"There's a lot of hype about AI coding tools and the gains developers are seeing when it comes to speed and accuracy. But are developers also offloading some of their thinking to AI when they use them as copilots? Anthropic researchers recently put this to the test, examining how quickly software developers picked up a new skill (learning a new Python library) with and without AI assistance."
"" AI coding assistants are not a shortcut to competence, but a powerful tool that requires a new level of discipline," said Wyatt Mayham of Northwest AI Consulting. AI users scored two letter grades lower on coding concepts In a randomized, controlled trial, a group of 52 "mostly junior" developers were split into two groups: One was encouraged to use AI, one denied its use, performing a short exercise interacting with the relatively new asynchronous Python Trio library that involved new concepts beyond just Python fluency."
AI-assisted developers completed new programming tasks successfully but showed weaker learning of core concepts. A randomized controlled trial with 52 mostly junior Python developers unfamiliar with the asynchronous Trio library split participants into AI-assisted and non-AI groups. The AI-using group scored 17 percentage points lower on a quiz assessing debugging, code reading, and understanding of library principles. Real-world engineers warn that AI coding assistants are not shortcuts to competence and require new discipline. Reliance on AI can deliver short-term productivity gains while impairing the development of essential debugging and design skills.
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