An Anthropic engineer has written about the thinking linked to AI coding
We risk ‘cognitive surrender’ if we don’t keep engaging with AI, he says
However, the developer isn’t arguing against the use of AI coding agents
The idea that our cognitive faculties might degrade through underuse in the age of AI isn’t new, but it’s been well summed up by Anthropic engineer Addy Osmani, who says that we risk losing key skills by letting bots do all our digital work for us. "Nothing in my day-to-day forces critical thinking on me now that so much of my work runs through agents," writes Osmani (via Business Insider ). He adds that "skills that you stop exercising are going to go away, and probably faster than you might guess". As you might expect given his job, the software developer isn’t suggesting that AI agents shouldn’t be used in coding projects — but he is saying that it’s important to protect our critical thinking skills, despite the temptation to simply accept everything AI offers up…