I think I'm slowly coming around on the whole generative #AI stuff. Much like most of the folks in my #fediverse feed, my first reaction was "hype is bad for your brain" and "this is a solution looking for a problem". Both of which remain true. However...

I caught myself mentally defending the "AI is a dumb trend" position just because that was my instinctive reaction, which is as much of a fallacy as the opposite. So, I think before I restore my "criticize AI bros" privileges, I should learn first hand what AI can and can't do.

More than that, I think it is becoming self-evident, that AI tools can be valuable productivity boosters, just not in the ways that marketers would have you believe. In the same way that an LSP plugin lets me spend more cognitive power on the semantics of the code than hunting down missing semicolons, AI-based completion can help me with "boring" parts and let me focus on the high-level design and problem space. It's a smarter paint brush, but the result is still determined by whoever wields it.

Mind you, I am still responsible for making sure that the semicolons are in all the right places, and that the code is good enough for me to put my name next to it.

I realized that I was so burned out by all the FOMO marketing that I almost forgot how to be curious about things. So yeah, picking up this new paint brush and learning first hand what it can and can't do is by far not the worst way to spend my time.