I’ve been relying on AI tools for what feels like years now. Need a complex Excel formula? Ask Claude. Stuck on a tricky SQL query? Let AI figure it out. Need to reformat data? There’s a prompt for that.
It’s efficient. It’s fast. It’s also kind of terrifying.
Yesterday, I caught myself completely dependent on AI for an Excel transformation I should know how to do manually. I didn’t even try to remember or search for the formula—I just outsourced the thinking. The AI gave me the solution in seconds.
But I walked away having learned absolutely nothing.
This pattern feels eerily familiar. Remember how smartphones changed our relationship with phone numbers? I still remember my childhood home number and my best friend’s landline from 20 years ago, but I couldn’t tell you my partner’s cell number that I call daily.
What happens when we delegate not just our memory but our problem-solving to AI? When we stop struggling through the learning process, we miss the critical connections and deeper understanding that come from working through challenges.
Coding isn’t just about the output—it’s about developing your thinking process. It’s about building the mental models that help you tackle increasingly complex problems. When AI handles the hard parts, those neural pathways never form.
I’m not giving up AI tools entirely. But I’m setting boundaries. Some problems I’ll solve the slow way—with my own brain, my own mistakes, and my own discoveries.
Because I’m not willing to outsource the most valuable skill I have: learning how to learn.