--- title: Nobody is Thinking Anymore | daily.dev description: An engineering leader argues that over-reliance on AI for coding, strategy, and decision-making is eroding human judgment and skill development. The piece... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/n4izf5lxl twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Nobody is Thinking Anymore | daily.dev og:description: An engineering leader argues that over-reliance on AI for coding, strategy, and decision-making is eroding human judgment and skill development. The piece... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/n4izf5lxl og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/n4IzF5lxL.png og:image:alt: Post cover image 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. # Nobody is Thinking Anymore **[Agentic Engineering](https://daily.dev/sources/agentic)** · [@yusufaytas](https://daily.dev/yusufaytas) · 65 upvotes · 14 comments ## Summary An engineering leader argues that over-reliance on AI for coding, strategy, and decision-making is eroding human judgment and skill development. The piece contends that outsourcing thinking to LLMs, treating them as oracles rather than next-token predictors, leads to skill atrophy and a loss of accountability. It advocates for maintaining friction, routine practice, and personal struggle with problems as the source of earned judgment and taste, urging newcomers especially to build understanding before leaning on AI summaries. ## 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** · 8 upvotes > I've come to the conclusion that: Compilers are an _abstraction_ layer, but LLMs are a _delegation_ layer. > > With a compiler, you begin with the how, and you end with the intent. With LLMs, you begin with the intent, the LLM handles how (no different than if you would delegate to another developer). > > They're just as fallible as we are, but in completely unexpected ways than what humans might be. Problem is: many people are treating them with the same trust that we put into compilers, and that is a _massive_ problem. > > Treat them as a delegation layer, and stick my four categories: > > - Rote > -... **@fabooy961** · 5 upvotes > it was a forecast not a comedy movie... > >  **@edwardkim** · 4 upvotes > I've been using AI more and more due to work lately and from my experience, I don't really believe "thinking" itself gets outsourced to AI, unless, of course, you just prompt a few words and tell AI to think, decide, and make literally everything by itself, which in itself seems like a highly destructive action that only someone who isn't self-aware would do. > > Though outsourcing decision-making do seem like a bit of a different issue, I'm very skeptical of everything and find myself double or triple checking everything to make sure nothing is wrong. > However, with more use of AI, maybe due to... **@jeromehardaway** · 4 upvotes > Thats wild, cause I am thinking more than ever. Making more solutions than ever before. **@marko007** · 1 upvotes > I largly agree with the piece. I see junior devs cobble together a few agents who perform all the work for them while not being aware what the agents are actually coding. This is very risky and I often look through their code (which they themselfs don't understand) and see a lot of bad code. In small(er) projects, agents probably can figure out how things are done correctly, but in larger, real-life apps, they don't seem to be able to figure out the correct patterns. Especially, if no mainstream framework is used (like React, Vuew, Angular etc). ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Stop generating, start thinking](https://daily.dev/posts/stop-generating-start-thinking-7jjvm8uwh) · Hacker News · 16 upvotes · 1 comments - [AI doesn’t need to replace humans to weaken human capability](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-doesn-t-need-to-replace-humans-to-weaken-human-capability-296acecsh) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [We Are Building Minds That Think. We Are Losing Minds That Feel.](https://daily.dev/posts/we-are-building-minds-that-think-we-are-losing-minds-that-feel--7w1nto89g) · Medium · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The AI coding hangover](https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-coding-hangover-5hylutrto) · InfoWorld · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Butlers or Architects?](https://daily.dev/posts/butlers-or-architects--lxinmf2dl) · Metadata · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#vibe-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/vibe-coding), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/n4izf5lxl) ```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":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/n4izf5lxl","headline":"Nobody is Thinking Anymore","text":"Shared: Nobody is Thinking Anymore","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/n4izf5lxl","datePublished":"2026-09-30T14:56:33.478Z","dateModified":"2026-09-30T14:57:36.310Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Yusuf Aytas","url":"https://daily.dev/yusufaytas","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1049483?v=4","description":"I’m a seasoned software engineer, leader and author.","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":260}},"image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OHB84bZF--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2010","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":65},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":14}],"sharedContent":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/HoQID4U62"},"comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"I’ve come to the conclusion that: Compilers are an abstraction layer, but LLMs are a delegation layer.\nWith a compiler, you begin with the how, and you end with the intent. With LLMs, you begin with the intent, the LLM handles how (no different than if you would delegate to another developer).\nThey’re just as fallible as we are, but in completely unexpected ways than what humans might be. Problem is: many people are treating them with the same trust that we put into compilers, and that is a massive problem.\nTreat them as a delegation layer, and stick my four categories:\n\nRote\nRefactor\nResearch\nReinforcement (e.g. tutorials, adversarial review)\n\nThis is the sweet spot that that keeps you sharp and productive.\nYou might also dig my essay on this that was very much in the same spirit.","datePublished":"2026-09-30T18:25:13.197Z","dateModified":"2026-10-02T12:33:06.776Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/n4IzF5lxL#c-s5jXLEmxe","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":8}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"it was a forecast not a comedy movie…","datePublished":"2026-10-01T06:24:18.469Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/n4IzF5lxL#c-X4lY6l2i2","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Le Fä De Le Lö","url":"https://daily.dev/fabooy961","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/v1677218265/avatars/avatar_H6lLM2y9S4Yf8VCWicpd8.jpg"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I’ve been using AI more and more due to work lately and from my experience, I don’t really believe “thinking” itself gets outsourced to AI, unless, of course, you just prompt a few words and tell AI to think, decide, and make literally everything by itself, which in itself seems like a highly destructive action that only someone who isn’t self-aware would do.\nThough outsourcing decision-making do seem like a bit of a different issue, I’m very skeptical of everything and find myself double or triple checking everything to make sure nothing is wrong.\nHowever, with more use of AI, maybe due to so many work being done in a short period of time, too many things had to be checked through and that kind of took a toll and I found myself making excuses to be lazier.\nAnd to keep myself in line from being just being another person that only knows how to prompt AI, I would always explain everything to myself and simplify the explanation enough that someone with no knowledge on these field could understand(definitely not my superior asking for a simple summary every time).\nOverall, I think as long as you’re able to understand and explain the entire part of a project you’re assigned with, there isn’t too big of an issue. Being able to own what’s yours has always seemed to be where the core foundation is built on, and “thinking” is just something that can never be left out, whichever way the thought process may point towards.","datePublished":"2026-10-01T00:41:29.793Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/n4IzF5lxL#c-MvbKLZa1y","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Edward Kim","url":"https://daily.dev/edwardkim","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--62OfiqeO--/f_auto/v1788390031/avatars/avatar_SsoUz4tjBLATLIcrJeHae?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Thats wild, cause I am thinking more than ever. Making more solutions than ever before.","datePublished":"2026-09-30T18:19:18.636Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/n4IzF5lxL#c-45QBzIjFT","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jerome Hardaway","url":"https://daily.dev/jeromehardaway","image":"https://avatars3.githubusercontent.com/u/7096246?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I largly agree with the piece. I see junior devs cobble together a few agents who perform all the work for them while not being aware what the agents are actually coding. This is very risky and I often look through their code (which they themselfs don’t understand) and see a lot of bad code. In small(er) projects, agents probably can figure out how things are done correctly, but in larger, real-life apps, they don’t seem to be able to figure out the correct patterns. Especially, if no mainstream framework is used (like React, Vuew, Angular etc).","datePublished":"2026-10-01T05:05:23.773Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/n4IzF5lxL#c-3DE2o7WP4","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Marko Šterk","url":"https://daily.dev/marko007","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/79147377?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}],"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://daily.dev/squads/agentic","name":"Agentic Engineering"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Agentic Engineering","item":"https://daily.dev/squads/agentic"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Nobody is Thinking Anymore"}]} ```