Online sentiment splits sharply over whether AI helps or hollows out skill
A week of viral posts on Mastodon, Bluesky, Reddit and Hacker News shows deepening disagreement over AI's real value in coding and learning.
What to know
- The story is a running online argument rather than a single news event: it has built over about a week across Mastodon, Bluesky, Reddit and Hacker News.
- Positions split between AI as an overhyped or actively harmful crutch that produces bad code and stunted learning, and AI as a patient, always-available teacher and coding aid.
- Mentors report a specific failure mode: junior engineers query AI for explanations but cannot articulate their own understanding afterward.
- A recurring counter-argument holds that frequency of use is the wrong axis of concern; how and why AI is used matters more than how often.
The dispute Whether overreliance on AI is inherently corrosive to learning and skill, or whether the outcome depends entirely on how the individual chooses to use it. · positions read across 18 posts and comments
AI hype around coding and "doomerism" claims is overstated, and heavy reliance produces worse engineers and worse code
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“I don't understand how we managed to collectively concede the claim that AI is good at generating code. I've seen the code they generate. I've worked on the code they generate. It's horrifying.”
jenniferplusplus · Mastodon ↗
AI is a genuinely valuable, patient teacher and problem-solving partner that beats unhelpful human instructors
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“AI has basically saved my academic life... asking them things and sometimes literally being made fun of because apparently my question was "stupid"”
Chemical_Job7027 · Reddit ↗
The frequency of AI use is the wrong question; what matters is how and why it is used
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“Using AI frequently or infrequently is about is meaningful as using a hammer frequently or infrequently. It is more how you use it and what you do with it that should be considered, not how much you use it.”
arnthorsnaer · Reddit ↗
jenniferplusplus Software engineer, Mastodon posterBrett Codes (brettcodes.bsky.social) Bluesky postervasko Hacker News posterstart_select Reddit commenter, mentoring engineerChemical_Job7027 Reddit poster, IT student
How it unfolded 6 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump postscomments
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6
Hacker News user questions the wave of "AI doomerism" claims online
An Ask HN post pushes back on claims that AI already surpasses humans and that anyone can "vibe-code" software, saying every vibe-coded product the poster has tried performs poorly.
“Is everyone online just that bad at programming? I didn't believe software could get any worse than what was already being put out, but since the adoption of AI I have been proven wrong.”
— vasko, Hacker News poster · source -
Lol i searched this and read the whole article and nobody was able to access the ChatGPT conversation that this dude had with the AI. Some people are just dumb or don't know how to prompt correctly. Also it was a 60 yr old man, which makes me think he maybe I misinterpret chatgpt's response or didn't ask enough questions. People misusing…
2 more of the top 3 · 5 posts in this stretch
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If college is not for you, you do not need to attend, in fact it is better if you don't, saves everyone the trouble. You don't even need to learn to read or write anymore, but you are responsible for making what you want out of life. No need to be hostile, perhaps offer a better alternative and we could all learn something.
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I only use the mguffin when I'm super stuck and need some extra time. Its usually better to learn without it, maybe as a supplemental learning tool, possibly like 10% of the time.
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5
Reddit user asks whether infrequent AI use is healthier than constant use
A post frames AI as a double-edged tool, worrying that constant use harms independent thinking and the environment, drawing replies arguing frequency matters less than how AI is used.
“Using AI frequently or infrequently is about is meaningful as using a hammer frequently or infrequently. It is more how you use it and what you do with it that should be considered.”
— arnthorsnaer, Reddit commenter · source -
I've read this conversation, and Hm It seems to me that AI is like an amplifier of your existing goals and skills. If your goal is to never make mistakes and never get judged, it will amplify that, and you will end up not doing anything hard, adraid to even attempt something that might lead you to making a mistake in front of anyone, or perhaps…
2 more of the top 3 · 5 posts in this stretch
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the guilt part is interesting cause most people never even feel that. i think if you stay aware of what you delegate and why, you're already doing better than the classmate who spent 2 hours in chatgpt before lunch. the tool is not the problem, the lazy outsourcing is
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Using AI frequently or infrequently is about is meaningful as using a hammer frequently or infrequently. It is more how you use it and what you do with it that should be considered, not how much you use it.
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4
Engineer-mentor says AI use is masking junior engineers' skill gaps
A self-described mentoring engineer describes juniors asking LLMs to explain documentation but failing to internalize concepts, arguing the failure mode only shows up later at the career level.
“You can't ask it to do things you don't know exist. You can't tell it to use methods you never tried. You can't recognize abstractions you have never seen or experien…”
— start_select -
I use Claude all day long. I understand it. I have repeatedly watched juniors not read docs when asked. At best they ask LLMs to explain it to them. But they glaze over what it says. Asking them what they do and don’t understand so I can help gets a “I don’t know”. They are adults with college degrees and that is a simple normal question from a…
2 more of the top 3 · 5 posts in this stretch
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The problem I see is that repeats at the career level. Like it or not the problems you see in college are simplified to one or two dimensions. A software project that can be solved in 1 hour to a week doesn’t have the same dimensionality as a project that takes 5 years to build. If you aren’t learning to internalize concepts and vocabulary and…
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That’s exactly what I do. I’m a mentoring engineer. I’m there to help them get better. It’s not like I’m just dropping a textbook in front of them and walking away. “You just need to try it, this is how you learn and it’s how you get awesome. I’m trying to teach you how to solve every problem, not how to implement this single dropdown. Read the…
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Student posts that AI is a better teacher than human instructors
A Reddit user in an IT program says AI helped them where professors mocked basic questions, prompting disagreement in the comments over whether such reliance damages learning.
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It absolutely has to do with AI. Its a well documented trend that kids in college are using AI for homework and projects, not learning the material and getting destroyed during exams. You might be the exception to that trend.
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Bluesky user rejects the phrase "AI is just a tool"
A widely-shared Bluesky post argues the phrase excuses scrutiny of the AI industry, describing AI as chatbots, agents, data centers and unwanted features rather than a neutral tool.
“ai is an industry led by psychos, ai is chatbots, ai is agents, ai is data centers, ai is shitty features in software that doesn't need it…”
— brettcodes.bsky.social -
B
can we please all collectively stop saying that "ai is just a tool" it is a meaningless & oft-repeated phrase that justifies nothing & helps no one ai is an industry led by psychos, ai is chatbots, ai is agents, ai is data centers, ai is shitty features in software that doesn't need it
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- 3 days quiet
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1
Engineer says the industry wrongly conceded AI writes good code
A Mastodon post from a software engineer arguing AI-generated code is "horrifying" gets 735 favorites and 60 replies, becoming a reference point for AI-skeptical sentiment online.
“I don't understand how we managed to collectively concede the claim that AI is good at generating code. I've seen the code they generate. I've worked on the code they generate. It's horrifying.”
— jenniferplusplus -
I don't understand how we managed to collectively concede the claim that AI is good at generating code. I've seen the code they generate. I've worked on the code they generate. It's horrifying.
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What people are saying 6 voices from 1 site · best of 18 · verbatim
- Does using AI more or less often matter, or only how it's used?
- Is the perceived decline in code/skill quality actually caused by AI, or by pre-existing bad practices now more visible?
- Sep 21
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Ability to sort through information and determine which information is useful, accurate, truthful, reliable, up-to-date, relevant, comprehensive, combinable. And which is not.
- Sep 20
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Human teachers typically won't confidently lie to you. I've had lots of teachers answer a question with "i dont know, let me go find out and get back to you"
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If you need ai to survive your studies you shouldn’t be there at all, you’ll be incompetent in whatever you do.
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It's best to use it however much you damn well please, as long as the thing you use it for is not obviously harmful. And it obviously should never, ever be blanket banned.
- Sep 19
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I teach an AI course at work. I developed the course with AI, and I encourage my coworkers to follow up with AI for further questions. Yesterday some team members were having trouble following instructions for updating a new skill that was handed to us. I popped up a screen share, typed in the question, and solved the problem immediately. I told…
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You've already got a ton of comments on here explaining "how" (or why) people disagree. Just because you can use it beneficially (for now) doesn't make it universally good.