AI Is Writing Your Code—But Are We Throwing Away What Really Matters?

AI tools like Cursor can churn out solid code in seconds.

It’s exciting—you can spin up a demo at lightning speed. But are we losing something crucial along the way?

Coding is only 40% of our job.?The other 60% is about design, architecture, and making the right calls on how everything should work.

That’s where?deep thinking?comes in. Yes, it’s uncomfortable.

It uses a lot of mental energy.

It challenges our biases—like when we rely solely on back-and-forth with an AI assistant:

“Hey AI, write some code!” Runs into an error. “Hey AI, fix that error.” Repeat until all bugs fixed…

Sure, we’ll eventually get a working solution, but we lose out on the real learning.

We don’t stop to ask, “Why did this error happen? Is there a better way?”

This is where the true value of AI can shine—if we keep our human advantage: reasoning about trade-offs, spotting hidden edge cases, and drawing on domain knowledge.

If we only treat AI as a code-generation machine, we miss the deeper craft. We miss out on developing our own skills for the long run.

So yes,?use AI to ship faster, and let it handle boring, repetitive tasks.

But remember,?deep thinking?is what truly sets us apart as engineers.

When we question AI’s suggestions, reflect on architecture, and stay curious about the “why,” we keep the 60% that really matters.

What do you think??Are we at risk of throwing away our most important skill—our ability to truly think—just because AI can write our code? Share your thoughts below.