--- title: "Are Programmers Getting Dumber?" url: https://daily.dev/posts/are-programmers-getting-dumber--cv6g5aozt source_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTpM7BeXTg type: video:youtube source: "CodeHead" published: 2026-03-11T15:09:06.899Z updated: 2026-03-11T15:09:24.941Z tags: ["github", "productivity", "vibe-coding"] reading_time: 5 upvotes: 87 comments: 26 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Are Programmers Getting Dumber? **[CodeHead](https://daily.dev/sources/codehead)** · 5 min read · 87 upvotes · 26 comments ## Summary A video essay exploring whether AI coding tools are making developers less skilled. It examines evidence on both sides: AI-written code gets reverted more often, Stack Overflow's most-copied snippet shipped with a known bug, and vibe coding lets people ship without understanding their code. But the counter-argument holds that calculators didn't make people worse at math, Stanford found AI made developers 55% faster with senior devs benefiting most, and modern developers manage far more complexity than before. The conclusion is that AI lowered the entry floor while raising the ceiling — it didn't make programmers dumber, it made it harder to fake competence, since AI now handles boilerplate and what remains is genuine thinking and system design judgment. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@devmandan** · 17 upvotes > > But the counter-argument holds that calculators didn't make people worse at math. > > Not sure I entirely agree. Whilst it may not explicitly make someone competent at math, terrible at math, it doesn't exactly help you improve either. Look at the deterioration of grammar; growing up with limited characters in our text messages through-out the noughties has lead to an abysmal grasp of grammar today. That includes myself. > > Given enough time, it stands to reason that excessive A.I usage will begin to have an affect on the next generation. Lack of fundamental understanding. Zero knowledge of the... **@devar** · 3 upvotes > Most developers are already dumb, no worries **@lambda\_joe** · 3 upvotes > Calculators did make people worse at mental math though **@confidentcoding** · 3 upvotes > These models are really unlike anything we've had in society before, so its hard to draw a parallel. I think we all owe it to ourselves to honor the fact that the deployment of these tools is **still very much an active experiment that we're running on society**, much like Social Media and Smartphones as they were being widely proliferated. The results of _that_ experiment have been...not great. We have a whole generation of individuals with deep attention deficits, and high levels of anxiety. We're running this experiment again, but this time, its our problem solving and critical thinking... **@a\_meb\_a** · 2 upvotes > vibe coding is not a good thing for Dev's, accept that. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI Is Killing Entry-Level Programming Jobs. But Could It Also Help Save Them?](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-is-killing-entry-level-programming-jobs-but-could-it-also-help-save-them--i6pygmusv) · The New Stack · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#github](https://daily.dev/tags/github), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#vibe-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/vibe-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/are-programmers-getting-dumber--cv6g5aozt)