AI Deskilling: We Warned You.

AI Deskilling: We Warned You.Smart machines, dumb users?Will LockettApr 04, 2026∙ Paid122SharePhoto by Glenn Carstens-Peters on UnsplashWe have all heard of AI brain rot, AI psychosis, and AI slop. If you spend any time online, it’s quite obvious that the combination of social media and AI isn’t exactly healthy for your neurons. What isn’t talked about as often is the mental impact of using AI at work, despite it being potentially more damaging. Thankfully, this issue is now beginning to receive headline coverage. But most publications fall short of explaining why using AI at work can be so harmful and totally neglect to mention that we were warned about all of these issues from the start. Welcome to the world of AI deskilling.Business Insider recently published one of these articles. The piece profiles Josh Anderson, a highly experienced software consultant, who shared his experience developing a new app, Road Trip Ninja. He conducted a little experiment and tried to get AI to write the entire codebase. Initially, things went great, but as the code ballooned past 100,000 lines, and interactions with the chatbot grew from minutes to hours, Anderson became increasingly frustrated when progress slowed to a halt.SubscribeOf course, this was just an experiment; Anderson could have stepped in at any time and coded the app himself, even if sorting out such a huge block of AI-generated code with very few in-code comments is insanely difficult. But Anderson’s experience highlighte...