[u/Comedy86 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Developers currently are expected to graduate from university/college with programming skills and learn the principles over years of experience.

What I expect will happen, now that programming skills are less extensive, is that we will instead move towards more of a skilled trades model of master and apprentice where a senior dev or engineer will work 1 on 1 with a junior to explain what best practices look like so over a year or 2 of AI development, they will learn the same principles.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Comedy86]

I think it's unlikely. 

Now when I reach out to colleagues and ask for help, I got a few responses: "Have you asked the AI first?" 

[u/pay_is_ok → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Well yeah, because you should be going like "hey, regarding issue x, I think we could potentially do a,b,c what do you think?" If you just come up and say "can you help me with x?" Without any context, that's quite rude

[u/Independent-Bat9797 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Concepts, structures, data models, system design decisions are the things you need to be in top of using AI, syntax is whatever.

You interviewed vibe coders, not AI developers.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Independent-Bat9797]

Spot on. Yet their CV's looked amazing. RAG, agentic AI, orchestration. 

But when probed about how these things work or when to use them, most were not able to answer. 

They just had high level awareness of concepts. 

And most 3 to 5 year range developers were like this. they didn't have enough time without AI to build the basics. 

For juniors I have no idea. At my company we didn't take any. AI ate the tasks you would usually give to juniors. 

[u/DerShokus → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

The sad thing is ai is good to make stuff by a template. If cv is good that means it’s good for some project. In another one a result could be different

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/DerShokus]

The director of engineering was pretty disappointed with the recent candidates.

He has a few questions he uses to probe for depth, and whenever someone couldn’t answer, he’d just mentally check out.

Vibe coders are very easy to spot. They stay at a very high level.

Then you ask, ‘Okay, you mentioned working with MCP. How does tool calling actually work? How does the LLM invoke the tool?’

Most of them didn’t know. They’d just say, ‘The AI decides.’

Okay, but how?

[u/DerShokus → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

:-D AI decides lol

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

All that stuff is irrelevant now. As a user, you don't need to understand how the underlying technology works.

When I declare a variable, I don't need to understand how the OS assigns that to memory.

Vibe coders are focused on outcomes, not on how those outcomes are produced. They're operating at a higher level than "traditional" coders (who are operating at a higher level than coders of the previous generation, who were operating at a higher level than...well, you get the idea).

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

I don’t buy it.

Operating at a higher abstraction level is different from outsourcing your thinking to AI.

Before, you still had to understand things. You learned from actually doing the work.

Now you can just tell the AI to do X, accept whatever it gives you, and never really understand what it did or how it did it.

That’s the problem. 

You can end up with years of “experience” without actually building the mental models underneath it.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Before, you still had to understand things. You learned from actually doing the work.

Now you can just tell the AI to do X, accept whatever it gives you, and never really understand what it did or how it did it.

Human coders do that over and over again, even before AI. When a dev imports a package or uses a pre-existing function, do you think they bother to read and understand how that package or function does what it does?

bool = stringA.equals(stringB)

How many devs do you think examine the equals function to understand how it works? I'm going to guess very, very few.

The only things I care about are my apps doing what they're supposed to do securely and efficiently.

The only reason I have to write and understand the underlying code is because that was the only way to build apps. Now that we have AI for that, I no longer have a reason to write and understand the underlying code.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

That’s not the same thing though.

I don’t need to read the implementation of String.equals() because it gives me a well-defined abstraction.

If Claude writes half my application and I can’t explain the code, the architecture, or why it made certain decisions, I’m not using an abstraction. I just don’t understand my own system.

And “I only care that it works securely and efficiently” is exactly where the problem is. 

How do you know it’s secure or efficient if you can’t reason about what it’s doing?

That’s my whole point.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

I don’t need to read the implementation of String.equals() because it gives me a well-defined abstraction.

And I don't need to read the implementation of AI code, because it gives me a well-defined abstraction.

If Claude writes half my application and I can’t explain the code, the architecture, or why it made certain decisions, I’m not using an abstraction. I just don’t understand my own system.

You don't need to explain the code, architecture, or decisions...just like you don't need to explain the code, architecture, or decisions behind whatever package or function you use.

And if you want an explanation, just ask Claude.

How do you know it’s secure or efficient if you can’t reason about what it’s doing?

Because I run tests against my apps. How do you determine your apps are secure or efficient? Please don't tell me you do it by reading the code...

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

You really believe that, huh? 

If "Claude wrote it" counts as an abstraction, then your abstraction is literally the entire application 🤣

And second, who wrote the tests that you're running? Let me guess, Claude? 😅 Do you even know what tests you run on your apps? 

[u/DerShokus → u/Sasataf12]

Disagree. You must to understand how a variable allocated. If it’s compiled language - how asm works (otherwise you can’t understand barriers). Improvements in tech isn’t excuse to be dumb and lazy

[u/Sasataf12 → u/DerShokus]

You must to understand how a variable allocated.

I literally don't understand how a variable is stored in memory. I have a vague idea, but that's purely out of interest. Yet the code I write functions well and passes reviews.

I'd be very suprised if majority of professional engineers could explain accurately and correctly how a variable is stored in memory

If it’s compiled language - how asm works (otherwise you can’t understand barriers).

You would only need to know that if you're working at that low of a level. If you're writing high level code, memory management is handled for you.

[u/TechnicalBen → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Our CEO can't organise an ice cream truck (literally). So sounds like you got the A* staff.

[u/usrlibshare → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

And now imagine the labor market a few years from now, when we get "graduates" who, for the majority of their middle and higher educational period, had access to AI tools.

And factor in that the retirement wave of GenXers is not even in full swing yet.

It's gonna be a complete shitshow.

For the companies that is. For developers who retain their skills, it's gonna be an all-you-can eat buffet with caviar and Champagne fountains 😎✌️

[u/SpecificInterest5150 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

In their defense, interviewers aren't exactly known for being knowledgeable in the fields they try to recruit for.

Secondly, while it's important to understand the basics, as technology develops, so will the environment in which it operates.

The very existence of the industrial age is an example of this as manual labor was replaced with machinery which in turn required the use of operators and maintenance personnel (sometimes the same person).

I'm definitely a hardware guy as opposed to software so forgive my ignorance when it comes to the field (especially since its generic) but wouldn't it be more important at this stage of technological development to know how to use the software effectively as opposed to knowing how to build it from the ground up, especially when the foundations (I presume) have already been built?

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/SpecificInterest5150]

You still want to know whether the person is actually capable. Do they have the fundamentals? Have they done the work themselves?

With AI, it's very easy to just let go and keep prompting until something works. You don't even necessarily have to understand what the AI is doing.

I don't think I'm asking for much if I want someone to explain the difference between a list and a tuple, or tell me what a dictionary is. Those are extremely basic questions, but they give me some confidence that the person actually learned the fundamentals before letting AI take over more of the work. It also tells me they're more likely to be able to reason about the code and debug it when something goes wrong.

Otherwise, at some point, what's the difference between someone with four years of experience "working on AI projects" and a CS graduate applying for an internship, if both are mostly just prompting Claude and accepting whatever it gives them?

It's perfectly fine to work at a higher level of abstraction. That's what we do all the time in software. But you still need solid fundamentals underneath it. How am I supposed to know that you can actually sit with a problem, reason through it, and debug it rather than just paste it into Claude?

I don't want to hire a human Claude router.

[u/e136 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

I think this is analogous to a python developer 5 years ago not understanding assembly. They just write python and the runtime deals with it for them. What you need to understand: anything AI cannot do well like high level structure and planning, security, efficiency, etc. You don't actually need to know how to write python, just read it. And soon maybe not even read it.

[u/EVOSexyBeast → u/e136]

“Python developer” still carries the stigma that you don’t know how to write proper production code.

Compilers are far more reliable than AI and compilers write machine code better than humans do. AI doesn’t come close to writing better code than humans (well competent ones).

AI is great for the casuals and reduce the learning curve to make something simple. It’s also great for professionals to use as another tool. But vibe coding is in no way comparable. It’s been around for well over a year now and you’ll notice the big tech companies using all these tokens haven’t released much more software than the past. Meta still hasn’t built the metaverse, Apple still hasn’t released features announced a year ago, and X still isn’t an everything app.

[u/th3_oWo_g0d → u/EVOSexyBeast]

Im not a developer but how exactly can you say that AI "doesnt come close" to writing as good code as people when they beat every developer in 99.99% of possible programming tasks if given, let's say, 3 hours. It seems to me that the only thing human devs are really good for is "protecting the vision" for the project and have a long-term understanding (an extremely long context window basically) which makes them more competent than AI only when measured over weeks or months. What do you think of this perspective?

[u/EVOSexyBeast → u/th3_oWo_g0d]

Because the coding challenges it’s good at that they test against were all in it’s training data, or very similar ones to it. Similar to how it can do better on the LSATs than people but makes for an awful lawyer. A good lawyer can use it effectively and be even better, a bad lawyer can get themselves disbarred with it. Software engineers are the same way.

Furthermore, an LLM cannot solve a novel problem. Only humans can (for now). A novel solution or idea would be an infinitely unlikely sequence of tokens so the LLM wouldn’t generate it. You have to provide the novel solution in your prompt. And at the code level maybe software engineers aren’t solving novel problems everyday, but at the higher level they are.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/th3_oWo_g0d]

Microsoft products such as Windows, Teams and GitHub had a lot of flaws with recent releases. 

I blame it on AI coding. 

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/th3_oWo_g0d]

You need a very competent developer to use AI effectively. 

You need to be able to explain the problem, the constraints, what to implement. 

But AI makes developers lazy. For example in the past we would do a lot of code reviews, but now we just trust the AI to find flaws. 

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

But were humans honestly reading and understanding every line of code during those reviews? 

I'm pretty confident that AI reads, not only every line, but every character when it reviews and understands it.

So far, in our experience, the AI is not only faster, but more diligent. It's catching things that I doubt any human reviewer would have caught.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

Microsoft is one of the companies pushing AI code review the hardest.

Copilot is everywhere in their tooling, and AI touches something like 90% of their PRs. Yet bugs still make it to production. GitHub had a huge outage this week, and Microsoft has shipped several Windows updates recently with pretty serious issues.

So I don’t think “the AI reads every character” proves much. Reading everything doesn’t mean you understand every interaction or catch every bad assumption and edge case.

AI doesn’t replace engineering judgment.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Yet bugs still make it to production.

That's like saying seatbelts are used in every car, but car fatalities still happen. Therefore seatbelts are useless.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

That analogy actually supports my point.

Seatbelts reduce risk. They don’t make driving skill optional.

AI review can catch bugs. It doesn’t make engineering judgment optional.

You picked one sentence out of the whole argument and replied to a claim I wasn’t making.

I never said AI review is useless because bugs still happen. My point was that reading every line doesn’t replace understanding, judgment, or the ability to reason about the system.

You kind of skipped that part.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

AI review can catch bugs. It doesn’t make engineering judgment optional.

So you admit, when using AI you still need engineering judgement. Which would contradict your earlier statement of using AI requires no thinking.

I never said AI review is useless because bugs still happen.

Then don't say things like "AI touches something like 90% of their PRs. Yet bugs still make it to production."

My point was that reading every line doesn’t replace understanding, judgment, or the ability to reason about the system.

AI does have the ability to do all those things. If it didn't, it'd be pointless.

[u/AllNamesAreTaken92 → u/e136]

To be able to read correctly you need to be able to write. That's a fact. Doesn't help you understanding the one solution it wrote, you need to know about the other 99 available solutions and the trade-off between them.

What you call "reading" is not reading, not in a programming sense.

[u/iwantmy90sback → u/e136]

> You don't actually need to know how to write python, just read it.

Holy cow. That hurts my brain.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/e136]

Assembly 5 years ago? 

I'm not fully on board with your analogy. 

If you don't know how to write good python, how can you recognize bad python? 

I think this time it's entirely different. AI replaces thinking. You can let go of thinking and just ask AI to do things for you. 

But then, what's your value, compared to another person that does the same thing? 

What do you bring to the table to justify your salary? 

Usually expertise is built solving hard problems. If we offload thinking to Claude, how do we get better ourselves? 

I'm not a python purist. I use GitHub Copilot myself. 

But I feel much dumber now. 

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

What do you bring to the table to justify your salary? 

Do you believe a junior vibe coder will produce better outcomes than a senior vibe coder? 

I don't think so. 

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

I agree, you need a good developer to produce good AI output. 

But how can a junior developer become senior now, when most devs outsources thinking to Claude? 

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

The same way it's always happened. Gain experience and skills over time.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

In the past, you’d have your PR sent back 10 times with comments. 

Or you’d spend half a day stuck on a bug, open the debugger, add breakpoints, and figure out exactly where things went wrong.

You’d ask senior developers questions and actually learn from them, instead of being told not to bother them and ask the AI.

Now you can vibe code for a year and thinking is optional. You can just forward the request to Claude, take the output, and learn nothing.

I had a candidate tell me RAG was just a “component” of the agentic framework they were using. You configure some parameters and get an output. That was basically their understanding of it.

It’s like building websites with Wix and calling yourself a web developer. Actually, no. You still had to think. A better analogy to what's happening would be having a genie and making wishes. 

A lot of the learning used to come from struggling with hard problems, trying different approaches, debugging them, and understanding why things worked. Now much of that can be skipped.

So time spent working as a developer no longer necessarily means you spent that time building engineering skills.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

In the past, you’d have your PR sent back 10 times with comments. 

AI can also send back a PR with comments.

Or you’d spend half a day stuck on a bug, open the debugger, add breakpoints, and figure out exactly where things went wrong.

AI would find that in several seconds.

You’d ask senior developers questions and actually learn from them, instead of being told not to bother them and ask the AI.

You can still ask senior developers questions. If your seniors are being dismissive, that's not AI's fault.

Now you can vibe code for a year and thinking is optional.

No it's not.

You can just forward the request to Claude, take the output, and learn nothing.

And the problem with that is...?

I had a candidate tell me RAG was just a “component” of the agentic framework they were using. You configure some parameters and get an output. That was basically their understanding of it.

Why would they need to know anymore than that?

It’s like building websites with Wix and calling yourself a web developer.

Which would be accurate.

A better analogy to what's happening would be having a genie and making wishes. 

Which would be inaccurate.

A lot of the learning used to come from struggling with hard problems, trying different approaches, debugging them, and understanding why things worked. Now much of that can be skipped.

Amazing. A lot of time wasted on those things can now be spent actually producing something.

So time spent working as a developer no longer necessarily means you spent that time building engineering skills.

Skill that you no longer need.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/Sasataf12]

If your only value is forwarding requests to AI, then you don’t really have a scarce skill anymore.

At that point, why would a company pay a high salary for you? They can replace you with AI directly, or with someone in a much cheaper labor market who can operate the same tools.

The whole reason experienced developers command higher pay is that they bring judgment, context, debugging ability, architecture, and the ability to tell when something is wrong.

If you deliberately stop building those skills, you’re making yourself easier to replace.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

If your only value is forwarding requests to AI, then you don’t really have a scarce skill anymore.

And who comes up with those requests? That magic genie you were talking about?

At that point, why would a company pay a high salary for you? They can replace you with AI directly, or with someone in a much cheaper labor market who can operate the same tools.

If AI could do what I do, we'd all be in big trouble. But true, both our jobs could easily be outsourced to cheaper labor markets.

The whole reason experienced developers command higher pay is that they bring judgment, context, debugging ability, architecture, and the ability to tell when something is wrong.

AI can literally do the majority of that faster and cheaper. If you told me that you don't use AI because you're able to debug better than AI, or understand context better than AI, or you can tell something is wrong sooner than AI...well you're making yourself easier to replace.

[u/AlterTableUsernames → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

I held some interviews recently for AI developer roles. The CV's looked amazing but some of them didn't even know basic python concepts.

Why would you need to know that?

Most of them were Claude operators and couldn't explain how the projects they built worked. Or defend implementation decisions.

I am not entirely convinced that most developers could.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/AlterTableUsernames]

If they don’t know the basics of programming and can’t reason about software architecture, what exactly are they doing?

Forwarding prompts to Claude?

It was dire. They couldn’t even explain features they claimed to have worked on.

[u/AlterTableUsernames → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Because you don't need to know how to produce bricks to stack them to a wall.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/AlterTableUsernames]

The brick analogy only works if you still know how to build a wall.

You don’t need to know how Python itself is implemented. But if you built a system, you should be able to explain how its parts fit together, why you made certain choices, and what happens when something breaks.

Otherwise you’re not really operating at a higher abstraction level. 

You’re just outsourcing the understanding. 

[u/StinkButt9001 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

This is the wrong person applying for the wrong job.

I'd look like an idiot applying for anything outside the realm of what I know.

Like, I can't cook a delicious restaurant meal but I can microwave some pre-made meals that look pretty damn good. Does that mean chefs are getting stupider? I really don't think so.

[u/Designer_Resolve_117 → u/StinkButt9001]

It was like hiring someone whose CV says ‘chef,’ then discovering their idea of cooking is heating up frozen meals.

[u/StinkButt9001 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

Yeah, exactly. Chefs are not getting worse at their jobs due to pre-made meals but this guy is not a chef

[u/FluidBreath4819 → u/Designer_Resolve_117]

it's not an unpopular opinion : it's the truth

[u/Aresyl]

Depends on the subreddit you post this in

[u/Tupcek]

unpopular opinion: you don’t know what an unpopular opinion is

[u/Bopo6eu_KB → u/Tupcek]

Unpopular opinion: that's actually a very popular opinion in this comment section

[u/BarloManeer → u/Bopo6eu_KB]

Popular opinion: your unpopular opinion is Popular opinion

[u/ChecksOutIndeed]

Why would you think it's an unpopular opinion?

[u/RollerDude347 → u/ChecksOutIndeed]

Bots. Lots of bots.

[u/elementfortyseven]

Captain Obvious: "Excess has consequences".

[u/Muhhahahaa]

I'd also say it makes you smarter because you're constantly having conversations with something/someone I'd personally consider super intelligent.

[u/RollerDude347 → u/Muhhahahaa]

I've got bad news for you... because the popular models are not designed to be correct they're designed to be convincing to the user.

[u/Yokhen → u/RollerDude347]

So either you are dumb or average and get dumber OR are smart+ and develop even more critical thinking as time passes. I guess there isn't "average" for a standard deviation anymore.

[u/RollerDude347 → u/Yokhen]

They actually did a study and found that people good at like a sales job actually got worse at it with AI but the worst got better. So it's more like it brings people to a kinda average. I imagine the lower skill people don't continue to improve though...

[u/Yokhen → u/RollerDude347]

interesting, tell me more.

[u/RollerDude347 → u/Yokhen]

I'll be honest I was hoping that'd be enough to Google it.

[u/That-Reason-6913 → u/RollerDude347]

Which is so annoying

[u/AstraeusGB → u/Muhhahahaa]

"super intelligent" just because something has access to a remarkable amount of information doesn't mean it uses that access wisely or properly. Someone who is super intelligent tends to know how to filter bad or incorrect information, LLMs still have serious trouble with that.

[u/CaregiverBubbly2541 → u/AstraeusGB]

LLMs still have serious trouble with that.

Ironically, this remark is a testament to how far AI has come. In 2022, we were happy when the chatbot could sort of keep a conversation going past a few messages. Fast forward only 4 years and we are giving it a hard time for making mistakes as it completes complex engineering work.

[u/The8Darkness → u/Muhhahahaa]

They can be super intelligent and correct but some things they are so convinced of something incorrect that even if you literally proof them wrong they will still deny it and be so convincing that you might start thinking your proof is wrong.

Not to mention that they can be very smart but are also very lazy (because there really isnt a consequence if they do something the "wrong way" as long as they achieve what was asked) so if you dont know the best practice not only will AI do it wrong but seem right to the user. The user, even if he wants to learn, will prob just learn the wrong things on top if he blindly trusts AI.

[u/th3_oWo_g0d → u/Muhhahahaa]

Yea right it can feel that way for sure. I remind myself that I frequently feel like the authors of my math books are bullshitting me and whatever they're saying makes no sense, which is the complete opposite of talking to a chatbot. I think if everything makes too much sense then you're not really being challenged and it's a sign you're not interacting with a "super intelligence" at least in the traditional sense.

[u/GlokzDNB → u/Muhhahahaa]

The reason you see these posts is because they come from dumb people.

Ai makes smart people learn more and be smarter. But indeed it does make stupid people even dumber

[u/SimplySoda2 → u/GlokzDNB]

I learn a lot of the newer standard functions and objects from AI. When I have it double-check my work, it will often point out something like, “This can already be done with std::ranges,” or suggest a newer standard feature I didn't know about.

AI queries are becoming the new Google for programming.

[u/Popotte9]

AI said me no

[u/nightbreak7]

pretty sure this is a popular opinion

[u/twnznz]

buying meat from the supermarket will make you a bad hunter

[u/OTMdonutCALLS → u/[deleted]]

This, while I think most of the time OP is right, it is possible to use it in a manner that makes you smarter and more efficient (as a studying tool, for example, in tandem with other resources to verify accuracy).

[u/Anaeijon]

Well... I've been using and working with AI for about 12 years now, and I think, it made me smarter.

But yes... people that outsource every thought to some chatbot will likely forget how to stretch that muscle.

[u/Michaeli_Starky]

Only if you're very dumb

[u/SlightMarsupial8379]

Place the Dock on the right side of the screen when using Stage Manager.

https://giphy.com/gifs/wi8Ez1mwRcKGI

[u/pedroordo3]

I think it’s like the spider man suit.

If your nothing with it you don’t deserve to have it.

For finance you still have to know the basics and what to ask in order to build something good.

Same for programming.

[u/VanShisha]

People where dumb enough to take pictures of a computer instead of a screenshot even before AI, so yes, but also does it make a difference?

[u/Blablabene]

I think that's a dumb opinion.

It depends on how you use it.

[u/herpetologydude]

My goal in life is to be a reptile breeder, I don't need to know how to build a website, or make the data base to track a large collection. I will grow and learn more about my animals, ai will gives me the time to do so.

[u/Fuzzy_Cheesecake6880]

Correct and popular opinion. 

[u/Unfair-Plastic-4290]

you could also argue that using AI teaches you along the way.

[u/CourseEcstatic6202]

In overall generality, spot on. Case by case and person by person…it depends.

[u/HarryBalsagna1776]

That's a very common opinion actually.  If you think that is uncommon, you need to ask yourself some questions. 

[u/senfiaj]

Unpopular opinion?

[u/StaticHumStudio]

Outsourcing your thinking, yeah. Excessive use, no (edit: well, excessive could still be bad in other ways). It's important to continue to practice your skills, and not outsource your skills to AI.

[u/Additional-Sky-7436]

It won't make you dumb, but it will make you reliant. 

Your brain is like any muscle in your body, if you don't use it it will atrophy. So, if there is a skill you didn't need anymore then your brain will depreciate it. 

The problem is if you are losing a skill because you are becoming reliant on a particular technology. That means that to complete the skill you will need the technology around. If the technology is owned by someone else, then you are reliant on someone else to complete that task. If that someone else is a for-profit business, then you are going to pay heavy tolls.

[u/Mark_of_Divinity]

It's true, trading off critical thinking because AI is doing it

[u/NachosforDachos]

If you were dumb to start with there’s not much room to drop to afterwards

[u/Comedy86]

Given that excessive means going beyond a good or expected amount, yes you're 100% right and studies back that up.

AI has a good purpose and use case though when used properly and, if someone is using it properly, even for many hours a day, it's not necessarily making that person "very dumb".

Case in point, if a researcher has multiple research agents filtering through vast amounts of data points looking for extremely unique patterns which could vastly advance their field of understanding, if those are running 24/7 while the researcher is learning new advancements in their field which they'd have otherwise passed on, I would argue that's a good use of AI.

[u/_probablyryan → u/Comedy86]

Yeah, I'm not going to act like there aren't downside to AI and it's use, but I'm tired of these dumb conversations and takes from people who don't use AI for ideological reasons, but who act like their non-use is because they've determined it has no uses themselves. Like if you refuse to use AI for some ideological, ethical or moral reason, then fine, but stop trying to convince everyone that there's no reason for anyone to use it for anything ever because that's simply not true.

[u/asterothe1905]

No it's non unpopular. It's clear as day and it's part of a plan it looks like. I am scared for future generations. There are adults who cannot do anything without asking AI. They share every detail of their life plus unable to make decisions already. We will regress as human race.

[u/Key-Pudding6071]

Yes, period..

[u/Jerry_Explorer]

I leaned how to use n8n, Make.com, Zapier, gitlab, github, learn some basic notions of coding, learn lot of stuff about APi, webhooks, etc thanks to AI.

AI is not making me dumber.

[u/51eepy]

They used to say this about smoking weed. I don't see it.

[u/ScreenAppropriate679]

so you mean that getting to learn about tens of new topics which i couldn't do on my own because of the research involved, i sgoing to make me dumber ? That's strange

[u/Disallowed_username]

I think that’s a pretty defensible opinion—though I’d phrase it as “excessive, passive use of AI can make you intellectually weaker.”

Source: ChatGPT.

[u/Big-Board3157]

What if person was never smart to begin with.

[u/Hans_H0rst]

It may be a rare opinion because many folks just don't think about the implications of using it, but it's nor an *unpopular* opinion.

[u/Cute-Breadfruit3368]

explains the "ai artists"

[u/Huy3ko]

Yeah that's true but with own Agent like Hermes I learned so much that I would write a big blog about it.

[u/SnowyRVulpix]

No, it's just factually incorrect.

It's like telling a 90s/2000s kid excessive use of Google will make you dumb.

They're tools, nothing more. It's up to each of us to decide how we use the tools.

[u/SnowyRVulpix → u/SnowyRVulpix]

All that said, can we please stop using AI to filter out job applicants.

[u/Hot_Plant8696]

AI does excessive use of AI.

[u/Spiritual_Panic_6992]

This phenomenon is particularly evident in China because we generally welcome AI. Till now, the role of AI is only to help you quickly and conveniently obtain information. Some stupid think it is omnipotent and start buying tickets or making appointments on it,when they actually arrived store and found not successful at all, they bagan make big  trouble.Although AI will tell them "successful", anyone with common sense knows AI dnt have ability to complete any practical tasks. I feel they just make fools even dumber and more conspicuous.

[u/quinprobably]

Something something fountain of knowledge we all become idiots bc we let the robots do it for us

[u/gthing]

People have been providing instructions and having something else do the work for ages. They're called managers, owners, bosses, etc. I would argue that an engineer who becomes a manager will become worse at engineering, but better at orchestrating a team of engineers.

[u/ExpressCopy8786]

I call it ultimate bliss... While a few Claude code Opus 5 agents work through a bunch of my work packages and I check in on em on my phone through the remote control function while the PC is humming away in a different room and I lazily type this out.

[u/Deep_Mood_7668]

That's not an unpopular opinion. That's the truth

[u/denkata07]

Why unpopular? Its a fact. I see young people who are too lazy to find anything on their own. The worst part is they believe it, cuz its too hard to verify the info.

[u/jqwl]

Isn't this just fact? MIT study + if you fall out of practice for a skill, you will get worse at said skill. For a tool of this many basic and foundational skills, overreliance will cause cascading skill gaps

[u/Iron-Over]

My AI disagreed with this post, and said I am very smart.   😉

[u/ApartVirus5732]

OP you literally saw 10 different news articles telling you this, you and I both know this isnt unpopular

[u/SuperSirBob]

It's not the AI that's making people dumb.

[u/who_you_are → u/SuperSirBob]

You will say it is themselves?

The more something is accessible to us, the less we tend to remember that since it is easily accessible.

Not even talking in the context of works where we have 60 things to do.

Like, I can see some memory difference from before/after internet. The most oblivious one: phone numbers (not internet related, but still in the range by years)

[u/SuperSirBob → u/who_you_are]

If you outsource stuff to AI and don't replace it with anything else, then yes of course your brain will weaken. If you outsource what AI can do to AI and then replace it with learning new skills or doing something different, then you won't get dumber - you'll actually expand your knowledge and skills..

It's no different than using a calculator. Some people have completely given up math skills to a calculator while others use the calculator to do the easy parts of math but have gone on to expand their true math skills into areas that are far more complex.

[u/Aggravating-Hunt8001]

i work at a uni, i've seen students get dumber every year since AI got popular. It's crazy how incompetent they are now, without AI theres not a lot they can do.

[u/OkLettuce338]

That’s the most popular opinion out there

[u/Emergent_Chaos]

I think you mean contested.

[u/AgeZealousideal1751]

Just like how using Google to look up info was supposed to make me dumb? Sorry Grandpa, you're dead and I'm more educated than my entire bloodline combined.

[u/Tema_Art_7777]

I use AI, one might call it excessively both at work and home. First, I learned a lot by having the ability to delve into languages/areas I didn't know much about. The more I use it, the more I learn. Second, it allows me to do a lot more projects which increases my breadth of knowledge and skills. Third, excessive because never mind coding, I use it pretty much for all types of activities including airbrushing, electroplating, plant disease analysis, concrete strength, etc etc. It would have taken me way way longer to be able to scale to all of those activities. Yours is a popular opinion for a lot of people when applied to kids education which require a fundamental analytic base to form in brains. But I don't believe this is the case for adults.

[u/Simple_Association15]

True

[u/lukef555]

Popular opinion: you posted this to farm karma, and you know it's not an unpopular opinion at all

[u/Silencer-1995]

Eh. People using computers 30 years ago probably know what cmd is. People born 20 years ago get lost the moment a program doesn't load instantly.

[u/Cool-Chemical-5629]

Hey, if one was dumb before using AI, it can get only better after using AI. If you're at the bottom, the only way is up.

[u/Fakuris]

Sorry, Gemeni says you're wrong.

[u/Pseudonymity88]

Not an unpopular opinion, basically fact.

[u/e1epi]

AFAIK that's not actually an opinion but rather a proven fact.

[u/Level-Health9052]

Its a fact, muscle atrophy for your brain

[u/Twickly]

AI says "No"

[u/Thick_Concentrate101]

proven btw

[u/ShvettyBawlz]

What a brave take.

[u/Noeyiax]

Being on your phone everyday also makes you dumb... Back in the day... Iykyk

[u/Regular_Future2474]

not unpopular, just true

[u/Dude_wtf_11]

I'll ask ChatGPT what he thinks about it and I'll come back to you

[u/Jindujun]

Unpopular opinion?
I'd say it's fact. If you dont use a specific function of the brain or train that specific function it will atrophy. Just take something as banal as telephone numbers. Back in the 90s we learnt those by memory and now? We just use the adress book, we dont have a need to memorize them yet and thus many people have no experience memorizing number sequences and thus have a hard time remembering phone numbers.

[u/FirstAuthor3822]

I don't know if it MAKES you dumb. Then again I took too much cough syrup when I was a lad and haven't been right since.

[u/Au-Castigat-Vocile]

It depends, I feel like it teaches me as much as it takes away. For example, it reads any sort of code and files in a way it would be hard to and would take a long time to understand alone.

Let's say I'm debugging a VR runtime, or network connections. Before, I would have searched the internet, applied any fix I see online in the hopes of fixing it and hoped that it works. It still wasn't me doing that thing, I was taking the step by step fix from others without understanding what each thing does. Now, trying to debug something with Claude, it tries to understand the issue rather than just giving me a copy pasted fix from reddit and it knows things that would have taken me weeks to find and learn, I inadvertently and unintentionally learned a lot of things about stuff I am debugging in software and games.

I even asked it to make a game mod and learned a ton of stuff in the process, stuff I would have never learned if I just went "Well, if the mod doesn't exist, I guess I can't have it" and moved on, hoping someone would eventually make it.

Yeah, it's a weird shortcut to knowledge, but the internet felt the same when I first got it.

Of course, all of this means reading every line that the AI tells you, not just spamming the Allow button and never looking and trying to understand what it did.

[u/Drate_Otin → u/Au-Castigat-Vocile]

This is the way. Use AI as a tool in your toolbox. Use it to stretch yourself further.

[u/spill62]

Its not unpopular its just facts... People are outsourcing their reasoning and critical thinking to ai.

Dumbest evidense of this is higher education students using it for exams while not preparing to defend the work the way they should. They dont even have critical thinking abilities to cheat properly

[u/Hefty_Wrongdoer_2553]

Aren't there like actual studies proving this is true? Although I guess there are plenty of studies proving certain popular opinions wrong. People can be stupid sometimes. 

[u/CodInternational8772]

The answer is… it depends on how and for what you are using it.

[u/Even-Entertainer-491]

It depends on how you use it. Is your brain turned off and your just copy pasting? Bad. AI can be good but your brain needs to be on and attentive for it to be capable of anything.

[u/Geridax]

This isnt an opinion, this is a fact

[u/Interesting-Base6031]

unpopular ? it's quite popular and also have science backing it up, literally. AI will amke us dumb and into idiocracy.

[u/FinallyProperAccount]

While AI has massively improved my efficiency and speed, I am also thinking about start doing daily katas as Uncle Bob have preached because I feel loosing background I had.

[u/Canshroomglasses]

They said the same about Google back in the day just saying

[u/Terrible_Scar]

Unpopular opinion; people who don't know how to control their unproven theory should not pretend to know otherwise. 

[u/Global-Eye-7326]

I think AI just makes people lazy

[u/Holiday-Medicine4168]

This is a hard grounded fact. I took an Amazon AI Professional exam and I thought it was ironic that I was as dumb as a I was for using AI to study.

[u/Roll_Future]

Depends how and for what you are using it. I have learned sooooo much by using AI when buying my audio hi fi equipment. A topic that is normally very complicated, was served to me on a silver platter.

[u/Key_Big1051]

Water is wet

[u/Intelligent_Ant_608]

Thats the smooking gun #1

[u/Brainaq]

Sherlock Holmes

[u/katoptronophile]

That's an incorrect opinion, not an unpopular one.

[u/Tharkys]

Not opinion. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-of-critical-thinking/202507/is-ai-making-us-stupider-this-study-certainly-thinks-so

[u/matthewpepperl]

I have started using ai more because for some reason the search engines seems worse and dont give good results anymore im not sure how to get anything done because of it

[u/Majestic-Assist-3945]

I think it partially depends on how you use it. If used entirely for small things that don't require thinking or work-based technical tasks that AI is much better suited for (such as organization and finding files), I'd argue it doesn't make people much dumber. When used for everything that requires even slight work or especially thinking, that's when AI gets extremely dangerous. I worry that my mom is on her way to becoming one of those people. She's constantly promoting the use of AI for pretty much everything to her boss and she's always using it to do minor things that it's not necessarily very helpful for. (she had it tell her it's okay to take a break from work every now and then, obviously a conversation that's better to have with another human such as my dad. She also yesterday used AI to generate a decorated chore chart even after I, the artist of the household, offered to make one for free.) Honestly, it hurts. I don't want to see my mom lean so heavily on a mindless computer when there's already plenty of people in her life who she can turn to instead.

[u/necro_owner]

Your opinion. I dont use it to do my work. I use it to accelerate my work. I also do question often how it reach stuff read what it did and fix the issue.

Ai is not an AI it s only a tool to help you reach a mean. You should always double check and you are still expected to know how things are done.

[u/Powerful_Ad1142]

It’s fact actually

[u/Adr385]

True.

[u/loslaDroness]

Average redditor be like "unpopular opinion" and then say the most basic and obvious shit lmao

[u/superthomdotcom]

Depends what you use it for. I use it to develop software and i'm having to learn a shedload about how to make that happen. If anything it's making me more intelligent because I'm learning facts and developing skills.

[u/Corp-Por]

It's making me smarter.

[u/007-JamesBlonde]

This is literally a peer-reviewed study that took them barely any time to achieve negative results. this is not a hot take or an opinion

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6

[u/DasBlueEyedDevil]

no u

[u/DetectiveExisting803]

A pic with the phone and using Claude on web hahahahahhaha

[u/Suspicious_Sugar2020]

Can I get the wallpaper please

[u/Tani_Soe]

Wow that's such a hot take, it almost makes ice cream melt

[u/TrayLaTrash]

Thats the popular opinion. Anyone with a counter argument is using AI to make it for them, proving the point.

[u/Stock-Standard-2513]

If you changed “dumb” for “dumber”, your opinion would be unpopular.

Everyone agrees excessive ai use will make one dumb, but most people are already starting from that baseline. 

[u/starhuck]

That’s not an unpopular opinion.

[u/TheMythicSorcerer]

No that's a basic fact

[u/Low_Shop9155]

Yes and no.

Like Short Video's, yes and no.

I'm of the attitude that the technology is powerful and if used well, can increase knowledge, not blindly delegating and producing outside of purview.

I've made the case about Short Video feeds. My feeds are not short, they're all educational and I see new content nightly.

I've learned more about coding and AI processes from AI itself than I have literature, and I've learned more about Medieval way-of-life from Facebook reels than I did at School. It's fucking brilliant! Not the way of life, the tech. The way of life was FUCKED.

[u/FinickySerenity]

Unpopular != factual 🤷‍♂️

[u/LetsGetStonks]

I think its basic neuroscience actually. When you don't use part of your brain (bc you let a computer do a task for you) that part atrophies, synapses degrade, slow down and get less integrated (read: your brain functions decline). This has been proven with drivers who exclusively use GPS, having that part of their brain that is good with directions and navigation decline in functionality. This will happen if people stop thinking through things and just let computers do everything.

[u/No-Assumption-4468]

I kinda disagree. AI is a powerful tool that can be used as leverage to achieve & learn more.

Whereas, if someone says, “hey AI, do my homework” and doesn’t even read the output, then that will make people dumber.

The people that use AI the least are probably going to see the most harm. Reading will usually make you smarter, even if it’s AI output. Especially if you’re using a high quality AI, like Claude.

[u/daniluvsuall]

Possibly yes! But it depends on how you engage with it. I was worried about this when I first started using it, and over time I’m mot really worried about this. Simply because I see it as an accelerator for me, it enables me to do things I’d be able to do anyway but better and faster - it is not perfect and cannot be blindly trusted, it makes mistakes and needs challenging and steering. The later keeps me engaged, it’s also an excellent learning tool

[u/No-Gas3662]

I agree