Engineer stops reading AI-written code, shares 4 ways to keep judgment sharp
every · x · 2026-09-10
Developer Kieran Klaassen noticed AI made him ship more while his understanding slipped: "My mind increasingly felt like a TikTok feed—full of short-lived hits of dopamine that left nothing behind." He had stopped reading code because AI wrote it so well; now he reads diffs line by line to stay sharp.
His four suggestions for keeping your brain trained:
- Reopen code you merged without reading; ask about unfamiliar choices and track your understanding gaps
- Ask the agent to trace the system end to end—a diff can omit steps you need
- Figure out why a safeguard exists; needless complexity may encode a failure you haven't learned yet
- Have the model quiz you after a session; let tests decide whether code merges
Related event: Cora Lead Warns AI Coding Made His Brain Soft After a Year(3 posts)→
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