No AI Mondays

No AI Mondays

Being technophobic only makes you fall behind. AI is a great tool. It can drastically speed up how I write code. But the more I use it, the more I worry about atrophy.

For example, I know how to write unit tests. I’ve done enough of them to recognise flaky setups, bad mocks, or misleading assertions. I can refactor a test suite, increase coverage, or dig into edge cases without much thought. Using AI can save me a lot of time because I know where I’m going.

But when I started working with Storybook testing, I was suddenly out of my depth. The moment a test failed, I couldn’t trace why. I’d stare at snapshots, try to decipher stacktraces, but felt completely lost.

So what did I do? I threw AI at it. It gave me suggestions, fixed errors, and even helped write some tests. But I wasn’t learning. I was outsourcing my understanding.

️That is dangerous.

Shortcuts are fine, until they skip what you need to understand. It’s like copy-pasting code from Stack Overflow when you don’t know what it does. You might get away with it for now, but you’re building on shaky ground.

So here’s what I do now. I only use AI to reduce repetitive tasks, things I already understand. Generating boilerplate, converting types, scaffolding components. That’s where it helps. But when I hit something I don’t fully grasp, I stop and figure it out myself.

At the same time, I’ve noticed another shift. Prompting is slowly replacing googling.

Googling is a skill. You have to know how to phrase your question, filter out noise, read between lines. It’s stateless. You don’t get follow-ups. You try one query, then rephrase, then dig into page three of the results. It’s a grind, but it trains your brain to hunt for answers.

Prompting is different. You can be vague. You can iterate. The assistant remembers context. It fills in gaps. That’s great, but again, easy isn’t always better.

Good programmers know how to debug, research, and think through edge cases. If we let AI take over that process entirely, we risk losing what makes us good in the first place.

So I started doing something small. No AI Mondays. I start my week without AI assistance. Just me, my editor, and whatever I can figure out on my own. If I hit a wall, I stay there and work through it.

It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but that’s the point. Because if I don’t use the muscle, it fades. And I’d rather move slower than forget how to think.