I don’t vibe code. I’m pretty proud of that fact. I like to create my own code, even though I’m painfully aware of how bad at it I am. I’m not a developer and I never will be. I can put out the simplest of things and be happy about that. It’s more than some people can do, so there’s no real need to feel bad about it.

Because I’m not a great coder, I have to constantly look things up online. I’m a long time user of the Google-it-always method of coding. The issue is, I’m doing that less and less and going to AI instead. And it is a serious problem. I can feel myself getting dumber every time I use “AI” for some menial task or question. Things I would usually go figure out myself by reading through other’s solutions on random forum 133, I now copy and paste from ChatGPT. Sure the AI bot will tell me what the code does and how it should work, but I don’t read that shit. I just take the code and if it works, GREAT! If it doesn’t work, I go back to AI, tell it that it didn’t work and ask it to try again.

This is horrendous, and I have to stop.

AI is perfect for tech support. Oh, it gets answers wrong all the damn time, but it is so good at taking an input and finding a solution, even if it’s not the right one. Gone are the days of having to go to the forums of your favorite Linux distro to ask a question. You don’t have to wait for the hours it would usually take to receive the answer, if you ever got a response at all. It’s all instant. And if the wrong answer slides your way, you can just refine your question, you’ll eventually get there.

The problem I’m discovering is that I learn nothing doing things this way. I needed to figure out how to display text inline using CSS. I did go to W3Schools, but when I couldn’t figure it out after 30 seconds, I went to AI. It not only gave me an answer instantaneously, it also helped me work through the problem when the icons weren’t the size I wanted them to be. But I didn’t learn how to actually do the CSS to make those call outs down below actually look good. I have no clue what half of that CSS actually means. I learned absolutely nothing.

I’m a self-aware person. I like to reflect on my own actions and feelings. Half of this blog is me doing just that. So, if I struggle to realize how dumb AI is making me, what are the chances for most of the kids these days who think this shit is magic and ChatGPT is Harry Potter?

I know that it sounds like the typical old guy question, but “what about the kids?” I remember back in high school, we were just getting to the point where everyone had a graphing calculator. These things were so cool, it was like having a computer (which were huge at the time), in your pocket. Better yet, you could put the entire calculus problem right in there and it would spit out the answer. And it’d be right every time. My Calc teacher hated those damn things. If you didn’t show your work, you’d flunk the class. I remember the one time I made the mistake of giving the answer straight from the calculator. He was furious.

AI is doing the same thing to me and to everyone else. I’m not saying it can’t be useful. It absolutely can. But I think it’s a dangerous tool that we have to be cautious of, else we lose our ability to think and solve problems for ourselves. I can feel it happening, and it scares the shit out of me.

Also: Sorry, Mr. Green. You were right about the calculator.