--- title: Does AI make Developers dumb? | daily.dev description: A developer shares personal experience building a mobile game (Tiny Harvest) almost entirely with AI, arguing that AI does make developers lazier and erodes... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/does-ai-make-developers-dumb--dixphdxkc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Does AI make Developers dumb? | daily.dev og:description: A developer shares personal experience building a mobile game (Tiny Harvest) almost entirely with AI, arguing that AI does make developers lazier and erodes... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/does-ai-make-developers-dumb--dixphdxkc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/DIxPHdxkc.png og:image:alt: Does AI make Developers dumb? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: 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. # Does AI make Developers dumb? **[Simon Grimm](https://daily.dev/sources/galaxies_dev)** · 7 min read · 19 upvotes · 19 comments ## Summary A developer shares personal experience building a mobile game (Tiny Harvest) almost entirely with AI, arguing that AI does make developers lazier and erodes problem-solving skills, but also enables shipping far more than would otherwise be possible. Four reasons AI makes developers 'dumb' are outlined: laziness, atrophying problem-solving muscles, loss of mental models, and cognitive offloading. The counterargument is that ignoring AI tools puts developers at a competitive disadvantage. The conclusion is that the skills that now matter most are architecture, testing, and code review — traditionally senior-level skills — and that the real risk is passive, unguided AI use rather than AI itself. ## 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. **@confidentcoding** · 9 upvotes > We do not know the impact of using AI/LLMs on our minds and cognition, and its perfectly acceptable to be apprehensive of using them too much. > > There are those that saying to _“use them as much as you can, or be left behind”_, as if we are not running an active experiment with the precious resource that is our creativity, and problem solving abilities. We didn’t understand the impact of Social Media before it was rolled out to the masses rapidly, and there’s been a lot of unintended side-effects that we weren’t aware of before it was integrated into our lives and society. > > There is ALREADY... **@stuartgreig** · 2 upvotes > It definitely encourages you to become lazy, when I first started using it more in anger I found myself asking the chat window to fix things that I could of just changed myself. > > We only have space in our brains for a certain amount of stuff, much like most of us can't do long division as quickly as we could if we hadn't got used to using calculators, same will happen with development. The hope though is that by not needing how to remember to do a bunch of stuff you make room for a bunch more things and we all become better. Time will tell though **@rafaelnacle** · 2 upvotes > Yes, it does. How do I know? In 2024 I did a test to implement a part of the code in my job using mostly AI. I never felt so stupid; my brain just craved more AI usage. Some moments I realized I was using that shit for simple stuff. After some time I was talking to my boss, and he suggested something so simple that it fixed the problem. From that day onwards, I only used AI to help me find weird bugs I can't seem to find, weird errors, some documentation for learning purposes, and those annoying environment bugs that happen when using a new IDE, OS, etc. > > Another really great usage for me is... **@wxhzhwxhzh** · 1 upvotes > Having AI doesn't make you stupid, just like having a car doesn't make you walk slower, AI is a tool, just one more choice! **@elmarchavez** · 1 upvotes > Definitely right! Using AI as a tool is the correct way to accelerate your growth. The emphasis is always on your improvement. > > > When you want to learn something, learn it with AI. When you have done something over and over again like boilerplates, let AI handle it. This is the balance. > > > AI is like a power tool, but can only be good if the holder is an expert of what he/she is doing. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI is Making Junior Devs Useless](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-is-making-junior-devs-useless-vhtdbbntm) · Hacker News · 9 upvotes · 3 comments - [AI and the Demand for Developers](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-and-the-demand-for-developers-bb6i7hlys) · Atomic Spin · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI in Mobile Development: From Skeptics to Believers](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-in-mobile-development-from-skeptics-to-believers-g5zkdksa2) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#vibe-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/vibe-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/does-ai-make-developers-dumb--dixphdxkc) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Does AI make Developers dumb?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/does-ai-make-developers-dumb--dixphdxkc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/does-ai-make-developers-dumb--dixphdxkc"},"datePublished":"2026-03-24T14:06:26.993Z","dateModified":"2026-03-24T14:06:47.267Z","description":"A developer shares personal experience building a mobile game (Tiny Harvest) almost entirely with AI, arguing that AI does make developers lazier and erodes...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8rdjYrfj2V4/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8rdjYrfj2V4/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Simon Grimm","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Simon Grimm","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Urs1_o1E--/f_auto/v1746714789/logos/galaxies_dev","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/galaxies_dev"},"commentCount":19,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/does-ai-make-developers-dumb--dixphdxkc","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":19},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":19}],"keywords":"architecture,productivity,ai-coding,vibe-coding","timeRequired":"PT7M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"Does AI make Developers dumb?","description":"A developer shares personal experience building a mobile game (Tiny Harvest) almost entirely with AI, arguing that AI does make developers lazier and erodes...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8rdjYrfj2V4/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-03-24T14:06:26.993Z","duration":"PT7M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/DIxPHdxkc","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/8rdjYrfj2V4"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Simon Grimm","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/galaxies_dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Does AI make Developers dumb?"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/does-ai-make-developers-dumb--dixphdxkc","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"We do not know the impact of using AI/LLMs on our minds and cognition, and its perfectly acceptable to be apprehensive of using them too much.\nThere are those that saying to “use them as much as you can, or be left behind”, as if we are not running an active experiment with the precious resource that is our creativity, and problem solving abilities. We didn’t understand the impact of Social Media before it was rolled out to the masses rapidly, and there’s been a lot of unintended side-effects that we weren’t aware of before it was integrated into our lives and society.\nThere is ALREADY ample evidence now that points to the cognitive impact and atrophy that results from relying on these models and outsourcing our thinking. The rapid integration of AI is very much an experiment with unknown consequences.\nThat is not a foregone conclusion, and the very opposite might end up happening; those that leaned too heavily into them end up falling behind in the long run and those that moderate their usage end up improving their skills while retaining their mental acuity (like Jeremy Howard was recently referring to).\nI’m encouraging any developers out there to give themselves permission to code traditionally, at least sometimes. I’ve even gone as far as starting a resource around helping developers learn troubleshooting and debugging skills. Maintain those connections to your problem solving abilities, because they are evergreen skills. Don’t lose them to the hype machine.","datePublished":"2026-03-25T15:09:58.985Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/DIxPHdxkc#c-OMnM05rBY","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Lars Faye | Confident Coding","url":"https://daily.dev/confidentcoding","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OGZu5DEc--/f_auto/v1772569630/avatars/avatar_umWZ9aQAng34qk5aaJl2q?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":9}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"It definitely encourages you to become lazy, when I first started using it more in anger I found myself asking the chat window to fix things that I could of just changed myself.\nWe only have space in our brains for a certain amount of stuff, much like most of us can’t do long division as quickly as we could if we hadn’t got used to using calculators, same will happen with development. The hope though is that by not needing how to remember to do a bunch of stuff you make room for a bunch more things and we all become better. Time will tell though","datePublished":"2026-03-29T08:50:41.050Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/DIxPHdxkc#c-i58bLHYra","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Stuart Greig","url":"https://daily.dev/stuartgreig","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--FoVqUWgr--/f_auto/v1772633885/avatars/avatar_V6TOuZS8XXplYvc5hNLgE?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Yes, it does. How do I know? In 2024 I did a test to implement a part of the code in my job using mostly AI. I never felt so stupid; my brain just craved more AI usage. Some moments I realized I was using that shit for simple stuff. After some time I was talking to my boss, and he suggested something so simple that it fixed the problem. From that day onwards, I only used AI to help me find weird bugs I can’t seem to find, weird errors, some documentation for learning purposes, and those annoying environment bugs that happen when using a new IDE, OS, etc.\nAnother really great usage for me is to research it faster and learn faster. Besides that, using it for logical thinking seems so dangerous that I avoid it like hell. I do not hate AI, but I hate people treating it like it’s a god and that using it makes no damage to your brain. Can you imagine that in 2026 there are people that are not learning to draw or learn an instrument to use a fucking prompt? How crazy is this? I understand AI usage for those things if someone is mentally or physically incapacitated, but outside of that, it’s just PURE lazyness. Sometimes I wonder what will happen to us.\nI do use AI for basic things, but I put a limit to it; you definitely should too. For example, I’m using QuillBot now to help me with grammar since I’m not a native english speaker; it’s really nice to have an AI correcting my text when I fail, but it is doing 2% of the job, just a little error here and there; it also helps me understand where I fail often and learn more and more.","datePublished":"2026-03-27T17:11:26.704Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/DIxPHdxkc#c-lIe33qxWB","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Rafael","url":"https://daily.dev/rafaelnacle","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Dl_N2IOz--/f_auto/v1708558991/avatars/avatar_FpmwyIdH35W7DRrHPzpBI"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Having AI doesn’t make you stupid, just like having a car doesn’t make you walk slower, AI is a tool, just one more choice!","datePublished":"2026-04-03T13:35:09.407Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/DIxPHdxkc#c-XoZPraBLh","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"wxhzhwxhzh","url":"https://daily.dev/wxhzhwxhzh","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/21326329?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Definitely right! Using AI as a tool is the correct way to accelerate your growth. The emphasis is always on your improvement.\nWhen you want to learn something, learn it with AI. When you have done something over and over again like boilerplates, let AI handle it. This is the balance.\nAI is like a power tool, but can only be good if the holder is an expert of what he/she is doing.","datePublished":"2026-03-30T15:17:31.793Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/DIxPHdxkc#c-WTXCE5N7F","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Elmar Chavez","url":"https://daily.dev/elmarchavez","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--7PjH979T--/f_auto/v1780994221/avatars/avatar_bK85rJb2OXXID2LX2wi5y?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}]} ```