AI is a drug
I've gone through quite the difficult time the last year to say the least. Struggling with burnout, depression, and the ending of my 7 year relationship really took a toll on my mental health. It didn't start there though, I'm reasonable certain the first two started much earlier, and partly let to the latter. I'm doing better, recovering, and regaining my interest in programming, thanks to AI. You might be confused by this, but allow me to explain.
With everything that happened, I wasn't as productive as I used to be, and it was showing. We were however moving to using AI which was a boost to my productivity! I completed more tasks, more reviews, I was "back" so to speak. Sure, I was completing more work, and getting excited about software development again, but not in the way I used to be. I used to get excited about learning, writing code, figuring things out. Now, it's just about making something, releasing something. It doesn't matter what I did, all that matters is that I released it. Notice the difference? One was about self-improvement, the other is more like an addiction, which is exactly what is, or was, happening. I was vulnerable, I became entrenched, addicted to the productivity, the feeling that I was myself again. I however wasn't myself again, I was pretending, without being aware of it, until now. I had some idea to what I was doing, I understand the concepts, but not the details. I wasn't learning.
After I made this realization on a random day during lunch, I realized I truly wanted to be who I was. I wanted to be excited about software, about technology, about learning. After I had this "epiphany", I saw a post mastodon post by Hailey which further solidified my thoughts about AI. Hailey perfectly described my situation, which should have been surprising, but it wasn't. AI is addicting, and you know what neurodivergent people are particulary vulnerable to? Addiction. We struggle with the world, so we turn to vices to cope, and AI is one that is easily forced on us. It was the solution to my problem, but really it only made things worse. I noticed myself unlearning things, not caring as much about the details, resulting in worsening imposter syndrome. I've had enough. I can be asked to use AI at work, and there isn't a lot I can do about that at that job, but I can do my best to not let it intrude my personal life.
It isn't easy, I was in this trap for a couple of months, and it's difficult to get out of. I'm not kidding when I say it's like an addiction. I will have to detox, get used to doing the research, learning, writing code, not just generating it. Let's not pretend that we truly review generated code, we don't. Developers are known for being lazy, and turning that into productivity. We're not gonna review code that AI generated, because we don't care about it.
It pains me to say that this website, even with how little "code" had to written, is still AI generated, because I just couldn't physically bring myself to do the work. Isn't that scary? It's insane, because I used to do so much. I can however, proudly say, that this entire article was written by me, and nobody, not AI, not anyone else, can take that away from me. I'm rusty, I'm not who I used to be, nor where I want to be, but I'll get there.