AI coding tools are saving me hours but I genuinely can't tell if I'm getting dumber
Running a bootstrapped SaaS solo while also being home with a kid most of the day means my actual focused coding time is maybe 90 minutes if I'm lucky. So I leaned hard into Cursor and Claude to ship faster. And it's working, kind of.
The thing I keep sitting with: I'm shipping features I would have spent days on. But when something breaks in a weird way, there are moments where I have to really dig to understand what the AI wrote and why. That used to not happen. I'd write it, I'd know it.
There's a version of this that's fine, maybe even good. Nobody handrolls SQL joins and loses sleep over it. But there's another version where I'm slowly losing the ability to debug my own product at a fundamental level, which for a solo founder is a pretty bad place to end up.
The cost/benefit math feels obvious day to day. Zoom out six months and I'm less sure.
Curious whether others running small technical products have hit this wall or if I'm just being paranoid about a tool that's clearly net positive. Also wondering if this is skill atrophy or just a different skill now.
Alt titles: Anyone else feel like AI coding tools are making you faster but less sharp? | Solo technical founders: are you actually understanding what AI writes for you? | Is AIassisted coding a longterm liability for small teams or am I overthinking it?
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