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This is a new series called Arthur In My Inbox, where I share my experience through the perspective of Arthur.
Arthur is an anonymous software developer.
Let me know at the end what you think about the series.
Dear Fee,
People have been pushing this narrative that if AI produces bad code, it's not an AI problem, it's a skill issue.
It’s true in some sense, but not in the way you think.
I want to talk about my experience with learning AI coding.
LLMs have gotten so much better these days. Remember the GPT-3.5 era?
They used to really suck. Now they are better, but still depend on how I write the prompts.
I write a good prompt → they might produce something good.
I write a bad prompt → they produce something absolutely terrible.
I want to prompt better, so I went through several AI courses. And… they feel like "Fugazi."
They always claim they can produce something great really quickly, like a startup in 8 hours. And when I actually follow their instructions, I never get anything remotely close.
The obvious reason is that I don't have that much money to pay for all those tokens.
But I also have another theory…
What if AI coding skills can't be learned from using AI?
I know it sounds insane. Hear me out.
There's a study that compares how senior and junior devs use AI coding tools. They found that senior devs produce better output because they have more knowledge to direct AI in the right direction.
In other words, prompting skill scales with coding skill.
This got me thinking: Is there such a thing as "AI skill"?
If you asked me to define AI skills, I would probably say prompt writing, context management, and spec writing.
A more senior developer would be able to write much better specs and prompts just because they have the experience, not because they have learnt how to use AI.
How did those senior developers gain their experience? Probably not through prompting. They built things, hit obstacles, and had to learn how to actually do it. Over time, those experiences became their weapon.
If all I do is code with AI, will I ever be able to learn those skills?
Researchers did a study on how AI has affected students' ability to write essays. Their conclusions were:
AI improved the immediate output of the students.
AI diminished the students' long-term ability to think independently and write on their own.
In other words, coding with AI makes me ship faster now, but makes me a worse developer over time.
That's bad. But I'm already addicted to coding with AI. I feel like I get stuck less often, and it feels good to build things faster.
Three things Imma try:
I'll spend less time on learning “AI skills” and focus more on programming fundamentals.
Whenever I can't prompt the AI to do what I want, I'll stop assuming it's an AI skill issue. It means there's something I need to learn.
Even if I can prompt to get the job done, I would ask myself if there’s a way to improve the code.
Regards,
Arthur
Hope you enjoy this week’s Arthur In My Inbox. Let me know what you think below.
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