I completely agree. While the best outcome may obviously involve lots of thinking, from what I've seen an experienced, the AI tools we have today put people on a slope to becoming "meat proxies". Some of the brighter, stronger engineers may have a less steep slope, but I'm convinced that with time they too will be meat proxies. AI is attacking on too many fronts for it to be otherwise:

  - AI generates too much code that overwhelms humans
  - AI deskills users concerning the gritty details of coding by having them not do it themselves
  - Having most of one's co-workers become meat proxy will put pressure for others to convert
  - Lack of effort or expertise invested into codebase leads people to care less; caring less -> not caring about optimal outcome -> not expending brain power on problems we don't care about.

I think since we as an industry are still on this slope, we're still having systems propped up by people actually using their brains. I personally think this situation is regrettable. We should as an industry consider if the direction we're going truly is something we want.