1.2k karma
Veteran 792 to Legend
1,078
AI coding assistants are making me a worse programmer and I can't stop using them

I've been using Copilot and Cursor for six months and I've noticed my ability to work without them has genuinely degraded. I reach for autocomplete before I even think about the problem. The productivity gains are real but I'm worried about juniors entering the industry who never learn to struggle through problems independently. Are we trading short-term speed for long-term skill atrophy?