WARNING ! AI rots your Brain

That's very useful feedback, I'll give Gemini a try at some point.

I think we're seeing this tendency in medicine as well. No matter what you have, call in a specialist.

This can be fixed with a two-tier pay system. You want to be smart hands? $3/hour. You the guy all the smart hands call? $30/hour.

I've been using Copilot at work, but honestly, it's been pretty frustrating. I'm a big fan of Gemini instead.

For SQL databases, Gemini is absolutely brilliant – it just takes all the boring work right out of it. With Java, it's really good too, but you do need to be clear about the level of abstraction and the design patterns you want so you don't just get generic, copy-pasted code.

I've noticed huge improvements in its VHDL and SystemVerilog capabilities in recent updates. It's fantastic for generating testbenches, which is super helpful, though I do have to put in extra effort to verify its output. I'm also studying RISC-V processor design in SystemVerilog, and Gemini has been a lifesaver for quickly generating small test programs for the RISC-V instructions I'm implementing

Hehe that's exactly it, "smart hands" is a nice term. My friend's problem customer is currently hooked to WhatsApp video chats to show every issue! 

shabaz Reference the customer example you share... we experience this with field technicians.  A few of them want to just be "smart hands" - meaning that they know what the components are but want someone else to tell them what to do.  We fight this tendency initially with delayed response.  The problem child calls.  We wait 15 minutes before calling them back.  The worst offenders get a 30 minute "time out".  It's amazing because usually they have figured the problem out by the time we call.  If they have done nothing at all during the "time out", they are unmotivated and we start coaching them out of the company.  It takes a while to identify technicians with this tendency because they usually start out calling other technicians.  Once identified, we all work together to try to break that habit.  We've saved a few, but not all of them.

(Typing from mobile so have to be brief) Which tools do you use? I'm using paid CoPilot although I think there are better tools now. 

I don't know how much it retains, but I find it useful even at drafting (based on my comments) the function prototypes or class header files (and guiding it yourself if it's not what is expected, although sometimes it's interesting to see where it goes for a little bit, in case I've missed the woods for the trees), and then it seems to remember the methods and member variables when it comes to the source code, so that it's probably focusing effort on small functions rather than ingesting large volumes of code for generating its output (I'm only guessing though since it's a black box).

More often than not it also learns to output things in the current code style (e.g. my variable naming conventions) but if it sometimes picks something else, I can nip it in the bud right at the header files, then it remembers that for the rest of the code.

A.I. confuses stupidity with laziness. I mischaracterize drivers on the highway much the same way.   

At this moment, I think it is more useful to find the relevant APIs, and get example code of how they are used.
Trying to let it build a working (demo) application, by chatting: no.

My personal experience prototyping with AI aid often feels like my brain is exploding. This is because, while beneficial in some respects, the process proves quite exhaustive, demanding constant redefinition of specifications, multiple corrections, and frequent rephrasing of prompts to prevent hallucinations, sometimes even requiring a complete reset of the interaction history. I've observed this to be mentally more taxing than developing from scratch, carrying a significant risk if the generated code isn't meticulously verified. Future AI iterations ideally need better context retention and more robust error detection to reduce such extensive manual oversight, especially as complex logic still heavily relies on human expertise.

I think that the essence of the cited report is that using ChatGPT does NOT engage brains in a sustainable or fruitful way  and is much worse at this than more traditional ways of learning including web searching.

MK