me_irl

A calculator lets people get useful results without understanding how arithmetic is implemented internally. That doesn’t make calculators bad; it means the required expertise depends on the stakes. I wouldn’t want someone designing a bridge who doesn’t understand engineering. But I also wouldn’t tell someone calculating a grocery discount to learn numerical methods first. That’s how I see AI coding: if I can make a small tool that solves my problem, test it, and verify it works, “you don’t understand the implementation deeply enough” isn’t automatically an argument against the tool. Otherwise you can make the same argument against basically every abstraction in computing.

I see your argument and I think there’s value in the concern. AI absolutely can let people build things they don’t understand, and that can become a problem when the stakes are high.

Where I disagree is treating that as a reason to oppose the abstraction itself. I think you’re focusing entirely on what gets lost when the barrier to entry drops, while ignoring what becomes possible for people who previously couldn’t participate at all.