For me, the whole goal is to achieve Understanding: understanding a complex system, which is the computer and how it works. The beauty of this Understanding is what drives me.

When I write a program, I understand the architecture of the computer, I understand the assembly, I understand the compiler, and I understand the code. There are things that I don't understand, and as I push to understand them, I am rewarded by being able to do more things. In other words, Understanding is both beautiful and incentivized.

When making something with an LLM, I am disincentivized from actually understanding what is going on, because understanding is very slow, and the whole point of using AI is speed. The only time when I need to really understand something is when something goes wrong, and as the tool improves, this need will shrink. In the normal and intended usage, I only need to express a desire to achieve a result. Now, I can push against the incentives of the system. But for one, most people will not do that at all; and for two, the tools we use inevitably shape us. I don't like the shape into which these tools are forming me - the shape of an incurious, dull, impotent person who can only ask for someone else to make something happen for me. Remember, The Medium Is The Message, and the Medium here is, Ask, and ye shall receive.

The fact that AI use leads to a reduction in Understanding is not only obvious, but also studies have shown the same. People who can't see this are refusing to acknowledge the obvious, in my opinion. They wouldn't disagree that having someone else do your homework for you would mean that you didn't learn anything. But somehow when an LLM tool enters the picture, it's different. They're a manager now instead of a lowly worker. The problem with this thinking is that, in your example, moving from say Assembly to C automates tedium to allow us to reason on a higher level. But LLMs are automating reasoning itself. There is no higher level to move to. The reasoning you do now while using AI is merely a temporary deficiency in the tool. It's not likely that you or I are the .01% of people who can create something truly novel that is not already sufficiently compressed into the model. So enjoy that bit of reasoning while you can, o thou Man of the Gaps.

They say that writing is God's way of showing you how sloppy your thinking is. AI tools discourage one from writing. They encourage us to prompt, read, and critique. But this does not result in the same Understanding as writing does. And so our thinking will be, become, and remain vapid, sloppy, inarticulate, invalid, impotent. Welcome to the future.