I totally agree about school-level homework: it was many years before my pre-frontal cortex developed enough that I could have forced myself to do the work.
That said, though, one thing I don't understand about the heavy users of AI in academia and software development is that the thinking and coding is the fun part. And that's the part so many people seem to be so keen to automate away.
I'm right there with you. The thinking and the coding is the fun part. I'm pretty relieved that all of this is happening near the end of my career. To me, AI is just not fun. And constantly signaling how productive I am and having to show "my value" is exhausting. This is only my subjective experience, of course, but in many ways the world seems like the fun is getting sucked out everywhere, not just from AI. Like the type of people that become managers are taking over everything.
Isn't the fun part having the thing work how you wanted it to? Why shouldn't I be keen to automate the process away?
Depends on the person. I find that it's extremely satisfying to figure out a tricky problem on the way to that end result - to struggle with something for a bit, then finally fix it or fully wrap my head around it. So to me, it's a mixture of both. What I want is the end result, but in the past sometimes that came with thinking in the shower about an approach... Or a wild thought while going to bed that makes me jump up and grab my computer.
That doesn't happen for me anymore to the same degree.
I've read enough comments* on HN to know that there are different camps. Some people don't really enjoy the process of development and just want results. Meanwhile, telling me to automate away the problem solving aspect of software dev is like saying "you know you can just copy the answers to the crossword from the back of the book?"
*speaking of things I should be doing less of...
different strokes for different folks. I'm def. in that end result camp, i get the biggest thrill out of seeing something work. For me, coding agents are awesome because i can bring a lot more to life in much shorter of a time frame. I do enjoy the process and problem solving of coding, it relaxes me. On the other hand, i really really enjoy when an idea i have is on the screen and working.
No. The fun part is the process of getting there. The end result doesn't excite me at all.
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